The difference between the professionalism of Paul's responses to Sophie and Laura also continues to be pronounced and powerful in Week 6 of In Treatment. Paul tells Laura he loves her, and stops a micro-inch short of passionately kissing her. We might have expected Paul not even to admit his feelings for Laura - how can that possibly help her as a patient - but he is too far gone, too much in love with Laura, to not express his feelings, at least, verbally. And, besides, this gives us a chance to see Laura's reaction, which may be instructive: she at first doubts what Paul is telling her, and then lets herself believe it, apparently. For some reason, this made me think that once Laura is sure Paul loves her, and certainly if they sleep together, she'll soon realize that she doesn't really love him at all... A rough sea for Paul to sail.
Meanwhile, Alex, whom Laura quickly moved on from, is making genuine progress with Paul. In his most productive session yet, Alex admits that what he wants from life, and from Paul, are the means to not "feel shitty". This is by far the most truth we've heard from Alex.
We didn't get much truth from Amy this past week. She showed up without Jake, told Paul she's a terrible person and wants his permission to have an affair. As I've said in my previous reviews, I think the Amy and Jake sessions are the weakest, and have the most interest as parallels to Paul and Kate seeing Gina.
I've got to say Michelle Forbes is doing a great job portraying Paul's wife, Kate, whose anguish at Paul's love of Laura is ringing a little hollow: Kate, after all, went off with her lover for a week. Does the fact that that didn't work out, and Kate had no strong feelings for him, give Kate a moral high ground over Paul, who at least has refrained from having sex with Laura, as Gina correctly points out?
I admire Paul - if only because of his excellent work with Sophie - and this makes me think that maybe he'd be better off without Kate and with Laura. But the problem with that is Laura may not be likely to want him once that happens... A dangerous sea indeed.
See also In Treatment on HBO ... 2. Scalding ... 3. Triangle ... 4. Love and Death ... 6. Paul's Greatest Strength ... 7. Alex in the Sky with Diamonds ... 8. A Princely Performance ... In Treatment Concludes: For Now
The Plot to Save Socrates
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
more about The Plot to Save Socrates... good reading if you're in a doctor's office...
Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!
2 comments:
Amy is definitely the worst character of the show. i think it's the actress. it's like everything that comes out of her mouth sounds snobbish. She gets a full episode all to herself, and we get nothing out of her. At least with Jake you get some sort of emotion. Amy is a mindless robot. Just my opinion.
Oh no, Paul is the worst therapist ever! He has no boundaries with his clients, and has made many bad decisions re: Sophie, including not hospitalizing her after her suicide attempy, not reporting abuse by her coach (there are laws on this), and pushing his theories on her that would take any client years to come to terms with. The show clearly wants to portray Paul as human, which he is. But he's also a really bad therapist.
I watch this show for entertainment value only, as the acting is stellar. It concerns me that the general public will think this is really how a therapist behaves.
(And yes...I am a therapist!)
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