Despite opening with an arresting dream sequence featuring Sean and Christian as gay lovers (shame the show caved to network pressure, forcing them to cut an actual kiss), Faith Wolper, Ph.D suffers from being weighed down by two of this season's worst story arcs. The Landau storyline unexpectedly blurs together with Brooke Shields' nutty shrink, a turn of events which briefly gives the Burt subplot some life. Faith herself is exposed as being completely wacko, and I loved her sadomasochistic tattoos. However, the Landau arc doesn't interest.Michelle is fun, but only by proxy of James. Without James lurking around, Michelle is left being weepy and dull. The problem is that it's impossible to get a handle on her when she's written so inconsistently. I can't understand her motivations for anything. At the same time, Burt himself comes across as so sad that Christian and Michelle can't help but come off as terrible people when they're intentionally scheming and screwing behind his back.
The Monica Wilder storyline continued to get more and more ridiculous, before a convenient bus literally sent the crazy flying out of the show. While I'm ordinarily a fan of crazy women on film and television, this subplot was an uninteresting retread of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, right down to the breast-feeding of Conor. Monica's, eh, "abrupt" departure almost implied the writers had finally stopped inhaling whatever they were smoking and came to their senses about the entire thing. Despite that, I liked Escobar Gallardo as Sean's "devil" conscience, even though it's rarely revisited after this brief subplot. That final dinner scene was extremely uncomfortable to watch, and that gorgeous Rolling Stones song playing over it was perfection.
Despite strong work from Brooke Shields and Larry Hagman, this wasn't hugely successful. Great soundtrack this week, though. C
Credits
Guest stars Brooke Shields (Dr. Faith Wolper); Peter Dinklage (Marlowe Sawyer); Sanaa Lathan (Michelle Landau); Jennifer Hall (Monica Wilder); Robert LaSardo (Escobar Gallardo); Larry Hagman (Burt Landau)
Writer Sean Jablonski Director Sean Jablonski
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