In Treatment: Week Three (1.11 - 1.15)

The Sophie and Jake & Amy episodes are quickly becoming my favorites on the show, and I think that it may have something to do with Laura. The other three sessions are so incestuous now with their constant discussions of Paul, Laura and now Alex that it's becoming almost suppressive. So when we get that welcome breather with two self-contained sessions, the show for me improves a little.

Laura - Monday 9:00am
It was made pretty clear that Laura doesn't want to get married to Andrew. It's bad enough that she seems entirely ambivalent to the entire thing and has yet to tell her father, but her love for Paul continues to make her behavior toward her fiancée pretty out of line. It was also interesting to see the debate over her lateness. Despite her claiming that the dog held her up, she was still running late in the first place. However, it's more than likely that Paul is jumping on something in an effort to push her away and out of his life. But we all know that's gonna be tricky to do. Now the ending of the episode, while ridiculously contrived, was pretty darn intriguing, and I'm excited to see where it'll go.

Alex - Tuesday 10:00am
So Laura's bleeding through into Alex's session, and her manipulation shined through when she called Alex's cell phone. Laura's fully aware that he's in therapy, and it's obvious that she's trying to be a "presence" in their session, hopefully creating inner conflict with Paul. She just gets worse and worse. As always with Alex's sessions, he's desperate for control, like in the coffee machine gift. He wants to hold something over Paul, a type of one-up-manship that's an indication of his crazy machismo. I wouldn't be surprised if he's secretly gay or something. He's constantly over-compensating for something.

Sophie - Wednesday 4:00pm
Once again, Sophie's episode was heartbreaking. She's so young, and being manipulated by an adult man. She's in the middle of marital separations and arguments, and she naively assumes she's the cause of it all, because none of her so-called parental figures are aware enough to actually tell her it's not. Also interesting was her gift. Paul is smart enough to realize the difference between an attempt at superiority (see Alex), and a genuine gift (see Sophie). I like their relationship, he's slowly becoming a father figure she can actually trust. Hopefully his phone call to her mother won't necessarily disrupt that.

Jake and Amy - Thursday 5:00pm
For the third week in a row, Jake and Amy's session has been fragmented in some way. First week, Amy was late. Second week, she miscarried mid-way through. This week, Jake is late. A metaphor for their marriage? My interest in these two went up a lot here, especially with Amy's weirdness when alone with Paul. She was clearly flirting with him, and once again it's obvious that she enjoys attention from men and enjoys playing games with them. She's still an awful person though. She should go away and live that independent, flirtatious life that she clearly wants to lead. Dragging down her passive aggressive hubbie at the same time is doing nobody any favors. They so need to end it.

Gina - Friday 7:00pm
The most interesting subject raised in this episode was Paul and Kate's marriage. It wasn't until Gina mentioned it that it suddenly became obvious to me that Paul doesn't seem to be fighting for his marriage at all. He may be expressing anger and hatred towards Kate, but he doesn't actually appear to be that affected by it. Like Gina said, is it because he was looking for an excuse or an opportunity to sleep with Laura? Also pretty intriguing was Gina's declaration that Paul is trying to transfer his patients on to her, subconsciously at least. He's clearly reaching some kind of breaking point via his personal life and his interactions with his patients. B-

Credits
Laura Teleplay Amy Lippman Director Rodrigo Garcia
Alex Teleplay Bryan Goluboff Director Rodrigo Garcia
Sophie Teleplay Sarah Treem Director Rodrigo Garcia
Jake and Amy Teleplay William Merritt Johnson Director Rodrigo Garcia
Gina Teleplay Davey Holmes Director Rodrigo Garcia