In Treatment: Week Seven (2.31 - 2.35)

In its final week, In Treatment once again promotes how different it is to everything else on television. Like last season, anxiety and introspection has been slowly building session by session, presumably about to spill over in this final week. But here is where, traditionally, the show's dedication to naturalism clashes with the narrative's desperation for closure. As a result, you can look at this week of episodes as slightly underwhelming. If you're looking for resolutions and a true ending to the stories of Paul and his various patients, then it's probably not the greatest collection of episodes. But in exposing those small victories, the ones that suddenly grant you the ability to move on to that next phase of life, it's unsurprisingly a home run.

In Treatment: Week Six (2.26 - 2.30)

It's interesting to see how your reaction to In Treatment can frequently differ from your reaction to other shows, primarily when it comes to character motivation. Almost every patient this show has ever explored has issues rooted in how they were brought up, their parents' neuroses generally invading their own psyches and turning them into these troubled, vulnerable adults. It's a theme repeated constantly. On any other show, the use of the same plot device could frustrate after a while, the writers traveling to the same emotional hub over and over again. But there's a specialness about In Treatment that allows you to forgive that. Because isn't it based so much on truth? I would assume in most cases that the way we were raised had a significant effect on our adult lives and how we conduct ourselves, more so than our environments or our experiences outside of the home. It's such a cliche in itself, but also so horribly real.

In Treatment: Week Five (2.21 - 2.25)

There was a simplicity to last week's episodes, events aligning just right in order to allow Paul's patients to open up, or alternatively to allow Paul in. It was a real breakthrough week, but Paul himself had to step over the line more than once to get there, becoming so intimate and personal with his patients that there were few boundaries left anymore. This week was all about the emotional fallout, characters reacting mostly negatively to his sudden need to retreat. Couple that with a weeks' worth of canceled sessions due to his father's death, and bitterness naturally hung over the encounters.

In Treatment: Week Four (2.16 - 2.20)

I feel like I'm reiterating it every week, but season two is about letting people in, to an extent that is potentially damaging. There was at least one instance every episode this week in which a patient took that additional step into Paul's consciousness. This occurred literally, with Mia invading his kitchen and Oliver asking about doorways and Paul's own son, as well as in a less physical movement -- Paul so desperate to help that he's almost clinging onto April and Walter as they walk out the door, intent on keeping them intact and becoming so emotionally involved in their stories that they seem to be the most important people in his life. This was the strongest week so far, breakthroughs occurring in every single session.

In Treatment: Week Three (2.11 - 2.15)

And the intimacy continues. Whether its Oliver's turtle or April's project, or Mia's general presence, Paul is still allowing his patients to linger long after they've left his practice. It was a theme that ran through most of this week's episodes, that constant blurring between appropriate conduct and personal friendship. Like last season, it's never just a patient who anchors their own episode. Every action somehow bounces back at Paul, and I don't know if it's a personal weakness of his that he winds up so rattled by every movement they make. More than ever, this season seems to be about Paul's faults as a therapist as well as a man, and the unearthing of where that comes from.

In Treatment: Week Two (2.6 - 2.10)

Week Two lacked the immediacy of last week's premiere episodes, but you can already see certain ideas and themes that are being generated through each session. There's a harsher, meaner vibe to the stories this year, and it's arguably far more incestuous than the already frantic bending of confidentiality last season, with Paul intimately involved with the far majority of his patients. Whether its Mia and their history, his connection with April or the turtle hanging around in his office, he's allowing himself to be far more attached to these people than is probably good.

In Treatment: Week One (2.1 - 2.5)

I'm assuming luring in new viewers wasn't one of HBO's major priorities while opening up the second season of In Treatment, one of the most absorbing and frustratingly subtle series around. While it's fine getting thrown into several of the series' new patients, the opening week spends a lot of time exploring the aftermath of season one. Notably, this involves Alex's bitter father, who has launched a malpractice suit against Paul. It's an interesting angle to start up the year, and lends the series an unexpected feeling of a dark cloud hanging over everything.