IN TREATMENT: Season 2, Week 5

By Norm Schrager at May 3, 2009 | 9:15 pm | Print

If you’ve read our Week 4 comment string, you already know I’m recapping Week 5 sans preview screeners, in real-time as HBO airs ‘em. If you’re reading this after Monday, all five episodes are below. Here are the all-important plot recaps:

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 6

:: MIA
Without dialogue, the intro conveys what Paul’s had to endure the past couple weeks. Elegant stuff, told with some rarely used dissolves. (I hadn’t really thought about how In Treatment is all hard cuts.)

Mia drops a baby bombshell… followed by roughly a thousand questions and a series of confused comments. Her alternating between neediness and pushiness deals Paul some tension, but he seems to hold tight. (As a viewer, I think she’s annoying as hell, credit to Davis.)

Eventually, Mia admits wanting Paul to be part of her life in some way. But her widely vacillating moods make it sound as if she’ll change her mind about things hourly.

:: APRIL
The time that’s passed in between Mia episodes seems to be the same for the April episodes… as evidenced by April’s appearance. (It’s two weeks, by the way.)

April’s now well into her chemotherapy treatments, yet her demeanor is warm, contemplative; she’s not the angry, crazed girl of the first four episodes. And April addresses it.

This episode is Alison Pill’s finest of the five. She’s held back her natural smile for a month, and when she flashes it in this episode, it practially rewrites her persona. As an actress, Pill seems to be working more naturally and her instinctual charm and toughness is a pleasure. And when the real emotional stuff kicks in… well, let’s just say it’s enormously easier to love April than Mia.

:: OLIVER
Stand by for the minor shock at the beginning of this week’s Oliver episode: We open with a patient named Eli ranting about his premature ejaculation issue, giving us just a glimpse of the kind of crap Paul subjects himself to as a therapist. The key is that during Eli’s session, Oliver (Aaron Shaw) is already in the waiting room, some 90 minutes early. The sad truth is he feels he has nowhere else to go.

Poor Oliver’s world seems to be getting a lot worse. He’s gone from starving himself to overeating — Paul tells Luke (Russell Hornsby) it’s awfully common for children suffering like Oliver — and he’s dealing with an immense level of bullying at school.

And while Bess commanded half the episode last week, Luke gets solo time this week, leading to a classic psych revelation. Without providing a spoiler, let’s just say he has enormous father issues, ones that possibly dwarf even Paul’s.

:: WALTER
This week’s Walter session isn’t at Paul’s office. It’s in Walter’s swanky hospital room, courtesy a suicide attempt by the troubled ex-CEO. By way of a continually strong performance by John Mahoney, Walter expresses his plan and desire to avoid being a family burden. It’s difficult to determine whether Walter’s pains are a result of his professional failings, his familial guilt, or a combination of both.

After Paul explains that he’s obligated to tell the hospital he still sees Walter as a risk, Paul meets up with Walter’s daughter… who has a secret about Walter’s wife, a secret she assumed Paul would have already known.

:: PAUL
This one is a rollercoaster of emotions for our favorite shrink. First, an unexpected meeting with his ex-wife (well, unexpected to us, in terms of the course of their discussion). Then, a semi-typical session with Gina, as she attempts to dig deeper regarding Paul’s father’s death. Finally, a face-to-face with Alex’s father — the superb Glynn Turman, seething with reserved anger — and a surprise result. Paul’s head’s gonna explode, and Gabriel Byrne makes us believe it.

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