In Treatment: Jesse and Adele, Week 2

 

It has always been a terrible idea for Paul to see his patients in his home. This has been a running theme throughout the series. In Season 1 it was symbolic of the pending doom of Paul's marriage thanks to his failed attempts to properly compartmentalize his life. In Season 2 it was indicative of Paul's loneliness, how he lacked any significant relationships outside of work so he substituted the necessary intimacy of his work with patients for any actual intimacy in his life. In Season 3, Paul's life is actually rather replete with social connections, but his home no longer feels safe. Season 2 had a lot of visually dark scenes, Mia meeting Paul in the very early morning and Walter showing up in the evening. This gave Paul's office a calm, insulated feel. Now the 100% sunny scenes and the presence of considerably more fidgity patients has turned the office/home into a place of tension. That Paul can't escape this feeling after work is already starting to wear on him.

Jesse

It's becoming apparent that Jesse's life is nothing but a series of crises. When he's not getting in trouble for selling his medication or having sex with men twice his age, he's self-sabotaging in the wake of his increasingly convoluted parental issues. This week Jesse is especially combative with Paul, slinging insults and threatening to toss Max's bronzed baby shoes out the window. He still hasn't done anything about Karen, his supposed birth mother. The tension of that is only making him lash out even more than usual. Much of his session revolves around an application for an expensive summer arts program he knows his family's modest means can't support. The fallout from that situation yields both some important information about how Jesse perceives his adopted mother and the fantasies of escape he has concerning Karen.

And this is where Jesse connects to the two other patients of the season. They all have anxiety about whether or not they have a purpose in the world. Sunil doesn't know what to do with himself without his wife, Frances feels like she's failing as both an actress and a mother, and Jesse can't find his place in the world because he's disappointed about his origins. All that's certain at this point is that Jesse's mama-drama is a powder keg and therapy is a burning torch.

 

Adele

As Gina pointed out in Season 2, Paul has an ironic inability to be as insightful with himself as he is with his patients. It doesn't take a professional analyst to see Paul's issues and how he could go about addressing them. He's resentful of his father for failing his ailing mother and for getting too sick to be a parent. He looks to Gina to be an approving mother rather than an honest colleague. He'd rather belittle those who try to help him than actually listen to sound advice. So, when Adele hints to Paul that the likelihood of his actually having Parkinson's Disease is rather low and that he's using his unresolved issues with his father as an excuse for his own unwillingness to take responsibility for his life, he just makes more digs at her age and inexperience. It's almost a joke at this point. Paul isn't a complex man, he's just a bundle of issues exacerbated by the extensive toolkit of diagnoses his profession affords him. In seasons 1 and 2 I genuinely wanted Paul to make some breakthroughs because they related to the well-being of his family and the last chance he had to reconcile with his father. This season, I just want him to get over himself.

 

Best Moments: Jesse with the bronzed shoes. He's still such an unpredictable character that it wasn't certain whether or not he'd cross that line. Also, hearing Paul's dream. On a show about psychoanalysis, dreams are the creamy center.

Notes: People sure are moving around a lot more this season. It's more dramatic and it's starting to lose the jarring punch it used to have.

Episode Ratings: 4.5/5, 4/5- Jesse's session was all about putting certain background pieces in place, not so much about any real progress. It was one, long drama bomb. Adele's session was just a bit frustrating because it worked so hard to make Paul into an asshole, which I think shortchanges the character.