In Treatment: Alex – Week Eight
By fred | March 19, 2008
(S01E37) Well, this week is definitely not looking like any other before. It’s funny how at first you could have thought this show would be very much the same in not day after day at least week after week, and yet it has often found way to make each and every week stand out from the last. This week is obviously marked with a tragic event, and it seems that Alex will never have been as present in one week as he is now that he’s gone.
This was another quite different episode, and for the second time in a row we had a new episode of In Treatment that did not involve an actual session. Not really.
This week Alex’s father came by to talk to Paul. The two of them met at the funeral, and by then Paul didn’t really made it clear who he really was. He didn’t introduced himself as Alex’s therapist, but as a friend. Of course, Paul wasn’t lying or trying to hide anything, he does consider himself as such. But that’s not really the way Alex’s father sees things.
There’s one thing this show is really good at, is write really good characters and cast actors to portray them brilliantly, and this was another perfect example of it. Looking at Alex’s father, the way he went through a lot of emotions, from being the angry abusive rock Alex described during his sessions, to opening up to Paul and showing that he was also a loving father who only wanted a better life for his son. He was also good as having some traits we could recognized from Alex, like the little laughs, the attacks on Paul to keep control, or even the mention of the money.
This “session” was pretty emotionally charged quite obviously, and because it wasn’t actually a session, but a discussion between two men, it prevented Paul from hiding behind his usual therapist moves. He tried, of course, and just like his son, Alex’s father pointed out that Paul was refusing questions, and only replying with other questions. But this is no therapy, and for almost the first time Paul actually often corrected himself and answered.
As we suspected, Alex might have decided to kill himself. It could have been an accident, but knowing Alex and how good a pilot he was, and since this was only a training flight, and after having heard him declare that he believed his on son would be better without him around, it’s hard to really think this might actually be a accident. Although, of course, as his father said, that’s one question we’ll never really know the answer.
It was very well done how Alex’s father explained his behavior and the way he raised his son : during his entire life, and especially as a kid, he had to deal with racism. It as a different time, and things were a lot harder for him. And all he really wanted was to know his son would be safe, to know his son could survive, and for that he had to be able to fight back. He wasn’t just a cold monster.
Although I’m not sure why he brought up such racial issues when he asked Paul how he would react if he knew his son was taking from a stranger advices he knew were wrong and could eventually hurt his son. Different cultures or whatever you want to call it had nothing to do here, not really. But of course Paul would try to interfere, any parent would try to help their son and prevent them from being hurt.
Of course, what was lying behind this was also how Alex’s father was blaming Paul for his son’s death. He clearly stated how he felt that it was because he had him to “look inside”, to open himself to his feelings, that it pushed Alex towards the idea of suicide. And I’m not sure Paul was not asking himself those same questions and dealing with guilt himself as well: could he have known, could he have done anything to help prevent it. Often Alex came to Paul, talk with him, and announced that Paul really helped him made a decision.
Whether he had actually made up his mind before even walking in or not, as Paul suspected, we’ll never know. Maybe Paul influenced Alex on his decision, and maybe he did too, in his decision to end his life. When Paul repeatedly said that Alex as a grown man who made his own decisions, he was probably trying to convince himself as well.
But by the end, Alex’s father let the armor fall and exposed his own fear of guilt : did he kill his son ? Was he responsible for pushing Alex too hard, making him ignore his own desires, and eventually not want to live anymore ? But as he said, we’ll never really know, will we ?
This was a great episode, and it makes you wish even more than the Friday’s sessions were still Paul and Gina, not Paul and his wife, and Gina. Because it could have been interesting to really put an end to this story on Friday, with Paul discussing the whole thing one last time, exposing his feelings about the whole thing…
Posted in Reviews
Shows: In Treatment
