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In Treatment: Alex – Week Six

By fred | March 5, 2008

(S01E27) So last week something pretty weird and unexpected happened. Before watching the episode, I told how I was loosing interest in the Alex’s plot and his sessions. Then I watched the episode, and the situation was completely reversed ! I loved the episode and thought it was (one of) the best ones, because Alex showed his hand and started to appear as some kind of a stalker towards Paul and his family.

Pushed a little, Paul should have been able to control himself, he’s a therapist after all, but instead he picked up his coffee and throw it in Alex’s face, engaging into a fight even. And by the end of the episode I was finding myself willing to know what would happen next. And here we are.

Here we are and much like Friday’s session, forced to admit that it was a disappointment. First, Paul is still a huge jerk to his wife, still pretending not to understand what’s going on, denying it and blaming her for everything. Really, why does she even wants to try to save the marriage, does she like to feel miserable ?

Anyways, so Alex just showed up, and Paul was glad he did. And then, they went on to a usual session pretty much. It was like nothing happened last week. Is it me, or was that a bit odd ? I mean there were this close to fight each other, there was coffee thrown into face and people pushing others against the wall, it wasn’t nothing, it is not something you can just pretend did not happen.

And to be fair, the same can be said about what Alex did, the way he spied on Paul and his family, the way he pushed him, the way he “attacked” him about the way he treated his father, it was a real intrusion into Paul’s personal life, one that should never have happened, and one I think they just can’t pretend it didn’t happen either.

Yet they did. Oh yeah, at some point Alex demanded that Paul apologized, and he did. Which is normal, as Alex said he should be able to say anything he wants here without worrying whether or not Paul will like it or be offended. But Alex should have never mentioned Paul’s family, that’s out of line. Even more out of line was him investigating on Paul’s family. So after apologizing to Alex, which he had to do, Paul should have asked Alex for an apology as well, yet he did not.

And in fact, I didn’t even feel like Alex took responsibility for what he did. He did not recognize that what he did was wrong, did he ? He only acknowledged that yes, his behavior may have scared Paul, and drove him to violence, but that was mainly if not only because of Paul’s hatred towards him. And they moved on and have only forgotten about the whole incident. Alex didn’t even noticed Paul mentioning “the one he loves” referring to Laura.

This was quite surprising to me that, basically, nothing happened after last week’s incident.

After that, Paul went to his quiet mode, and somehow Alex was ready to enter therapy now. He was, but quite frankly he does not need Paul, because he’s making the questions, the answers, and even the interpretations of both. He’s talking, alone, and Paul barely says a word. As I was watching I thought that Alex should actually stay at his place and do his talking on his own, he would save a lot of money, and come to same results.

Speaking of money, funny to mention that this was also the very first time Alex did not pay Paul (not counting last week, of course, since we still remember it to be a pretty special session).

In the end, much like last week I find myself in the opposite situation as I was before actually watching the episode. Back to where I was before the “incident” that everyone forgot already, and I’m not sure I care that much about Alex and where this is all going…

Posted in Reviews
Shows: In Treatment