In Treatment: Laura – Week Two
By fred | February 5, 2008
(S01E06) For a second week now Paul is back with all its patient, one a day, as usual. And so just like last week, we open on Monday with Laura. I watched this one again, just to see how it would go, but I have to admit that Laura’s episode was probably one of the weakest of last week. The only episode I liked less would be the Friday session which was the most disappointing of all.
But Laura isn’t that much better : she’s the girl in love with her therapist. Although as hinted last Friday, there might be more to it…
Maybe, it is true that Paul isn’t completely unaffected by her, maybe he too could see himself in a fantasy where he would forget about his wife and start something more with Laura. On Friday Gina, Paul’s therapist, kept on using a wrong name and Paul corrected her each time : her name is Laura. Maybe she really didn’t pay attention that much, maybe she was testing him. I think she may have been trying to find out how much he cared for her…
Because he does. When, this week, Laura told she sad “yes”, she was engaged, Paul wasn’t as surprised as he was disappointed. He wanted to see a Laura still all in love with him, who couldn’t work it out, not a Laura moving on. Obviously the marriage is a mistake, but despite his claims I think Paul is attracted to Laura, though he refuses to either admit it (to himself) or forbids himself to go there.
Just like he knew that she said “yes” because of him, because he rejected her, because he told her “no” last week. He knew that, and maybe he wanted Laura to admit it, but I’m pretty sure she never hide this from herself, but maybe he actually wanted to hear her say it.
Either way, that “no” at the end was not only to convinced Laura that nothing could happened between the two of them, it was to convinced himself as well.
Now I’m not saying this actually got interesting, don’t read too much into it, I’m not sure I like where this is going, but I wouldn’t like it any other way either because I don’t really like the basis of that plot. That said, I liked that Paul was involved this time, I mean unlike last week he did speak!, and that Laura was taking control over the session too.
She was choosing the topics to discuss, she was allowing Paul to go one way or the other, she even refused him to go places at times. Although it did felt weird, especially at first, when it sounded more like a discussion between friends than between a patient and her therapist, but Paul always tried to “fix” this.
Obviously, this will be the one story that affects Paul directly and relates into his private life, whether he’s willing to admit it or not. Which may be why we saw his wife and had a glimpse of how things are going between the two of them. Quite frankly, I’m not a fan of that, but I guess they wanted to make Paul a character with his own problems as well, and that’s why Laura is here.
I’m not a fan of this whole plot, but it got better than last week and, yes, I think I’ll be back next time to find out how it goes.
Posted in Reviews
Shows: In Treatment
