In Treatment: Season 3

Description

Product Description Set within the highly charged confines of individual psychotherapy sessions, In Treatment: The Complete Third Season continues to center around Dr. Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) who continues to cope with the after-effects of his recent divorce, as well as his move to Brooklyn to continue his practice. In the midst of new emotional and physical challenges (including hand tremors he fears might be the onset of Parkinson’s Disease, which killed his father), Paul will be treating three new patients (Debra Winger, Irrfan Khan, and Dane DeHaan), and will see a new therapist (Amy Ryan) in New York City. desertcart.com Rumors of In Treatment's death have been greatly exaggerated. The half-hour HBO drama that was originally adapted from an Israeli TV show has continued to flourish among devoted fans in spite of wide-ranging critical opinion about its integrity and entertainment value. Nevertheless, season three is an absorbing continuation of the life and practice of psychotherapist Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne), and the tortured processes he undertakes with patients and with himself. Continuing the format of episodes that focus on individual patients--only three this time--then concluding each week with his own therapy session, season three is the first based on original scripts rather than adaptations of episodes from the hit Israeli series Be' Tipul. The new show runners, Anya Epstein and Dan Futterman, follow the previous design in assigning the same writer to script for each patient. The only other major thematic difference is the absence of Dianne Wiest, whose Emmy-winning performance as Paul's mentor, supervisor, and therapist was the highlight of seasons one and two. Fortunately her replacement, Amy Ryan, is as capable an actor and strong a foil to give Paul's panoply of problems a whole new arena for discussion (TV vets Epstein and Futterman were responsible for writing the Amy Ryan "Adele" scripts). Anyone who has experienced the psychotherapeutic process cannot help but be instantly drawn in to the show's eloquent design of talk-and-listen, as secrets are told or held back, fears and desires explored or repressed. Even those who are perfectly adjusted and scoff at the value of psychological treatment should be fascinated by the twists and turns that mostly seem entirely naturalistic, and better yet, unexpected. The 50-minute hour that is shortened to 20-something for dramatic purposes may sometimes play against the realistic portrayal of the professional dynamic, but after all, this isn't reality. Even so, the episodes crackle in their basic form as one-act plays that thrive on nothing but two people trading razor-sharp dialogue about who they are and what they're thinking. Paul is still listening, and he's entirely engaged. The flow of each session reflects the depth of his perception as he leads himself and his patient back to points, gestures, and remarks that may have been made in passing, yet which represent the basic spectacle of the therapeutic process and the essential role the therapist has in that relationship. We understand that what goes on in his office affects him as much as his patients. That's where Amy Ryan comes in as the young, brilliant psychiatrist who Paul sees at the end of each week to bare his own tortured soul. He's still terribly depressed. His ex-wife is remarrying, he's plagued with guilt over his 12-year-old son, and he has terrorized himself into believing that he's becoming his father, even to the point of being convinced that he'll die of the same disease (Parkinson's). At first Ryan comes off as the perfect psychiatric ice queen. But as their connection deepens with knowledge, insight, transference, counter-transference, and enthralling exchanges of actorly acrobatics (their butts never leave their seats!), she becomes perhaps the show's most compelling character. She's in great company with Debra Winger as a patient who plays an aging actress (though decidedly not typecast) who finds work elusive and is facing some ordinary family struggles as well. Not only does she look terrific, Winger brings the best game she has to her sparring-match scenes with Byrne. As an anguished gay teen, Dane DeHaan is the weakest character. He's saddled with annoying sexual and adolescent stereotypes that seem to be thrown into the show's mix just for a proper portrayal of patient demographics. Best of all is the Indian actor Irrfan Khan (known primarily in the United States for The Namesake and Slumdog Millionaire) as a maladjusted immigrant whose inscrutable nature fascinates Paul. As the most glaring example of how Paul's relationships with his patients sometimes slip into the inappropriate, the two become friends of sorts, even into the ultimate and unforeseen conclusion of this sensational seasonal thread. In all, In Treatment continues to be an engrossing dramatization of psychotherapy, made human by excellent writing and gripping characterizations. --Ted Fry Review: Better Than Season Two! - This is an excellent series by and large. Personally, I felt that the third season was better than the second, which lagged a bit without the dramatic tension of the Paul/Laura affair that cohered the first season. The writing in season two devolved into clichéd psychobabble towards the end and I found myself losing interest. So I almost didn't watch the third season, but I'm certainly glad that I changed my mind. Irrfan Khan, as Sunil, gave one of the best performances in any medium that I have seen in quite some time, really the stellar performance of the entire series and that's no small complement considering the performances that were given by his colleagues. Speaking of Sunil, his storyline as well as Paul's, are particularly interesting in the context of an interview given by the show's original creator, Hagai Levi. I will attempt to include a link, but if I am unsuccessful, it's easy to google or find on Vimeo under "Hagai Levi: How I Learned To Stop Loving and Start Worrying About Psychotherapy." [...]. Levi, who was in therapy himself for many years, expresses some serious concerns about the ultimate value of psychotherapy and about the narcissistic nature of what it has become in the 21st century. Levi feels that therapy is quite limited in its ability to heal as it reduces existential dilemmas into pathologies to be cured. It's practitioners, he claims, "are really pretty limited people...lacking even a shred of those qualities that would make one a spiritual guide or role model". Another part of his talk concerns the various forms and formats that the series has taken internationally. In Treatment, or BeTipul as it is known in Hebrew, originally broadcast in Israel with Levi at the helm. It has been reproduced with different casts and writers in 13 other countries including Romania, Argentina and Russia as well as in the U.S. According to Levi, the Russian In Treatment would have cast Paul's character as a woman because Russians do not consider psychotherapy to be an occupation that is suitable for a man. In addition, all of the patients in the Russian version would have either been relatives of or known personally by the therapist. According to the Russian producer, this is because Russians would never discuss personal problems with a stranger. Levi claims that as some countries, particularly those in Eastern Europe, have learned more about the West since the fall of Communism, they have begun to yearn for and emulate some aspects of Western culture including psychotherapy. Levi questions whether psychotherapy and the narcissism that it reflects and to some extent, to which it contributes, is a part of our culture that will ultimately be beneficial to them. Certainly an interesting perspective from the creator of In Treatment. Review: An outstanding series - In Treatment: The Complete Third Season A friend of mine was impressed with this series 3 years ago when the first season was shown in HBO,based on her opinion I bought the first season and I love the acting and the complexity of the different characters, after that I bought the second having the same effect and recently I bought the last one. I found this season outstanding, the acting was impeccable to be able to maintain the interest in the different cases with their problems and personalities, these sessions between the therapist and his patients in his office with little action, only the dialogue and acting. The cases were very interesting, dramatic and ultimately human. All of the cases involved a patient conflicts with their family, one of the cases is that a retired Indian professor who doesn't adapt to his life in American culture and wants to return to India, and an actress who has an ill sister and isn't able to communicate with her daughter and a teenage boy, adopted and gay who has problems with his adopted parents, knows the identity of his biological parents and doesn't know how to handle his relationships with his adopted parents nor other people. On the other hand Paul has his own problems, thinks he started to have symptoms to Parkinson diseases which he has inherited from his father, difficulties in maintaining relationships with his son and daughter .These difficulties which he grouchily admits to lead him to seek help from another therapist. In spite of all his problems he tries to help his patients to live with their own. The acting is outstanding as well as the direction. At the end of the series you realize that we all have a story.