In Treatment

Ooooh! HBO's In Treatment is so good. I know I am writing about this about a month or two after all the magazines told you it was the show to watch on HBO. But whatever. I have On Demand. And I'm too busy to watch things before they become cool.

Anyway, this show, which is a real time conversation between therapist and those in treatment, stars, among others, a wicked old Gabriel Byrne, an amazingly hot Blair Underwood, and an a very squinty and poorly dressed Dianne Wiest.

The whole concept is pretty cool, especially for someone like me who's never been to a therapist but likes to pretend she's one every now and again.

Gabriel Byrne is a very sad and messed up therapist. He's in a loveless marriage, he's exhausted, and he's lost his passion for his work. For some reason I could watch him play this character endlessly. He's by far the most interesting character on the show because you get to see him be both self-absorbed and completely absorbed by the others.

Laura is his first patient of the week and is a total sex addict and commitment-phobe. She makes me angry because she's the show's only single, professional woman, and she has to be so totally messed up. The deviant version of Sex and the City. She shows why it's clearly NOT ok to always be on the prowl like Samantha -- because it makes you kind of a sociopath.

Alex, played by Blair Underwood, is fine to look at, but he annoys me more than any of the characters. I think it's because he most closely resembles the man I date over and over and over again. Well, he's totally narcissistic, slightly OCD, and so detached from his emotions it's laughable. And he's a veteran. So, yeah, at least a good half of my ex-boyfriends.

Then there's the teenage gymnast who makes you never want to have children, and the married couple who makes you never want to get married.

And finally, squinty Dianne Wiest, who seriously puts Gabriel Byrne in his place at the end of every week (she's *his* therapist). She's an inspiration the way she whips this guy's mental ass. I have been contemplating a Master's degree in psychology just so I can tell a guy he's being a jabrone and get paid for it. OK, I know that's not really a selfless motivation, but whatever.

This show is so awesome. TV time is such a luxury, and I have already had to carve out too much time from my busy schedule to watch this show, but I absolutely love watching how these different personalities react to Gabriel's probing questions. It's so amazing to me how what's so clear to everyone on the outside is often so hard to handle when you're confronted with it from someone else's perspective.

Emotional baggage and damage is a consistent theme in my writing, so I am glad there's a whole show to trumpet the cause. Go watch it. It will either fascinate you, or put you to sleep. And we all need more sleep, so either way it's a win.