In Treatment 3x01

Off the bat, things are going to be different this season on In Treatment. For one, Dianne Wiest won’t be returning as Paul’s therapist Gina – which is a shame, because their sessions were frequently the highpoint of the week. Additionally, this season is not based on the Israeli original BeTipol, so this will be a test case to see if Rodrigo García and his team can pull off another successful season on their own. From this first episode alone, I would say there’s no reason to worry. Paul Weston’s new patient, Sunil, is a highly intelligent and poetic, compassionate and funny, though somewhat cynical, Bengali who arrived only recently in New York. His son and daughter-in-law are worried that he is not coping well with the loss of his wife of thirty years. Daughter-in-law Julia is a gorgeous woman, a literary agent, afraid for his well-being, afraid of his effect on her children, afraid of him – but in his words, Julia is really afraid of herself, of the emptiness inside her. Sunil is a proud man, with a full life behind him, who finds her frivolous and superficial – a bad influence on his son. His son Arun is an optometrician, yet he prescribed his father medication to deal with his grief. When Paul asks Sunil if the medication has any effect on him, he replies that he is “one hundred percent absolutely scientifically positive” they have no effect, because he is actually planting them – in the lily that Julia put in his room. I didn’t know how much I missed the show until I saw the season premiere. What an incredible performance of all involved. I am already intrigued by these new characters. As a side note, the Cricket won’t be posting back-to-back chirps as the episodes air on HBO. Instead you may expect them once a week.