The patients are new, the setting is new, but the doctor is still in

April 04, 2009|Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff

Sitting on the couch, all the clients on HBO's "In Treatment" claim they really don't want to be in therapy. They put up a stone wall to keep Dr. Paul Weston out, acting like children being forced to eat their broccoli. But still they show up for the fight each week, and gradually, reticently, brilliantly, they reveal their stories to Paul, and to us. Their truths unfold.

"In Treatment," based on the Israeli series "B'Tipul," returns to HBO this Sunday night at 9 with all the extraordinary emotional wisdom that made the first season so compelling. Each of Paul's new therapy clients, including John Mahoney as a panicky Wall Streeter and Hope Davis as a lonely lawyer, is holding a fascinating and closely guarded back story in his or her clenched fist. And each week, like a Sherlock Holmes of the psyche, Paul picks through their inadvertent clues and red herrings for insight and answers.

"In Treatment" has an expanded locale this season, with Paul (Gabriel Byrne) having left Maryland to practice out of a Brooklyn apartment. Paul is bitterly divorced from Kate - we saw their marriage crumble last season - and, as we learn in Sunday's opening scene, he is facing a malpractice suit regarding last season's death of Blair Underwood's Navy pilot, Alex. Once a week, on Fridays, he takes the train to Maryland for his own therapy sessions with Gina (Dianne Wiest) and to visit his children. Still, despite the East Coast ramblings, the better part of every episode - in groups of two on Sunday nights and three on Monday nights - takes place in the neutral sphere of a therapist's office.

Because the first season of "In Treatment" was so consistently good, I was prepared to be disappointed this time around. And I prepared in vain. The writers continue to make each episode into a lovely half-hour piece of music, proceeding with a sequence of different tempos and movements as the characters lead us further into their pain. The characters start a theme, drop it, then pick it up again more passionately, with conspicuous silences in between. Meanwhile, Paul provides the resounding bass notes, with his probing questions and observations. This season as much as last, "In Treatment" brings us into more intimacy with its characters than almost any other series on TV.