In treatment is one of the most beloved series of HBO’s heyday, even if it never had great ratings. From 2008 to 2010, for three seasons, Gabriel Byrne played the role of psychotherapist Paul Weston. The series is based on the Israeli format BeTipul, which has been adapted in many countries around the world, including Italy.
The fourth season (on Sky from July 27), produced by HBO ten years after the previous one, is essentially a further adaptation: it is set in Los Angeles, there is the pandemic, there is a different attention to the themes of race, gender, privilege, social disparity, and there’s a new protagonist, Dr. Brooke Taylor, played by Uzo Aduba (Orange is the new black, Mrs. America: the naturalness with which Aduba falls into such different characters is incredible).
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The underlying structure remains the same: four episodes a week, three dedicated to a different patient and one to the therapist. Dr. Taylor has a very different style from that of her predecessor Paul, she is more active and more open to disclosing details of her private life, but the dramatic conflict is created in the same way: In treatment it’s a very difficult series to write, because each episode consists of two characters in one room and the action is all in the dialogue.
The idea that underpins it is to create each time a battle between patient and therapist, in which the first tries to manipulate, attack, demolish the second, who must use all his ability to wriggle and read the patient better than he knows how to do. with himself.
Overall, the mechanism still works, even if the gears are a little more visible, perhaps because in the meantime our experience as spectators has made us more attentive behind the scenes.