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Seasons of In Treatment

HBO premieres the first 15 episodes of In Treatment, a new half-hour drama series starring Gabriel Byrne, and adapted from an enormously popular Israeli series. Set within the intimate confines of individual psychotherapy sessions with five sets of patients, the series centers around a therapist who exhibits an insightful, confident demeanor when treating his patients, but displays a crippling insecurity while counseled by his own therapist.

The palette this series uses to paint emotive, empathic, and richly textured profiles of real problems with people has an alluring and self-therapeutic effect. This sounds cheesy, but after a few episodes you grow and feel a kinship with the characters.

I don’t know how to describe how amazingly real this series is. As someone’s not only studied therapy, couseling and psychology academically, but who has also been "in treatment" for over 100 hours, this is the closest thing to real thing. Byrne is exceptional. Wise, smooth, suave, composed, compassionate, and real. His supporting cast (the patients) are equally captivating.

 

Tony Gilroy has already proven that he can weave/write a great story via his writing for the "Bourne" franchise. And the striking thing about "Michael Clayton" is how Gilroy has written ironic, conflicted, complicated characters that are at once "good" (and in the world that Gilroy has created here…this is in itself a term that is up for interpretation) yet are often bad as in unethical, mean, misanthropic.

These characters can and do betray themselves and others: There’s no one to truly love or hate, from Sydney Pollack’s quietly devious law firm CEO, to Tom Wilkinson’s holy madman of an ace courtroom defense attorney, to Tilda Swinton as a tricky senior partner in nice suits that peel off to reveal sweaty armpits and a gift for rationalization.

Even our hero, Michael Clayton as portrayed by George Clooney is a loser: a 12 year veteran at his law firm who is utilized as a bag man, a fixer usually dispatched to do what amounts to private eye work.: cleaning up the firm’s client messes.

Clayton is a failure both professionally and personally: a failure as a father, brother, husband and Clooney strikes just the right notes here as Clayton struggles, fights to regain his dignity both as an officer of the court and more importantly as a father and a human being.

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