shrinkage

I love pain

Season 2

Episode 2

Editor’s Rating

4 stars

****

Photo: Apple TV+

As a therapist, is there such a thing as having? to many boundaries with your patients? Probably not. But that’s what Jimmy Paul suggests in “I Love Pain.” shrinkage tends to rightly portray Jimmy as the wrong guy and Paul as the right one, and that’s still the case here – Jimmy’s boundaries are essentially non-existent, and as a result his patients have become overly dependent. But the episode also gets Jimmy somewhat right when he suggests that Paul could stand to loosen up on his ethics.

This question of boundaries arises with two of Paul’s patients – his youngest and his oldest. Sean is used to having Jimmy as a therapist, a man he has lives with and is free to harass at any time. But Paul isn’t happy about this nonsense. When he receives an essay-length text message from Sean on his personal cell phone in which he discusses a painful conversation he didn’t have, Paul doesn’t respond by dropping everything and saying it all, like Jimmy would. He calls Sean, sets clear boundaries, and encourages him to practice the tool he learned in the last session.

Liz is excited about the food blog planning a feature on her truck and is focusing heavily on Sean’s veteran story, but Sean is nowhere near the point where he would feel comfortable publishing that (even if it’s just for a food blog with a cheesy theme). Name). Additionally, he wanted the truck to represent a new beginning and he didn’t want to associate it with a past he would rather forget. Worried about how Liz might react if he declines the interview, he ends up resorting to Paul’s “reversal of desire” method, in which he visualizes his worst fears and then says the phrase “I love pain” out loud, while accepting them.

When Sean imagines Liz calling him a baby and goes into Karen mode, it serves his purpose – he’s willing to talk to her, partly because he accepts the possibility of pain, partly because he knows that scenario that he imagines is highly unlikely. In fact, Liz is totally cool with canceling. In fact, she is still overwhelmed with gratitude for Sean and for the small business they founded together. She even gives him a stone, which is basically a blood oath from Liz.

But then there’s Raymond, who appeared in an episode at the end of last season. Now that Paul has taken Sean on as a patient, he is faced with the unfortunate task of cutting someone else, and Raymond is the obvious choice. “Moving Forward” showed that Paul and Ray had developed a real camaraderie after 22 years of knowing each other; Ray continues to pay Paul, not because he really has anything to do, but because he enjoys the regularity of his company. But as much as it disappoints both Paul and Ray, it’s time for them to part ways – and because it would be inappropriate to form a friendship even after this, this could be their last conversation.

Paul doesn’t admit it to Jimmy, but that idiot got through to him when he called Paul a “mental health robot” with too many boundaries. The episode suggests that while Jimmy wasn’t right about Sean, he may have been right about Ray. That’s not necessarily a good lesson to apply to real-world therapy scenarios – I’m not a therapist, but I can only think of a few select cases where something like this would actually work – but for a sitcom that never gets too really cared about realism, it works. And as a story about Paul, a perpetually gruff guy who has trouble accepting love, it’s pretty heartwarming. That’s thanks in part to the easy old-timer chemistry between Harrison Ford and Neil Flynn.

Jimmy doesn’t have to deal with these questions so directly this time, as the majority of his story is devoted to his relationships with Alice and Gaby. He tries to tell his daughter about the visitor who showed up at the office. (Can you tell that “struggling to tell someone a difficult truth” is a common story in this series?) He inevitably goes about things in all the wrong ways, although he’s more likely to let this secret out in the open, than dragging it out. The upbringing of Jimmy that we see in this episode may be a little clumsy, but you can actually see how much his relationship with Alice has evolved since the beginning of season one. She treats him with some coldness for a few days while she processes what he said to her, but never becomes angry or confrontational. In fact, the biggest indicator of her ongoing inner conflict is the fact that she hasn’t asked to borrow the car, even though she has her driver’s license.

Jimmy and Alice finally experience a sweet moment of friendship when they follow their friend Summer’s advice and write letters to “Double D,” the drunk driver. It’s a healing exercise, and based on her request for the keys the next day, everything seems to have smoothed over. But even though Alice’s relationship with her father is on solid ground, the final scene shows that she still thinks a lot about Double D. She even goes to his house just to lurk outside and watch him.

Jimmy’s toughest moment in this episode is reserved for the Gaby subplot. After thinking a lot about Tia, who still openly calls Jimmy “the love of his life,” she finally breaks up with him. But it’s hard not having him as a friend, especially with all the drama going on between her mother and her sister Courtney. She’s in a vulnerable place and it’s no surprise that she lets Jimmy in when he brings gifts and emotional support.

I’ve seen Jimmy be an asshole in many ways, but there’s something particularly dirty about seeing him in this manipulative mode, taking advantage of Gaby’s whiny state to get back in his pants. She brings this to his attention and confirms her theory by pinning him down and exposing his bright red sex boxers. And that pales in comparison to his biggest transgression: At a certain point, he knew she wanted more from him than just sex, but he ignored that intuition because he enjoyed all the no-strings-attached intimacy.

I like that this season skipped a lot of the expected romantic comedies in this storyline. Since we haven’t heard Jimmy’s direct take on his relationship with Gaby much, we don’t know for sure if it’s him would actually going out with her, even without the looming specter of Tia. (He probably would, though. Who wouldn’t?) But it’s a surprise to audiences that Jimmy has already figured out her feelings off-screen at some point, probably in the few months between seasons.

A large tangle of contradictory feelings and emotional contexts also play a role here. Jimmy is definitely in the wrong and it’s very satisfying to see Gaby kick him out. But she played a role in all of this: Jimmy ignored her feelings, but she also ignored her own and tried to ignore Liz when she forced her to face them. Still, Gaby did the right thing by putting an end to things and actually sticking to her boundaries (there’s that word again) and refusing to endure any more heartbreak, even as Jimmy kept crossing those boundaries.

People often rely on their closest friends to take care of them when they cannot care for themselves. It’s devastating to realize that someone you care so much about could not They have your best interests at heart – otherwise, even if they do, your feelings and priorities will never take precedence over their own. It’s devastating to realize that you’re being taken advantage of, that you may be the person you thought you could be just friends I’m actually not a big fan of it at all.

• Brian is not I’m glad Jimmy never told him that he and Gaby slept together, so I expect there will be some drama between them. (Grace knows, but not Brian, which is pretty funny.)

• Alice brutally rejects Connor and then introduces him to Summer to get rid of him. Bet Alice will get jealous when she sees them getting along?

• By the way, this is a pretty funny episode, even funnier than the premiere! Here are some quotes starting with: “We should add it to our sign out front.” Rhoades Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Center: Fucking Our Doctors.”

• Gaby can hold her urine for 48 hours.

• “Speaking of cars, do you remember what happened to your mother in one?”

• Also laughed pretty hard when he revealed that Derek had heard the whole conversation. “‘Speaking of cars’!?”

• I can’t count how many times my dad said the literal line, “He’s coming out of his cave,” so hearing the words come out of Derek’s mouth was a little triggering.

• “Paul, I told Alice. It went well.” “We’ll put up a banner. ‘Father of the Year’.”

“You left your sunglasses in my dad’s car and he thought it would be a growing moment for me to give them back to you.”

• “Can we pay her to fuck our son?” “I think maybe I would feel more comfortable if I just rooted for him.”