IN TREATMENT: JESSE: WEEK FIVE (TV)
Summary
One in this drama series about psychologist Dr. Paul Weston and his sessions with his patients.
Paul and Max make chocolate chip pancakes together on a Tuesday night. Paul asks about his life and how he is interacting with Steve, the person his ex-wife is marrying. Jesse unexpectedly arrives, clearly distraught, and asks that he be allowed to do his session immediately instead of at his scheduled time the next day. Paul tries to politely refuse but Jesse starts crying and slides to the floor. He explains that he went to visit his real parents but was kicked out of their house. Paul reluctantly agrees to conduct a session with him. He explains that he spoke to Kevin after their last session and they agreed to meet, and Jesse went to see their house. He was optimistic after their last session that this meeting would work out, and describes how he arrived early and saw some children playing in the front yard of his parents’ house. He took photographs of them but goes on to say that he suddenly felt “ill” and wandered around looking for a diner. After a few hours he went back and found that the children he saw before were gone, as well as any evidence that there were any children there to begin with. He believes that this was a deliberate act by Karen and Kevin on his behalf. He describes meeting Karen and Kevin for the first time and says that they “looked rich.” He doesn’t recall most of their conversation, as he was busy looking around for evidence of the children he saw earlier, convinced that they were Karen and Kevin’s children. Jesse feels that he was being scrutinized and patronized by them the whole time before being abruptly asked to leave.
One particularly strong piece of evidence he discovers is that their bathroom features a metal bar by the toilet for the handicapped. Jesse shows Paul the photographs he took of the children, and one of them is in a wheelchair. Jesse comes to the conclusion that Kevin and Karen contacted him because the child in the wheelchair, which Jesse believes strongly resembles him, is sickly and that they want a blood transfusion or some sort of organ donation from him. Paul believes Jesse is jumping to conclusions and tries to present some alternate explanations. However, Paul does admit that it is suspicious that Kevin and Karen would conceal their children from Jesse so thoroughly. Paul tries to get Jesse to recall the details of his conversation with Kevin and Karen, but Jesse admits that he was high on marijuana and thus his recollections are impaired. He does recall that they asked him to leave after he tried to work out a “deal” with them to get money in exchange for some sort of organ donation.
Paul admits that he is frustrated with this turn of events and believes Jesse deliberately sabotaged the meeting with Kevin and Karen. He theorizes that Jesse “tests” the people in his life by pushing them away to see if they care about him, and then can rationalize himself as being “unlovable.” He believes that is part of the reason Jesse came to see him late at night, as a sort of “test” to see if Paul would care enough about him to see him. Jesse walks out on Paul despite the latter urging him not to leave. Before he leaves, Jesse accuses Paul of ruining his life by giving him bad advice. Jesse does not get far, however, and Paul finds him hunched over and crying on his front steps. Paul tells Jesse that while Karen and Kevin made a mistake by concealing his siblings from him, he believes they may have had a good reason for doing so. Jesse believes that he messed up his entire life, but Paul tries to put things in perspective. It becomes apparent that Jesse is suffering from intense feelings of rejection, but Paul points out that Karen and Kevin were around his age when they had him, and believes that they may have given him up simply because they were too young to raise a child, and not because of any fault with Jesse personally. Their conversation is interrupted when Max sets off the smoke alarm in a botched attempt to cook the pancakes. Paul hugs him and doesn’t blame him for what happened; when he returns he finds that Jesse is gone.
Details
- NETWORK: HBO
- DATE: November 23, 2010 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:21:17
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 107698
- GENRE: Drama
- SUBJECT HEADING: LGBT Collection - Drama; Drama; Psychology
- SERIES RUN: HBO - TV series, 2008-2010
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Stephen Levinson … Executive Producer
- Anya Epstein … Executive Producer
- Dan Futterman … Executive Producer
- Mark Wahlberg … Executive Producer
- Paris Barclay … Executive Producer, Director
- Hagai Levi … Executive Producer, Based on the series "Be'Tipul" created by
- Noa Tishby … Co-Executive Producer
- Sarah Treem … Supervising Producer, Writer
- Sarah Lum … Producer
- Mark A. Baker … Producer
- Tim Christenson … Co-Producer
- Mickie Reuster … Associate Producer
- Eric Overmyer … Consulting Producer
- Rodrigo Garcia … Developed by
- Ori Sivan … Based on the series "Be'Tipul" created by
- Nir Bergman … Based on the series "Be'Tipul" created by
- Marty Beller … Music by
- Avi Belleli … Theme Music by
- Gabriel Byrne … Cast, Dr. Paul Weston
- Dane DeHaan … Cast, Jesse
- Alex Wolff … Cast, Max