What I’m Watching: In Treatment (Season Finale)

In Treatment: Season 4, Episode 24 “Brooke – Week 6” (B-)

I’m not sure what kind of satisfaction or resolution I expected from this half-hour, but I do feel that Brooke’s three patients all got some sort of proper sendoff that indicated either a continuing relationship, healthy or not, or a successful parting of ways based on life decisions. Like with the previous Brooke-focused week-ending installments, there wasn’t a direct approach or focus, something that could have been helpful to push her journey along a compelling path. We didn’t end up seeing Paul, which makes me wonder what the point of having him connected to the narrative at all was, and even Rita didn’t make an appearance aside from answering Brooke’s phone call at the very end. Instead, we got to see Brooke “running lines” for her nerve-racking meeting with her son and Adam express how he felt that she judged him to be an unfit parent while she didn’t have any problem with the idea of her as a mother. Indicating that she had taken the morning after pill at one point did seem to be deliberately hurtful, and he hit a nerve when he proclaimed that she was the alcoholic but that he was the one who always got blamed for her bad behavior. I’m not sure what to make of the final scene with Brooke once again leaving Adam, something that he notices and wishes wasn’t the case. I found Brooke’s interactions with her patients this season fascinating, but the episodes focused on her didn’t hold up. I’d likely be interested in a season five but would hope that she gets to see her own therapist, even and especially if it’s not Paul.

Season grade: B+
Season MVP: John Benjamin Hickey as Colin