In Treatment s01e39 Episode Script

Previously on In Treatment I'm trying to make this work.
I want to make this work.
You don't know anything.
You don't know me at all.
- I've done terrible things.
- It was an acc Really terrible things.
I had sex with Ben! My worst nightmare, it's happened and I feel like this huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.
You said that after your father died, your mother never forgave you.
Maybe you've never forgiven yourself, Amy.
Maybe you feel that if you degrade yourself enough, some day somebody will forgive you.
What do you see in me? How could you possibly be with me? I loved you.
"Loved"? Max, don't dump that stuff on the staircase.
And call Devinn and get that reading assignment, OK? Hey, how do you do? Good.
They're a pretty good team.
I'm glad you went.
It was fun.
Could you close the door, please? I wanna talk to you about something.
I left Gina a message today and I told her that I won't be going back to therapy anymore.
You and I, we can go back and forth forever about where our problem started Who did what to whom, who's more to blame.
I can't do that anymore.
I need to figure this out, and I think I need to do that on my own.
I'm really happy that you're seeing Gina.
And I really hope it can help you.
Season 1, episode 39.
michvanilly, salomon.
- Is Amy joining us today? - I don't think so.
So what's been up with you, Jake? It's been a pretty weird week since we saw you last, Paul.
Very quiet around the house.
Awkward.
He's such a funny kid.
Man, I wish you could meet him.
He was telling us this joke the other day about these These two cannibals that eat a clown.
And one cannibal turns to the other and says: "Does this taste funny to you?" Anyway, Amy and I are laughing despite ourselves.
It was very surreal.
Kids tend to do that when they sense tension.
They try to get the parents to come together.
You're probably right, but he shouldn't have to do it.
It's not fair.
You're right.
It's not fair.
Amy's been trying to reach out to me this week You know, make it all OK, the whole Ben thing, but how can you make up for something like that? To tell you the truth, it's pretty sad watching her try.
When Lenny fell asleep the other night, she ran around the house, pretending to be busy with house shit, which she never does.
Not saying anything, just trying to run into me.
And at one point we were pretty close together in the kitchen, she tried to kiss me And I just What? Just couldn't do it.
I wasn't into it.
My heart wasn't there.
It can be hard to relate to somebody - After something like an affair.
- You're telling me.
Bizarre.
Late that night, she had fallen asleep watching TV and I just I just stood there looking at her.
How did you feel? She sleeps with her both hands tucked under her cheek like in those kid books.
You know, the way they draw the angels sleeping.
She didn't look like a woman who had just fucked some other guy.
She looked really beautiful.
And I was thinking how easy it would be to just go lay down next to her and put my arms around her.
But you didn't.
No, I couldn't.
I just remembered how easily she could chip away at me and lure me back in.
So I jumped in my car and I got the fuck out of there.
- In the middle of the night? - That's right.
- Where'd you go? - First, at Elliot's, but then I remembered he had a date.
I didn't want to walk in on anything.
It's been about 6 years since the guy got laid, so I just kept driving and I ended up at my parents' house.
The kicker is they live about four hours away in Virginia.
And it was too early when I arrived to ring the doorbell, so I just sat out front in my car and fell asleep.
How often do you see them, your parents? Mom comes into town to see Lenny pretty frequently every couple of months.
Maybe we go out there for the holidays a couple of times a year, not much more.
And is your father close to Lenny? Is my father close to Lenny? That's a good question.
I think so.
They spend time together, Lenny likes him.
But it always feels finite.
I can't help but get the feeling that he leaves him hanging, like he's just spent a few minutes with the neighbor's grandchild and now it's time to move on.
Of course, my dad, being the narcissist that he is, is oblivious to it.
Has Lenny said anything to you about it? No.
He seems fine with it, so who knows? Maybe I'm just seeing things.
I was asleep in the car outside their house, and all of a sudden there's this knock on the window and its wake me up.
And it's a cop.
And who's the cop? Mike Garnett.
Went to school with me, wanted to be a cop since the 1st grade and now that's what he is.
It's really funny.
He fulfilled his childhood dream.
I don't think I know anyone who became what they wanted to be when they were a kid.
When I was growing up, in the wintertime, there was this guy and he would come over with his chainsaw, swing from tree to tree cutting branches before they froze and fell off like a fucking monkey.
It was unbelievable.
And he was the only guy I knew who my father didn't tell how to do his job.
That's who I wanted to be.
The old man, he's such a know-it-all.
The funny part is though, he does know it all.
He can tell you the exchange rate for a Guyanese dollar, how to cook a freshwater salmon in a clay oven, or the history of the silk worm.
- Does he write encyclopedias? - You'd think, right? No, he's a college professor.
My mom too.
Intellectuals.
Big readers, unlike me.
I don't read.
I don't think I've read a book since I left high school.
Does that mean you don't or you won't? - I haven't.
- Really? I remember once I misquoted Roland Barthes and you corrected me.
Where did that come from? I grew up in a house where everyone was reading at dinner.
That shit was everywhere.
Any parrot could pick it up and spit it back verbatim.
That's what happens when your dad is an emeritus professor of Renaissance studies and your mother teaches classics Greek and Hebrew.
But I don't read.
I mean not literally.
Obviously I read.
I read music, manuals, headlines, but I just I don't know.
I'm not like them.
I do kick ass at crossword puzzles though.
- You do those? - I'm not very good.
Sunday New York Times crossword does me in every week.
It's a tough one.
To do crossword puzzles, you need to have an extensive vocabulary, no? It's kinda hard to reconcile the idea of somebody who doesn't read with somebody who's really good at crossword puzzles.
There's nothing to reconcile.
I'm good at it and reading makes me restless and bored.
So did you acquire your love of crossword puzzles from your parents? Not really.
My mom's all right at them.
My dad sucks.
What did you do as a kid when everybody else was doing all this reading? I don't know.
Play guitar, collect baseball cards, smoke pot.
Did that get you into trouble? - Not really.
Nobody noticed.
- Nobody noticed that you got high? - So who were you getting high with? - Myself mostly.
So would you say that you had a lonely childhood? Nah.
Why? It was okay.
I talked to myself a lot.
You know what one of my favorite things in the world is? Talking to Lenny.
And we talk about anything but mainly, we talk about sports.
And he can just go off.
Aluminum bats versus wood Fuck, anything.
That kid has a brain like a computer.
He's not even 10 and he can list off all of Boog Powell's stats from the 1970 world series.
That's just amazing to me.
I never get tired of hearing that little fucker talk.
You get like that with your kids? Not so much anymore because they're older, but with my youngest, yeah, I still do.
- And how old is he? - He's nine.
Just like Lenny.
Did you have that kind of relationship with your father as a kid? No, I avoided talking to my father when I was a kid.
It just wasn't worth it.
He was the kind of guy who would wince if you said sure instead of surely.
Did you find it easier to talk to your mom? She wasn't as bad, but what was frustrating was she would always defer to him on everything.
It's like she saw him as this hotshot professor at another level from everyone.
He got tenure at 33 and it just wouldn't occur to her that she could have an opinion different from his than his.
If you were him, you would have just corrected me on my grammar.
If you were he.
Hey, they didn't beat me, right? - It could've been a lot worse.
- That's true.
It doesn't It doesn't mean it wasn't difficult.
So when did you start to write? I don't write.
My brother Nathan is the writer.
He's a novelist.
He was just shortlisted for some prize last year, some big national award.
I can't even remember the name.
I'm sure my parents remember it.
But you're a writer too.
Or don't you consider songwriting to be writing? No, sure, I do.
Some of my favorite writers are actually songwriters, people like Dylan, Cohen, John Lennon.
Hey, I agree with you, Paul.
I would put Dylan on par with Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound, Langston Hughes.
Just try telling that to my family.
You know, for somebody who is not a great reader, you seem to be pretty familiar with great poets.
Nobody's really familiar with Pound.
They just fake it.
But I get the feeling you like to play down your knowledge, your intelligence.
I don't know.
It's just my folks' world.
I guess some of it has rubbed off on me.
But it's just not me.
Your parents ever expressed an interest in what you might do for a living? My dad probably wanted me to be some kind of academic.
It's the family business after all.
But what did he expect? I don't know.
I think he gave up the dream on me pretty early after I flunked out of high school.
Which do you think came 1st, your father's low expectations or your low grades? - Meaning? - Often with expectations, there's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Maybe you decided earlier on you couldn't match up to his expectations - and so you gave up trying.
- Could be.
My mom was always trying to get me interested.
She'd help me study for tests on the sly.
- On the sly? - Yeah, it pissed my dad off.
He thought she was spoon-feeding me things I should've known or figured out by myself.
And she was terrified he'd find out.
Was she generally intimidated by him? "You're so right, Abe.
I never looked at it that way, Abe.
" Yeah, it made me want to scream.
One thing you can say about me, is I sure as hell didn't marry my mother.
You mean you didn't marry a woman who was intimidated by you.
So how do your parents feel about Amy? She's a successful businesswoman, she's got an MBA, they fucking love that she went to grad school.
Their high-school dropout of a son married a hotshot businesswoman.
It's interesting you use the same word to describe your father, "hot shot".
Do you think that they're alike in other ways? They're not.
They're total opposites.
He's all rumpled corduroy, stains on his shirt, and she's, well Hell, you know what Amy is Meticulous, put together, very materialistic.
She loves her stuff.
You know, when we met, I was crashing in this crappy apartment over a garage.
I think it turned her on.
And the woman had never fucked on a bed without a box spring, and she liked it.
Coming down from her pedestal, hang with the riffraff.
Did you feel like your father was also on a pedestal? Come on, let's get off this, alright? This is not why I'm here.
I don't have that many people to talk too right now.
And I'm scared shitless of losing Lenny in some custody battle.
Amy is unstable.
This is the second time she's getting a divorce after having an affair, and I think she's gonna fuck him up.
You said yourself she needs losers around.
I think she's gonna teach him to be a loser.
She's damaged, Paul.
She's fucked up.
I haven't gotten much right in my life except that kid, and that kid is What the fuck? You don't pay your electric bill or something? Looks like it's out on the entire street.
- You want to go on? - I can see you fine.
You're sure? For the first time It really feels like we're splitting up.
No matter how many times we've talked about it, or brought it up, it's never felt so Real.
Why do you think it feels different this time? The last time you were here, you implied that you'd fallen out of love with Amy.
Would you still say that's true? I don't know.
How would I know? What does it feel like? I've only been in love with one girl her.
I've never fallen out of love.
Tell me what it feels like and I'll tell you if I'm feeling it.
Have you ever felt it? There's a huge sadness there.
'Cause you know what's been lost.
And you begin to lose the desire to connect.
Maybe you should ask your father.
He's the guy who knows everything.
Did I tell you what he said when I told him my marriage was over? "This isn't entirely unexpected, is it?" He expects me to fail.
Every time.
At everything.
Why did you go home, Jake? I don't know.
It's an extend.
I just started driving, that's where I ended up.
This is therapy.
We don't believe in "accidents" here.
Alright, fine.
I'm about to be a single dad.
Maybe I Maybe I just felt like I want to talk to my mum.
Or your dad.
Have you been listening to a word I say? I can't fucking stand my father.
It's interesting that you use the same words to describe Amy and your father.
"Hot shot".
But you keep insisting that they're nothing like each other.
They're not.
Where're you going with this? Look.
You married an intelligent overachieving woman who seems absolutely certain of her authority in the world.
The criticism and disappointment that you got from your father do me feel that that's what you get from Amy.
Your relationship with Amy's falling apart, so you get in a car and you drive for 4 h to Virginia and you find yourself by accident outside your father's house? You think I was going back to the source? Jesus, that's sick.
It's not sick.
The more we open ourselves to the The therapeutic process, the more we can examine these More therapy.
What're you talking about? I need that like I need a hole in the head.
You know what? Who cares why I went home that night.
What is it matter how my parents talk at the fucking dinner table, alright? I've learned from my father's mistakes and I'm a much better father than he is.
I don't want to fuck it up.
I don't want to fuck my kid up.
I need I need the help.
I need your help.
I need help.
All the help I can get.
Or some road map, you know? I feel scared.
I wish I could say it was that simple.
That I could just give you a road map, a book of instructions, but unfortunately, life isn't like that.
But you know, that old saying that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Or in my case two steps up and one step back.
You know, if this was a movie the lights would come on, right now.
If this were a movie.
Were a movie.