In the New serie Apple TV + The Shrink Next Door, human relationships are everything. A patient who would do anything for his psychiatrist. A misty and poisonous environment that makes the relationship more murky. A deliberately mocking notion about the mistakes and mishaps of its characters. But in essence, it is a series about the erratic and unstable links narrated as the total center of the story.
They are to the extent that their creator abandons the center of her inspiration – an investigation into fraudulent psychiatric manipulations – for something more unique. The script reflects a version of the disturbing story of Dr. Isaac Herschkopf and his dire influence on Marty Markowitz. Nevertheless, takes an unexpected path to tell a sinister event.
In the premise of the series, there is very little left of the spooky case narrated by Joe Nocera’s podcast in 2019. In fact, it seems that the creator has a conscious perception of something new that is held in a confusing space. The Shrink Next Door it is a loose and at times precarious analysis of how a psychiatrist can use his resources to manipulate. And while the point is immediately clear, Pritchett’s intentions are not entirely clear; Do you want to show the seriousness of something similar or just reflect on what causes it to happen?
Whatever the answer, the first three chapters of The Shrink Next Door they are ambiguous enough not to make any point clear. Nacera’s podcast was a proto true crime which took the analysis of a murky case to a new level. On the contrary, its television version border on boredom as you try to turn the terrifying into a potent social joke. It achieves it in a few moments. But in others the artificial effort to underline uncomfortable ideas and try to make them appear metaphorical is evident. Despite his good command of the script, The Shrink Next Door You have to face winding and uncomfortable potholes. Above all, when the base story is an inevitable reference.
Doors closed and open, no neighbor watching
Georgia Pritchett has experience with unpleasant, irritating, and even downright wicked characters. The writer of Succession and Veep he has made a career out of telling twisted stories with a sophisticated air. But this time, the creator seems more interested in a broader idea. One that touches several points at the same time and generally has a greater interest in moving the point of attention to different places. The Shrink Next Door it is based on his secrets, the way he hides them, and the power of manipulation.
Something that inherits from the previous stories of the writer. Both in Succession like in Veep the essential condition is power. The struggle and need to obtain it, the dispute over their prerogatives. But in The Shrink Next Door, Pritchett makes a conscious decision to take the idea and distort it to a different north. In particular, because although it delves into the fact that psychiatric manipulation is a powerful event, it is also subject to nuances. With its points of overwhelming intimacy between the perception of good and evil as identical spaces, the series fails to reflect something deeper. Worse still, he seems unable to analyze that the toxic and overwhelming relationship between his characters is dangerous.
It is well known that Pritchett proposed not to pontificate or moralize, but his effort is so considerable that the argument falls apart in the neutral. That, despite Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd’s efforts to endow their characters with vitality and complexity.
From the prologue (which narrates the context of the story in 1980) to its strangest scenes, The Shrink Next Door he asks confusing questions. Especially when he looks closely at Marty (Will Ferrell), a clumsy and insecure heir in need of emotional stability. His sister Phyllis (Kathryn Hahn) is a reflection of the cultural demands placed on Marty. Although Pritchett does not press or want to create one version of a suffocating relationship within another, it is clear that Hahn’s character is a concrete weight. Marty needs security, to overcome the figure of the father who bequeathed him a responsibility and to find his place in the world.
It is then that Marty goes to Doctor Ike (Rudd), who will try to help him in an unusual way. The series, which looks at Ike from a kindly vantage point, twists the idea of unethical decisions as necessary. Or at least, not definitely immoral. It’s just about helping, or at least that seems to suggest when Ike takes the consultation out of the office. He also emphasizes the same theme, as it becomes more noticeable that Ike gently manipulates Marty. After all, Farrell’s character is desperate to please. And what better way to do that than by indulging in more or less well-intentioned suggestions?
The series could work from that point, except for the fact that Ike may not be so innocent. The series bets strongly on the duality of the psychiatrist, but the story does not seem to support its strange ambivalence. In fact, the camera looks at them as if they were a misunderstood duo, one strange and increasingly disconcerting. Does Ike manipulate Marty to improve or pave the way for something else? The show doesn’t say so, but it also doesn’t make an effort to use that confused sense of urgency with something more noticeable.
All the secrets come to light in ‘The Shrink Next Door’
On The Shrink Next Door, the duality of power and manipulative pressure is diffuse. The actual case on which it is based became a scandal when it was discovered to what extent a psychiatrist can influence his patient; the series misses the opportunity to show it and chooses a more ambiguous idea. Marty gets better and more confident, the more he relies on Ike. And Ike enjoys – unknowingly, perhaps inevitably – that power relationship that is distorted with worrying speed.
But The Shrink Next Door it lacks the substance and energy to say anything else. In the end, Marty and Ike are reflections of uncomfortable events that are incomprehensible in the way they are narrated. And that’s perhaps the most complicated problem in the series. Can you make fun of something disloyal, gloomy and painful? Depends on the circumstances. And apparently the Pritchett show doesn’t find any.