What's Alan Watching?: In Treatment: Season two post-mortem with Warren Leight

--You told me last week that Walter didn't attempt suicide in the Israeli show.
The Israeli show stopped tracking Walter after week 4 and switched over to the daughter. My psychoanalysis of what the Israeli writers were thinking is, the next episode would have been his suicide attempt, and none of them wanted to go there. Because they were all writing about their dad in some way. It was getting to a very dark place with Walter, so they brought in the daughter and talked about lesbianism and India. pff. Mike Leigh films can sometimes get away with that, but we couldn't. good. credit Warren Leight for this season being so excellent where last season was not.
In a weird way, the show is writing the stuff you don't want to write, and going to places you would rather avoid. On top of that, it was fascinating to do the hospital scene. And we built a set, which we've never done, and there was Mahoney, staring out the window, that shot was gorgeous, that was the director, Jean de Segonzac's choice. Walter really was tough in that episode, and I thought, 'Okay.' It was kind of great. Obviously, you could play that whole episode weepy or tough. I had written it where he'd get tough again and say "Get out, get out," but I had assumed there'd be a larger loss of dignity before that, and I thought, 'This is probably correct.' This wasn't about Mahoney's chops; he can do anything.
I messed myself up with the week 6 episode, I got very sad writing it, and I thought, 'Okay, this will work.' It was interesting, because it's about missing your life, and that sense of the loss of your true self early on. Boy, did it resonate on the set with a lot of the older guys. Men, you're not supposed to acknowledge that. But seeing Mahoney weep there, and looking around, and there was a DP all screwed up, he'd just lost his dad.
Who am I to tell Mahoney? You bring John Mahoney in, you listen to him. And he's, in a way, the most people pleasing actor I've worked with.

--Were there any similar situations where the other guest actors were taking the characters in directions you didn't anticipate?
With Alison (Pill) and Hope (Davis), you don't get rehearsal time on this, but they would come in for a read-through, and I would always take their notes. I trust the collaborative process a lot. If there's one good thing I get from theater. I had Edie Falco in "Side Man" (Leight's Tony-winning play), and if something couldn't work for her, it usually meant that her instincts were right and my writing was wrong. Gabriel, too, in the morning, if something wasn't working, if you do 35 of these, you better be able to figure out when he's not happy. It's one of the more collaborative shows. The downside is you're shooting in two days and trying to do it like a play where you rehearsed for four weeks.

--Whenever you did an episode, or a scene, that wasn't in therapy, it was still structured like a therapy scene.
I don't know why I made that a rule, but I felt it's less of a cheat, if it's only two people in a room together. Walter in the hospital room, Mia in her office. Paul at his dad's bedside. It should always be a one-on-one. dyad.
You can imagine an hour-long series of this on network, there'd be a session, and a scene at the bar where they're all hanging out. It'd be a different kind of show. I know what that rhythm would be, and you would never be allowed the intensity of these 20-minute one-act plays. That's a lot of time for two characters to be talking.

--It's a lot more intense than the network version would be.
I was on "Criminal Intent" for six years. We did some very good stuff there, but it's the third one of a tired genre. There are 11 million viewers at times, or even 5 million, which is a number we'll never get, and I get more response to this than I ever did from "Criminal Intent." The people who plug into this show are in trouble, I think. It's a much more visceral experience.

--Before the season, we talked about whether Walter, at his age, is better off for having to examine an unexamined life, and you have that line in the week 6 episode where the other therapist suggests Paul shouldn't have opened Pandora's Box.
I don't think Paul opened it up. From week 1, he saw it. If you go back, you see Gabriel observing a lot early on. Maybe there were surprises along the way. But what you get are this guy whose defenses are about to collapse. So now, what do you do? There was no point. You couldn't shore them up anymore. I talked to shrinks. Some shrinks like (the flood), which tells you something, but it's like, you can never get the guy to this point, but if that's where he is when he comes in, it's about managing the crash when it's inevitable, and having enough of an alliance for when they hit bottom, so they have a person who can help them get back together. ~ f scott fitzgerald the crack up: you don't recover. you become someone else. yes, good that the therapist know that defenses are there to defend against something unbearable. the person needs those defenses, you don't take them away. but if the defenses are no longer holding, you help them find another way, and maybe even that more of a true self can come to life.
I was so moved by that climatic moment with Walter, the end of the sixth session, when he starts crying and Paul walks over near him and puts a hand on his shoulder, and Walter, doubled over sobbing, clutches at Paul's leg.
and it's after Paul is saying he could connect with ~ learn more about 'the other Walter', the one who is not always on duty, and Walter says why would he want to connect to him, to the part of himself who crumbled? and Paul says, "Because I don't think that's the part of you that crumbled." it's the defenses, the on-duty Walter, that crumbled. "I think that's the part of you that wants to live."