and opinions some people might find offensive but for which I won’t apologise.
Don’t read any further unless you are open-minded.
Also, hard as I try not to give away too much, I can't guarantee there are no spoilers.
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Gypsy - TV Psychological Thriller Series - Netflix 2017.
Gypsy - TV Psychological Thriller Series - Netflix 2017.
A silly, unwatchable drama with an unlikeable protagonist.
Naomi
Watts stars as Jean Holloway, a psychiatrist who crosses practical and ethical
boundaries becoming too involved in the lives of her patients.
This sounded so promising: A psychological thriller about a psychiatrist. Perhaps an interesting mental illness to learn about, or perhaps a life threatening situation that takes time to reveal itself and becomes a bit of a mystery story while we work out who, what, or why.
Oh, wait, Gypsy is a show with a twist - the unique selling point is not that it's about the patients' illnesses, it's about the shrink herself and how she crosses ethical boundaries.
Most of the time a movie or series will fall into one of several acceptable categories; it might be compelling, it might just be an acceptable way to pass the time, or it might possibly just not be my cappuccino at all. Rarely does a show keep me watching for a few episodes only because I really just want to work out why it annoyed me so much.
There is nothing obviously offensive about Gypsy, and I don't feel the need to say it should be locked away in a vault somewhere. It's not highly sexist or racist or any other kind of IST - it's just bad.
LOTS OF SPOILERS HERE - only to try and explain why I ultimately found Gypsy unwatchable.
Why on earth would anyone be a therapist for a living? Sure, career choices are often based on a desire to help others, but would you really want to spend all your time listening to whiney, suffocating, self-absorbed patients?
My own experience is that talking to a shrink is hard. It's something to avoid unless absolutely necessary, but when it is necessary, it's incredibly difficult having to talk to a stranger about myself. If I do finally manage to open up it's hard not to downplay or minimise serious stuff for fear of seeming whiney, suffocating and self-absorbed.
Listening, in the first episode, to the first of Jean’s patients bitch and moan about how her daughter won’t return her calls was torture. Sure enough the patient confirmed all of my worst fears by being whiney, suffocating and self-absorbed. This patient doesn’t seem to need a psychiatrist she seems to need a slap around the chops. I wanted to say to her all the things no one should ever say to someone who is clinically depressed or suffering some other type of mental illness. (And IFF this character really is clinically depressed, the lack of context on screen does real people with real clinical depression a disservice.)
We eventually learn Jean wants to help her so badly she starts spying on the patient's daughter.
Weird.
Patient number two apparently has problems
letting go of his relationship experience with a former partner. Forget the former partner's moral and legal right to a presumption
of innocence, Jean thinks the former partner is possibly the type who is
manipulative. Naturally Jean decides the answer is to manipulate both former partner and
patient. Oh, wait, Gypsy is a show with a twist - the unique selling point is not that it's about the patients' illnesses, it's about the shrink herself and how she crosses ethical boundaries.
Most of the time a movie or series will fall into one of several acceptable categories; it might be compelling, it might just be an acceptable way to pass the time, or it might possibly just not be my cappuccino at all. Rarely does a show keep me watching for a few episodes only because I really just want to work out why it annoyed me so much.
There is nothing obviously offensive about Gypsy, and I don't feel the need to say it should be locked away in a vault somewhere. It's not highly sexist or racist or any other kind of IST - it's just bad.
LOTS OF SPOILERS HERE - only to try and explain why I ultimately found Gypsy unwatchable.
Why on earth would anyone be a therapist for a living? Sure, career choices are often based on a desire to help others, but would you really want to spend all your time listening to whiney, suffocating, self-absorbed patients?
My own experience is that talking to a shrink is hard. It's something to avoid unless absolutely necessary, but when it is necessary, it's incredibly difficult having to talk to a stranger about myself. If I do finally manage to open up it's hard not to downplay or minimise serious stuff for fear of seeming whiney, suffocating and self-absorbed.
Listening, in the first episode, to the first of Jean’s patients bitch and moan about how her daughter won’t return her calls was torture. Sure enough the patient confirmed all of my worst fears by being whiney, suffocating and self-absorbed. This patient doesn’t seem to need a psychiatrist she seems to need a slap around the chops. I wanted to say to her all the things no one should ever say to someone who is clinically depressed or suffering some other type of mental illness. (And IFF this character really is clinically depressed, the lack of context on screen does real people with real clinical depression a disservice.)
We eventually learn Jean wants to help her so badly she starts spying on the patient's daughter.
Weird.
Sick.
Jean has a home life as well as a professional life. She has a husband who seems a reasonably good bloke, and a 9 year old daughter who has the very girly moniker of “Dolly” - unfortunate given how readily so many people like to say out loud - where Dolly can hear them talking about her as if she is not there at all - that she is having some sort of gender identity crisis.
At first Dolly’s requests that someone cut her hair are ignored, then she is actually told it should stay long. This is proof to me that her parents really are more biased and less liberal about social expectations than they would like to believe. After a while nine-year-old Dolly cuts her own hair explaining “I’m just trying to look like myself.” Go Dolly.
I think the loudly
voiced gender issue conclusions of all the adults in Dolly’s life are a bit premature. Maybe Dolly's problem is not with being a girl, but with conforming to society's bizarre, scientifically unsupportable, constantly shifting idea of how a girl should dress. It's possible Dolly is just, for example, trying to dress like people who have more power or are treated with more respect than people who dress like girls. Or maybe she just wants
to look more like her father than her mother which is to say dress less like a
coalhole. We don't get enough information from the script to know Dolly is in charge of the decision - I would rather everyone let Dolly draw her own conclusion, with support, than have everyone else force their conclusions on her.
Not everything bad that people do is a symptom of mental illness; sometimes they just have shit personalities. I think I watched long enough to decide Jean Holloway is not mentally ill, just a bad shrink who acts unethically and has no redeeming features I could appreciate at all. Jean crossed the line too far and too often to leave me feeling anything but uncomfortable.
For someone who makes a living offering what seems to be life-coaching level therapy, Jean treats her husband/ family unit rather badly at times.
I felt myself getting anxious for the characters on my screen, not just from the possibility of physical harm (what IS this shrink up to?) but from the mental harm she is probably inflicting on those around her. I had no emotional reserves left to experience the actual events as a drama, to see something happening and find it interesting or thought provoking in any kind of productive way.
The premise is just way too muddy to pin down - it might have worked if it was just about questioning how "normal" shrinks are in their personal lives, OR if it was about a good shrink who crosses ethical lines to help patients OR about a clearly bad shrink who crosses ethical lines to help patients, (in which case a thriller)… but it's just all over the shop. Not everything bad that people do is a symptom of mental illness; sometimes they just have shit personalities. I think I watched long enough to decide Jean Holloway is not mentally ill, just a bad shrink who acts unethically and has no redeeming features I could appreciate at all. Jean crossed the line too far and too often to leave me feeling anything but uncomfortable.
For someone who makes a living offering what seems to be life-coaching level therapy, Jean treats her husband/ family unit rather badly at times.
I felt myself getting anxious for the characters on my screen, not just from the possibility of physical harm (what IS this shrink up to?) but from the mental harm she is probably inflicting on those around her. I had no emotional reserves left to experience the actual events as a drama, to see something happening and find it interesting or thought provoking in any kind of productive way.
The decision not to renew this after ten episodes was probably a sound decision.
I couldn’t stick with it for the whole of one season, though parts of the storyline like Dolly’s were interesting.
MA15+
Rating Can’t judge the whole season. I couldn’t stick with it for the whole of one season, though parts of the storyline like Dolly’s were interesting.
Bingeability – No. Just creepy in a yucchy kind of way.
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