Dear Peggy, Phil, and Joel,
As Uncle Junior told us last year, “They come in threes.” Well, we just got our third therapist in the third episode of this season. Can someone please tell me what is going on? I miss Jennifer Melfi! I know what you’re gonna say. Janice’s therapist Sandy has a tough job. After all, she has to help Janice understand why she needs to call Ralphie a “slut” in bed. Poor Ralphie! He’s already tormented with guilt about cheating on Ro (remember his liberating moment when he lugged his suitcase into Janice’s house and shouted “No more guilt!”). If that weren’t bad enough, his girlfriend insinuates that he is a cheap tramp! Can you imagine? Then he has to deal with Janice’s recognition that she is trying to get her father’s acceptance by sleeping with men like her brother.
I’m probably sounding too harsh in my assessment of Sandy. To her credit, she finally got Janice in touch with her healthy aggression so she could push Ralphie down the stairs and stop being a doormat in the relationship. She also increased Janice’s self-esteem by reminding her that she’s famous for her “truth and respect.”
What went wrong with Episode 3, gang? In my humble opinion, there were three major problems: 1) There was no continuity from Episode 2 (what happened to Meadow? what did Ad—a.k.a. Linda Blair—decide to do with her attractive offers from the FBI?); 2) the dialogue was too didactic—it sounded like lectures on victimology and ethnic discrimination instead of spontaneous conversation between characters; and 3) the killing off of Bobby Bacala’s wife, Karen, came out of nowhere and went nowhere.
Glen
