The Shrink Next Door – Season 1 Episode 3 “The Treatment” Recap & Review

The Treatment

Episode 3 of The Shrink Next Door begins with Marty in his office, starting to paint the walls. Phyllis shows up and struggles to hold it together. Her ex-husband Daniel has hired an attorney and he’s ready to dig in deep and take what’s hers. Marty gives his sister a big hug and promises to do his best to help her. Only, Herschkopf obviously isn’t doing anything to help.

During their next session, Herschkopf twists Phyllis’s cry for help and claims she’s taking money away from him. He sows seeds of doubt in Marty’s mind, and follows it up with a big opportunity for work. With Jesus Christ: Superstar about to take place in the theatre, Marty has a massive opportunity to branch out and supply fabric for them. The trouble is, it’ll set them back at least $20 grand.

With Marty unable to rally the people together, he brings Herschkopf in to talk to them instead. Ike throws out the handbook and rallies the people around him. The trouble is they’re cutting corners, saving money by not fireproofing the curtains, all to save some money. Ike claims this is a “big win” but Phyllis is not so sure.

Herschkopf ends up talking to Phyllis in his office, learning about her struggles and painful divorce. However, midway through their session, Ike speaks up about her “ill-fated business ventures” which immediately throws up a red flag. Given Phyliss didn’t actually talk to him about this, he’s very clearly crossing boundaries.

Herschkopf is well aware of that too and heads up to see Marty, claiming that she’s using him. So Herschkopf decides to break things off completely, no longer willing to facilitate their sessions.

Meanwhile, Phyllis heads to her lawyer, needing to transfer money from her trust fund into the personal account before Daniel takes it. In order to do that, she needs Marty to fill out the forms. Only, Marty chooses not to stop “enabling” her and decides not to let Phyllis have her money. Livid and upset, she curses him out and walks out.

That evening, Marty shows up at the performance of Jesus Christ: Superstar and starts to panic when he notices the number of candles up on stage. Thankfully nothing burns but it’s clear that this could have been building up to something bad.

Phyllis meanwhile, heads over to Marty’s place but finds Ike’s claws have dug in deep. Traces of him are everywhere. Unfortunately it’s about to get a whole lot worse, especially when Marty invites Ike to be a full-time consultant at the company.

If that wasn’t bad enough, when Marty learns that Phyllis has taken off with his jewelry, he invites Herschkopf over to try and help. Only, this search sees them head up to Marty’s summer house – the same place from the start of the first episode. Ike promises to take care of everything. “This is only the beginning,” He says, as his eyes seem to turn to dollar signs.

The Episode Review

The Shrink Next Door is one of those shows that would have worked a lot more effectively as a movie. Given each of these chapters are around 40 minutes or so, that’s a lot of run-time to pad out with this simple story.

However, Paul Rudd and Will Ferrell are good value for their roles and seeing Marty being taken advantage of is pretty difficult to watch. He’s very clearly being manipulated but can’t actually see it, which makes this all the tougher to watch.

Having said that, the show does have a decent ensemble and a good enough script, but this slower chapter looks like it could well be indicative of the season ahead. We’ll have to wait and see what next week’s episode has in store for us.