In Treatment

Everyone has to bring their A-game and, for the most part, they do.

Its vivid, cliché-free writing has always been In Treatment's singular strength. That's even truer in its riveting new season--no small accomplishment.

This season as much as last, In Treatment brings us into more intimacy with its characters than almost any other series on TV.

It is, to put it bluntly, a cast to die for. Each story line is well-drawn and compelling and each subtly represents a thread of Paul's own issues that come together in Gina's office even more effectively, if a bit more sentimentally, than they did last season.

The acting on this show is so incredible that it's hard to remember that there's any acting going on at all.

Though relying heavily on a formula, the writing of In Treatment could not be tighter or purer.

It’s difficult not to follow Weston and his new array of patients this season, especially when the compelling Byrne shares the screen with seasoned actors such as John Mahoney, who plays Walter, an arrogant CEO suffering from insomnia, and Hope Davis, who plays Mia, a brittle Manhattan attorney who blames Weston, who treated her when she was in her 20s, for the problems that plague her two decades later.

The one-person-shows these recurring characters put on each week are what give In Treatment its vitality, and of course it helps that HBO can draw from top stage talent.

It is slow, and it requires work and careful observation, but when it achieves its breakthroughs, the effects can be as extraordinary and dynamic as any other drama on television.

In many ways the second season is richer. The stories are again lifted from “Be’ Tipul,” but set in New York, the epicenter of post-Freudian civilization and its discontents.

There are still moments when the writers' Geppetto-like manipulation is too apparent, but the revelations that pile on week to week help smooth over those excesses--as does the simple pleasure of watching the intellectual tennis match as Byrne goes toe-to-toe with Paul's resistant, each-damaged-in-their-own-way clientele.

The patients, too, are easier to take. With no one in sight that Paul's likely to get mushy over--the way he did so disastrously with Laura (Melissa George) last season--we're free to admire Mahoney's artistry as a CEO with panic attacks or to root for young Oliver, whose parents need therapy more than he does.

It's still not a show for everyone, since 99% of the action is conversation. But it's intelligent conversation, and the problems of the patients, including Weston, are multilayered and compelling.

Paul’s sessions this time around are sometimes soapy--as they were last year--but they are always mesmerizing.

It's a strong cast, and Byrne and Wiest continue to deliver incredibly mannered and minutely shaded performances.