Couple’s Therapy Season 2 Shows How Reality Television Can Be Both Empathetic And Entertaining

Couple’s Therapy Season 2 Shows How Reality Television Can Be Both Empathetic And Entertaining

We all have these pre-conceived notions about reality television that are not exactly ill-informed. We’ve seen shows like The Bachelorette, Love Island and Splitsvilla to know that there’s only a very perverse joy from watching the most intimate details of a couple being aired out on television. What’s worse is that a lot of it is hyped up fiction for TRPs. So when I heard of Couple’s Therapy Season 2, I had two questions. One, ugh, really, what entertainment can we derive from couples talking about deeply personal and unique issues on camera that are dramatised for TV. And two, do I need to watch Season 1?

What’s Couple’s Therapy about?

The series, compromising roughly 9-10 episodes, follows Dr. Orna Guralnik, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, who listens, mediates, facilitates conversation and counsels couples (not necessarily married) on their relationship troubles.

Let’s tackle the second question first, shall we? No, you don’t need to watch Season 1 for continuity. The first season had its own set of couples, and even a special pandemic episode, because God knows the virus didn’t just create physical health issues, it festered mental health concerns too. Many couples faced challenges of either long-distance relationships or lack of space from being sequestered together during lockdowns and having to tackle household responsibilities on a whole new level.

However, with Season 2, Couple’s Therapy brings forth three new couples that are now seeking Dr. Guralnik’s services. There’s a Jewish married couple, a couple that got pregnant early in their relationship and shares a child but are not married, and a same-sex couple where one of them has just gotten out of rehab after hitting rock bottom due to their alcohol addiction.

But should you watch Season 1 regardless? I’ll let the answer to the first question inform your decision.

Can watching couples in therapy be entertaining?

Yes, yes it can be. And trust me when I say, this is nothing like the mindless, often brain-numbing hysteria that you see on reality television otherwise, where couples are just having shouting matches and doing the most OTT gestures to prove a point. And even then, it’s not drab and dull either.

Now sure, the couples here are not Indian, so the problems they face are perhaps more informed by their own culture here. But have no doubts about their relatability. For example, in the first episode, the Jewish couple talks about the wife being frustrated with her husband for not pulling his weight in their relationship. While another couple, the unmarried one, has the man expressing how he feels there’s too much space in their relationship despite sharing a child together, while the woman feels that even though she understands that, she needs her space to be able to participate in that relationship.

These problems seem like issues that no matter what kind of a couple you are or where you are located, you might face.

Think of The Office, but set inside a couple’s counsellor’s office. You’re pretty much an external observer looking in as Dr. Orna Guralnik patiently listens and then talks to these couples, and helps facilitate a very honest and open conversation between two people that they might not have ever had without professional help. And then, you’re also someone that the doctor is talking to when she highlights the kind of personal biases her clients bring into the room that inhibits them from understanding where their partner is coming from.

It is entertaining to be reminded of some of your own relationship quirks, habits and issues reflecting in the way the couples reason or argue with each other, or even comfort each other. And then something very organic happens when either through the  therapist’s intervention or their own realisation, the other half of the couple gets this entirely new perspective on things.

And that there is the sweet spot that this series hits.

Also Read: 5 Things Couples Should Do Before Their Marriage To Ensure A Good Start

Couples Therapy is refreshingly empathetic for a reality show

It’s a bold claim for someone who has seen just one episode of Season 2 and a very rushed sweep through of Season 1. But from whatever I’ve seen, Couples Therapy is surprisingly and refreshingly empathetic towards the people in it. To show you a contrast, in shows like The Big Day or Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives, or even a Splitsvilla and Love Island, the show is directed in a way to gain maximum drama, scripted and unscripted, out of it. It wants you to hate a particular person or pick sides, or see things in black or white. Spice is their choice of ingredient.

But in Couples Therapy, the main ingredient is empathy, which like salt, ought to be the most essential ingredient that many reality television series often tend to miss. There’s empathy not just in the therapist’s approach to the couple, which duh, is her job and she does it so very well. But there’s also empathy in the way these people are portrayed on screen when they are bringing their issues forth. And ultimately, through these proxy couples, if I were to gain a better understanding of my own relationship issues, then that would be a score for empathy too.

Verdict

I think Couples Therapy holds a lot of promise, and can easily be one of the shows you can watch without being judged for loving reality television. It maintains its light and entertaining tone without belittling or mocking its participants’ problems for the sake of drama, thank God, because can you imagine baring your deepest truths on camera like that?

It also advocates for seeking therapy, which I think is never a bad idea, and needs more propagating since India isn’t exactly down with solving couples’ problems with counselling or the other extreme, which is divorce. Maybe this can dispel the stigma surrounding both?

And finally, and the most important reason of all, there’s a dog on this show, right there in the room with the therapist and the couple. And someday, I am hoping we get a lowdown on these sessions from his perspective! So yes, go ahead and watch both seasons of the show, have some fun, and gain some perspective too!

 

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Couples Therapy is currently streaming on Voot Select.

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Jinal Bhatt

A Barbie girl with Oppenheimer humour. Sharp-tongue feminist and pop culture nerd with opinions on movies, shows, books, patriarchy, your boyfriend, everything.

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