Week 2 recap:

One thing I really like about this season is how the patients sit at different places in Paul's office and how things seem less stationary in general (though I do remember Paul and Sophie sitting on the floor once or twice in her sessions). My favorite sessions of the week were with April and then Paul's session with Gina (and those are usually my least favorite). Alison Pill is creating this remarkably complex characterization that's equal parts withholding, truthful, sympathetic, and intense. Her previews next week look sensational. Paul's session with Gina was a huge eye-opener to Paul's history with his depressive mother and absent father, and how this past crush of his/ current Gina patient might hold the key to a real breakthrough for Paul's current mental health. Dianne Wiest was excellent here. That was hilarious when Gina made Paul think that she was going to go out shopping if he cancelled their session together. LoL. This would be a strong writing submission for Marsha Norman. Loved seeing Michelle Forbes and Mae Whitman in Walter's session. It's nice getting to see more of Paul's day-to-day life activities and how his personal live is continuing to coincide with his professional life. Walter's session was more engaging last week, but I like how John Mahoney is keeping Gabriel Byrne on his toes from start to finish here with their scenes together. Mia's session was interesting for the pregnancy revelation and how she blames Paul for her failed relationship with the musician and the abortion. I hope they aren't leading to another romantic transference case with Mia like they did with Laura, b/c Melissa George rocked in that arc, and I don't particularly want to see someone else tackle that area again. Really I just want Melissa George to guest star on the show this season. Oliver's sessions aren't quite sparking the interest that they should, even though Aaron Shaw is a strong, sympathetic presence here. Hopefully Oliver's sessions with Paul will become one-on-one down the line, b/c once his parents come into therapy, something's lost and the entire dynamic becomes less interesting.

Grade for "Mia -- Week Two": B+
Grade for "April -- Week Two": A-
Grade for "Oliver -- Week Two": B-
Grade for "Walter -- Week Two": B/B-
Grade for "Gina -- Week Two": A-

EW's review:
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In Treatment (2009)
by Ken Tucker

The series that makes you happy to watch other people's heads get shrunk, "In Treatment," is back for a second season of angry singletons, unhappy children, and miserable marrieds. And they let it all hang out on the sofa belonging to Gabriel Byrne's Dr. Paul Weston. The new sessions bring us a fresh group of patients, as Dr. Paul speaks in soothing tones to:

Mia (indie queen Hope Davis), a successful lawyer coping badly with middle-aged loneliness; April ("Milk"'s Alison Pill), a twentysomething architecture student diagnosed with cancer she's not sure she wants to have treated; Oliver ("Dirty Laundry"'s Aaron Shaw), an 11-year-old caught in the middle of his parents' impending divorce; and
Walter ("Frasier"'s John Mahoney), a high-powered executive prone to panic attacks.

As it was last season, each patient gets his or her own episode — a half-hour HBO session — with a fifth installment given over to Dr. Paul's own therapy visit to his mentor-shrink, Gina, played by the ever-serene Dianne Wiest. (Consult not your doctor
but HBO's schedule for its two-episodes-on-Sunday, three-episodes-on-Monday rollout of each five-episode ''week,'' plus reruns.)

But if you didn't watch "In Treatment' last
season, don't worry — they've made it easy to climb into everyone's id. Dr. Paul has moved from Maryland to Brooklyn after divorcing his wife ("Battlestar Galactica"'s mighty Michelle Forbes — we can only hope she continues to pop up for more excellent, bile-emitting cameos). This breakup enabled the show to jettison Paul's previous, superb group of patients. But fans, do not fear: Every one of the new clients exerts a strong emotional pull.

If I had to narrow it to two standouts, I'd pick April, a sullen girl barely hiding her cancer fears behind disbelief and 
 hostility. Pill's performance captures all the shadings of a creative young woman who's decided she's doomed to die.

And if you know John Mahoney only as "Frasier"'s lovable-grump dad, you'll be bowled over by his transformation into a tough-as-nails executive so busy as a corporate control-freak, he can't see the damage he's doing to himself.

Okay, I can't narrow it to just two. My heart also breaks for little Oliver as he listens to the squabbles of his parents (Russell Hornsby and Sherri Saum).

I'd be in denial, though, if I didn't admit I look forward most to the sessions between Byrne and Wiest. Watching these two wily pros — both as actors and their characters — debate and deflect each other's questions and answers is such a pleasure, I wish we were seeing full, real-time sessions. (After all, as HBO subscribers, aren't we paying for them?)

"In Treatment" may be the most habit-forming TV show on the air. As I settled in for a fresh round of advice and repressed memories, I was reminded of the therapist's famous last line in Philip Roth's "Portnoy's Complaint": ''Now vee may perhaps to begin. Yes?'' Yes.

Grade: A

Episode Title: "Mia -- Week Three"

Synopsis: Laura's deposition in the Alex Prince case spills into Paul's session with Mia.
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Episode Title: "April -- Week Three"

Synopsis: April's memories of a childhood near-tragedy underscore her lifelong independence issues.
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Episode Title: "Oliver -- Week Three"

Synopsis: Bess and Luke disagree over whether Oliver's weeklong stay at his father's was a success.
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Episode Title: "Walter -- Week Three"

Synopsis: In the midst of a corporate crisis, Walter recounts an emotional attempt to rescue and protect his daughter.
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Episode Title: "Gina -- Week Three"

Synopsis: Gina explores Paul's resentment over having to take care of his ailing father.
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Discuss.

Alison Pill is amazing! Get her a damn Emmy nomination.

Week 3 recap:

This was the first week since maybe near the end of season 1 where I thought that the entire week was strong and worthy of elevating the entire series into something great. I was concerned initially that these new patients modeled last season's patients too much -- Mia/Laura; April/Sophie; Bess & Luke/ Jake & Amy; and Walter/Alex. But now the differences are starting to show between the seasons, and these new one-on-ones are becoming insanely riveting and intense to watch unfold. I'm trying to picture the discipline it must take to do this kind of material in a believable way without it all becoming so calculated and stagey. Hope Davis was like I've never seen her before this week, and Alison Pill just blew the roof off of her session as April. I don't think I was this worried for Sophie last season until maybe her suicide attempt, which I thought that April was seriously leading up toward. And Mia going back and forth with Paul trying to goad a reaction out of him for looking at Laura's deposition was excellent. I haven't anticipated Mia's sessions before, but now I love that she starts out the week the way that she does. These would both be stellar Emmy submissions. Oliver's sessions have been the weak link so far, but this was the first one where it seemed like some forward momentum was happening when Oliver let it slip out to Bess that Luke had a new girlfriend. But more than ever, I'm waiting for Paul's one-on-ones with Oliver, b/c there's a lot to tackle with him, and I like their dynamic together without his parents around.

Walter going after his daughter like that was interesting. It's hard and captivating to see the lines and weariness on John Mahoney's face, but he's so great here as Walter, and he constantly keeps Gabriel Byrne on his toes in their scenes together. It looks like it's only going to get better next week with him. Gina's sessions have become must-see too now. Marsha Norman needs to land a writing Emmy nomination this year, b/c her sessions are some of the most incisive of all of the five this season. Dianne Wiest hasn't missed a single beat so far. No false notes at all. This could work for both Byrne and Wiest this year. Paul's constant snapping at Gina models so much of the behavior that his patients give him in therapy. Getting to the bottom of Paul's childhood with his father abandoning him and having to take care of his depressive mother gives so much insight into where Paul's coming from in his sessions. I hope that Gina rips him a new one next week for breaking their rules and sleeping with Tami. I hope that she's getting treatment for not being able to let men go properly, or maybe she secretly poisons them while they're sleeping b/c they're getting too "close" to her. She has to be in therapy for a reason. LoL. Seeing more glimpses into Paul's day-to-day life is interesting too. I hope we meet Paul's brother and father at some point soon. Strong week.

Grade for "Mia -- Week Three": A-
Grade for "April -- Week Three": A
Grade for "Oliver -- Week Three": B+
Grade for "Walter -- Week Three": B+
Grade for "Gina -- Week Three": A

Episode Title: "Mia -- Week Four"

Synopsis: Paul exposes the emotional insecurity that may have led to Mia's recent unruly weekend.
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Episode Title: "April -- Week Four"

Synopsis: Paul crosses a professional boundary after analyzing April's anxieties involving her brother and mother.
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Episode Title: "Oliver -- Week Four"

Synopsis: Despite Bess' assurances, Paul worries that Oliver's recent exemplary behavior is merely an illusion.
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Episode Title: "Walter -- Week Four"

Synopsis: Walter confronts his feelings of duty and loss in the wake of a professional "perfect storm."
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Episode Title: "Gina -- Week Four"

Synopsis: Gina encourages Paul to reconnect with his father before it is too late.
------------------------------------------------
Discuss.

Alison Pill was incredible this week. She's on a different playing field than everyone else at this point. Just wow.

quote:

Originally posted by Atypical:
Alison Pill was incredible this week. She's on a different playing field than everyone else at this point. Just wow.

I agree...Alison Pill really delivered this week. But in my opinion this season belongs to Hope Davis. She has blown me away each and every week.

"Gina - Week Four" will probably be Gabriel Byrne's episode submission and could possibly work for Wiest as well.

Week 4 recap:

I was taken this week by how much they've delved into Paul's personal life this season. There was Mia's session where Paul was coerced into letting Mia eat breakfast in his kitchen; April's session where he broke the patient/doctor boundaries and took her to chemotherapy treatments; Oliver's session where he made him sandwiches and watched Oliver eat; Paul taking the phone call from his brother about his dad's injuries before Walter's session; and then the culmination with Paul meeting/distancing himself from Tammy and seeing his dying father in the hospital after Gina's session. This was a big week for Gabriel Byrne, and the week 4 session with Gina could easily be Gabriel Byrne's episode submission. There's enough material in there for frontrunner status. Equally stunning this week was Alison Pill, who's doing unparallelled work right now as April in a mesmerizing, gut-wrenching performance. The way she's going, April might not make it to the end of her sessions (and they aren't afraid of killing off their main characters when necessary).

Mia's acting out in front of Paul was interesting in how it graphically played out all of her sexual exploits, but just as surprising was Paul admitting in Gina's session that Mia could be the type of woman that he could fall in love with in theory. Walter's session was more low-key this week, but John Mahoney is still riveting as Walter, and now that he's losing all that matters to him and having to face his brother's death, abrupt resignation, and his daughter's estrangement, next week looks fairly desperate for him. Oliver's session started to pick up finally with him solo meeting with Paul, but this was the first time I noticed Sherri Saum on her own in a good way. I realized that it was Russell Hornsby's Luke that was bringing down all of the "Oliver" sessions so far. Dianne Wiest has been amazing so far this season. She's freer, more perceptive and receptive to Paul's whims, tantrums, and vulnerabilities, and she's more to the point about what's really going on with Paul now. It'll be nice to see Michelle Forbes back next week, but I'm still hoping that Melissa George can appear again somehow too.

Grade for "Mia -- Week Four": A-
Grade for "April -- Week Four": A
Grade for "Oliver -- Week Four": B
Grade for "Walter -- Week Four": B
Grade for "Gina -- Week Four": A-/B+

Episode Title: "Mia -- Week Five"

Synopsis: Paul and Mia examine issues of life, death, loneliness, and last chances.
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Episode Title: "April -- Week Five"

Synopsis: April's revelation about her best friend Leah triggers a discussion with Paul about reliance and April's unwillingness to lean on those closest to her.
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Episode Title: "Oliver -- Week Five"

Synopsis: Oliver's recent deteriorating behavior at home and school vexes his father, who's dealing with personal issues of his own.
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Episode Title: "Walter -- Week Five"

Synopsis: Paul concludes that Walter's recent actions make him a risk to himself.
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Episode Title: "Gina -- Week Five"

Synopsis: Gina tries to get Paul to address unanswered questions about his father; Alex Sr. drops a bombshell.

Guest Stars: Michelle Forbes, Glynn Turman
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Discuss.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Atypical,

quote:

Originally posted by Atypical:
Alison Pill was incredible this week. She's on a different playing field than everyone else at this point. Just wow.

Absolutely agree. Incredible work. Hope the Emmys recognize it.

Week 5 recap:

This was a pivotal week for just about all of Paul's patients, and especially Paul, who had to come to terms with the aftermath of his father's death. It was interesting to see how just about everyone took Paul's cancellations so personally, and how needy they're all becoming of his help now. Gabriel Byrne has been an incredible grounding presence on the show this season, and has eclipsed his already strong work from last season. Mia's pregnancy news was unexpected, and even though it was sad how she doesn't know who the father is after those one-night stands, it's given her a chance to start over again after her abortion from before. Hope Davis (now a Tony nominee!) is selling all of Mia's insecurities and neuroticism beautifully right now. Alison Pill continues to be the season standout in one of the most gripping and heartbreaking performances I've seen in a long time. It's difficult to even look at April now, and that's a testament to how realistic and brutal a performance that Alison Pill's giving here. People are really missing out not seeing how brilliant she is week after week. I'll be greatly disappointed when she's Emmy-snubbed this year. The popular vote won't be kind to her, but she could have managed top ten at least with the panel vote in play like last year.

Oliver's section is more interesting when it focuses on him alone. I'm not too invested or concerned about Luke or Bess's troubles, though Sherri Saum was great in her episode last week, and Russell Hornsby redeemed himself somewhat this week after draining the momentum out of practically all of Oliver's early sessions. I hope that Paul can find a way to help Oliver, b/c it's sad to see him go through his school and family troubles like that, and it might be little to do to solve either situation. Aaron Shaw is still a great find and breakthrough this season. Walter's suicide attempt was jarring to watch, but John Mahoney was great here against Gabriel Byrne. Completely contentious and self-absorbed as usual, but signs that the tough veneer's starting to crack a little bit. It's nice to see them finally introduce Natalie, though she's not what I pictured her to be from the way that Walter described her from before. There's already such strong parallels between Walter and Alex, and it was a nice segue to have Walter find out about Paul's lawsuit the way that he did, and then next week when Walter pleads with Paul to get him off of suicide watch and let him go home just like when Alex pleaded with Paul to get the Navy to get him back on active duty again and let him fly missions again.

Paul and Gina's sections are infinitely better than they were last season, and I credit Marsha Norman's incredibly incisive writing for that, and for finally getting to the heart of Paul's troubles week after week. Dianne Wiest never misses a beat with Paul and constantly calls him on his stall tactics and defense mechanisms that all of his patients routinely use on him. Gabriel Byrne's big Emmy submission tape was last week, but he was just as compelling this week with Paul's declaration of love to Kate (I wished that Michelle Forbes could have been better used on the show this season), his anger over not ever really knowing his father and trying to resolve that, and then the end with Glynn Turman coming back! to drop Alex's case if Paul formally admits his culpability in Alex's death. I don't know where they're going with all of that, but next week's Paul/Gina session looks even better when Paul decides that he doesn't want to practice medicine anymore and Gina royally calls him on his BS.

Wonderfully complex and amazing material throughout this week.

Grade for "Mia -- Week Five": B+
Grade for "April -- Week Five": A
Grade for "Oliver -- Week Five": B
Grade for "Walter -- Week Five": A-
Grade for "Gina -- Week Five": A

Alison Pill should win the Emmy. I watch a lot of tv and I know there are many great supporting actress performances this year, but she's on a completely different level from everyone else. Sad thing is, she won't come close to being nominated. Reverting back to the popular vote has made that a certainty. If they could just see any one of her tapes, she'd make it in.

Just look at Cranston and Ivanek last year. Each probably at the lower end of the top 10 in popularity, but stunning tapes pushed them to the top to land nominations. Pill wipes the floor with everything else I've seen this season. Her episodes are truly amazing. I really hope HBO pushes her because they have to realize how damn good she is.

Yeah, I'm really rooting for Allison Pill this year. I mean, I'm a nervous wreck while watching her episodes, she's just so unbelievably real and heartbreaking. I doubt she'll get a nomination, but she truly deserves to win it this year.

And as much as I like Diane Wiest and Hope Davis, I bet they get in over Allison Pill just on name recognition alone. I wouldn't mind them getting nominated, because they're both great, but only if Allison Pill can get nominated too.

quote:

Originally posted by BuffyMars:
Just look at Cranston and Ivanek last year.

I'd disagree about Cranston. Former nominee and well-liked actor was a lot higher than most people think.

What can we do to make sure Allison Pill gets this nomination? Paint her face on billboards? Pass DVDs of her performance out on street corners?

It has been years since I've been so moved and intrigued by a character arc on television. Pill is creating one of the most complex characters of the season. What a star. She really deserves this.

Episode Title: "Mia -- Week Six"

Synopsis: A recent setback allows Paul to help Mia re-examine her contentious relationship with her mother.
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Episode Title: "April -- Week Six"

Synopsis: Accused of betrayal, Paul defends his actions while addressing April's deep-rooted insecurities.
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Episode Title: "Oliver -- Week Six"

Synopsis: Ignoring Paul's and Oliver's objections, Luke and Bess come up with a plan that will alter their family structure and dynamics.
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Episode Title: "Walter -- Week Six"

Synopsis: Paul tries to get Walter to embrace his vulnerable side.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Episode Title: "Gina -- Week Six"

Synopsis: Gina bristles over a frustrated Paul's accusation that she's not involved with her patients.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discuss.

Alison Pill was stellar again last night. This will be a career-defining role for her.
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"In Treatment" & "Breaking Bad": Turning illness into art
May 18, 2009 | by Ken Tucker

Last night it was possible to watch two extraordinary performances about people with cancer that left you feeling exhilarated.

First, in week six of HBO's "In Treatment," Gabriel Byrne's patient April, played with exquisitely modulated emotions by Allison Pill, is becoming more angry and yet more resourceful as her illness progresses. Now April feels betrayed by Byrne's Dr. Paul Weston for calling her mother (for whom she has mixed feelings: rage and contempt) when April was admitted to a hospital. April's keeping her illness a secret from her mother as much as possible, but in the process, she's turned Paul therapy-session office into her only haven. Her heartbreaking words to him at the end of this session, as she gathered her chemo-weakened limbs on his sofa? "Can you help me up?"

After that, on AMC's "Breaking Bad," Bryan Cranston continues to collaborate with show creator Vince Gilligan in creating a portrait of the cancer victim as a metaphor for severe middle-age crisis. Having been told recently that his cancer is in remission, Cranston's Walt found the news leaves him suddenly without purpose: He'd gotten used to getting-ready-to-die as his reason to live. This week, the news that his doctors want to try an expensive surgery to shrink a tumor sent him into a frenzied attempt to sell the 38 pounds of meth. He's neglecting his family again, which only makes things worse for his marriage. And "Bad" has been amazingly good this season about filling in the emotional life of Walt's wife Skyler, with Anna Gunn fine-crafting every worry, doubt, and guilty feeling of betrayal her character is experiencing. (And how about Skyler's subplot at the office? Between her Marilyn Monroe birthday-party impersonation, and calling her boss on possible embezzlement, this role has become a rich one indeed for Gunn.)

Plus, another terrific appearance by Bob Odenkirk as shady Saul the lawyer.

A grim night of television? No: a great one.

Did you watch either of these shows? Both? What do you think?

Young Talents Entwined "In Treatment"
by DEBORAH SONTAG, NY TIMES
Published: May 14, 2009

As girls Alison Pill, the actor, and Sarah Treem, the playwright, never stuttered when adults asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up.

Ms. Pill hired an agent at 10 after a successful gig reading textbooks on tape and quickly found steady work on American and Canadian television in Toronto, her hometown. Ms. Treem was 12 when her first play — written in rhyming couplets with the refrain “Who am I going to sit with at lunch?” — won a statewide young playwrights contest and was staged in Connecticut.

From early on, the two precocious girls impressed adults with their unwavering drive until suddenly, disconcertingly, they were adults themselves, wondering: Were they really good at what they did, or had they just been good for their age? Would they be accepted by their professional mentors as peers? Did their achievements make them happy?

Last winter, when Ms. Pill, 23, and Ms. Treem, then 28, were both grappling with such questions, they came together and bonded fiercely on the set of “In Treatment,” the HBO therapy drama starring Gabriel Byrne. They had become friendly the summer before at the Sundance Institute Theater Lab, but with “In Treatment” their connection intensified as Ms. Treem wrote the seven episodes for Ms. Pill’s character, April, a smart, complicated, stubbornly independent architecture student with whom they both identified.

“Alison kept reading the scripts, saying, ‘You’re writing my life,’ and I was like, ‘No, actually, I’m writing my life,’ ” Ms. Treem said during a recent joint interview with Ms. Pill. “We just hit a perfect storm of personality and art. It will probably never happen again.”

Ms. Pill, the more effervescent of the two, countered: “Sure it will. You can just keep writing for me, Sarah. It’s cool. Just write stuff, and then I’ll do it.”

For the sake of this article, Ms. Pill and Ms. Treem were speaking — animatedly, their words spilling over each other’s — via an Internet videophone hook-up. Ms. Pill, who is strawberry blond and slender with a cherubic face, lives in the East Village; Ms. Treem, tall and dark-haired with an intense poise, lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn. But the two friends have not been in the city simultaneously since “In Treatment” began its second season early last month. (The show’s sixth episode featuring April is Sunday night, and its final one is May 24.)

Ms. Pill has been back in Toronto shooting “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” a Universal Pictures movie starring Michael Cera in which she plays the drummer in his band. This caps a busy 15 months in which she turned in a memorable performance in “Milk” as Harvey Milk’s motorcycle-driving lesbian campaign manager, earned critical praise as an expletive-spitting powerhouse of rage in Neil LaBute’s play “reasons to be pretty,” spent three weeks at Sundance and then, after Ms. Treem recommended her for the part, did “In Treatment.”

Ms. Treem, meanwhile, has been in Los Angeles, ensconced in “writers’ room” for a forthcoming HBO comedy, “How to Make It in America.” A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, she has written for both seasons of “In Treatment” alongside veteran playwrights like Marsha Norman (“’night, Mother”) and Warren Leight (“Side Man”). She is that show’s youngest writer, just as, when she made her New York debut two years ago with her play “A Feminine Ending,” she was among the youngest playwrights ever produced by Playwrights Horizons.

Mr. Leight, executive producer for this season’s “In Treatment,” described the collaboration between Ms. Pill and Ms. Treem as an uncommon one in television, a result of their friendship, their natural talent — “like the kid from the minors who throws 100 miles per hour” — and the intimacy of the show itself. Both actor and writer were “cast” for the role, Mr. Leight said, and the matchmaking resulted in “a nice marriage” that produced the character of April, who resembles “both of them a lot.”

When the Internet conversation began, Ms. Pill, who was on a filming break in New York, lighted up at the sight of Ms. Treem’s face materializing on a screen. They briefly caught up on developments — “I cut my hair,” Ms. Pill said. “I learned how to play the drums.” — and then turned to some initial reactions to “In Treatment,” in which April confesses to her new therapist, Paul Weston (Mr. Byrne), that she has cancer but is not seeking treatment or telling her parents about it.

“I showed the first four episodes to my parents in one go,” Ms. Pill told Ms. Treem. “My dad was like, ‘Did you write this yourself?’ and I was like, ‘No.’ There are so many similarities in terms of April’s character and the ways she speaks, the way she knows all the answers.”

Although the plotline, based on the Israeli version of the show, revolves around April’s cancer, Ms. Treem and Ms. Pill do not see this as a cancer drama. To them it is essentially the story of an extremely self-sufficient young woman who has spent so long trying to be a perfect student, a caretaker sister (her brother is autistic) and an undemanding daughter that she cannot easily let herself be scared, needy and sick.

“We both responded strongly to this idea of the perfectly together girl who does not know how to acknowledge that she needs help,” Ms. Treem said. “It just happened to be a time when both of us were realizing for the first time that we were really on our own.”

Ms. Pill said: “We had both recently gone through break-ups, but it was personal and professional. I remember all these discussions we had: Where are the grown-ups?”

Having left home, and Canada, at 18 (with her parents’ blessing), Ms. Pill has technically been on her own a long time. After she was rejected by the only college she applied to — the University of Oxford in Britain — she moved into an East Village apartment with two strangers she met through Craigslist. Unlike most young aspiring actors who move to New York, however, Ms. Pill already had a part waiting for her off Broadway, in Mr. LaBute’s play “The Distance From Here.” Within two years she had made it to Broadway, where her performance as a gun-toting, sexually eager Irish militant in “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” earned her a Tony nomination at 20.

Ms. Pill said that she had, “like April, a vast need for independence, sometimes to my own detriment,” but that she also operated under the watchful eye of an agent and a manager as well as directors and adult actors. “Former child actors are a real weird breed,” she said. “You’re old beyond your years, but there’s also this naïveté about the basics — like I don’t know how to ride a bicycle or drive a car — that keeps you immature.”

Ms. Treem: “We had both started sort of working professionally on a high level but maybe still had this attitude where we expected people to be taking care of us. But at a certain point this is literally not going to happen.”

One night, Ms. Treem said, she went out to dinner with Ms. Pill in Manhattan and began “telling her about stuff I was going through, and I got overwhelmed.” Ms. Pill suggested that they step outside for air, and Ms. Treem, feeling faint, sank to the pavement. Ms. Pill — “Her wisdom exceeds her years,” Ms. Treem said — sat down beside her on a grimy sidewalk in the East Village and calmed her down.

“There are some times when taking care of yourself just feels so exhausting that you want to say, ‘I can’t do it,’ ” Ms. Pill said. “That’s what was so gorgeous about April. She does have that moment of admitting she doesn’t have the capacity.”

For both Ms. Pill and Ms. Treem it was comforting to have a peer on the set of “In Treatment” who was similarly navigating the transition to professional adulthood. Because they were dealing with a young female character so similar to both of them, Ms. Treem and Ms. Pill said, they were accepted as the show’s experts on April. None of their elders understood April’s story line better than they did, which afforded them an authority they might not otherwise have enjoyed, they said.

“It was amazing,” Ms. Pill said. “We were given the freedom to have our ideas, and we were taken so seriously by a bunch of older men. We’d sit around during the read-throughs and be like, ‘I don’t think she would say that.’ ”

Mr. Leight said that the relationship between Ms. Pill and Ms. Treem at times made them “insular” and cryptic. “Ever been with twins?” he said. “Sometimes there’s a private language that develops. My job was to make sure that the audience understood what they were getting at.” He added that they were so interested in April that in some early drafts Mr. Byrne’s Paul, the lead character, “did not get many words in edgewise.”

Ms. Pill acknowledged that she and Ms. Treem were very protective of April: “I remember walking through the hall and one of the electrics saying, ‘That April is such a bitch.’ I was horrified. I was: ‘No, she’s not. Shut up. She may be angry, and that may come across as bitchiness, but that’s way too simple.’ ”

In a rapid-fire back and forth the two women discussed how anger in “so-called perfect women” (to use Ms. Pill’s phrase) makes people uncomfortable. And not just anger: emotions in general. “Emotions are irrational and illegitimate, and you’re not supposed to have them or show them,” Ms. Pill said heatedly — and then laughed at herself.

Not all was that intense on the set of “In Treatment,” which was shot from November to March at the Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, Queens. Often Ms. Pill would send an urgent text message to Ms. Treem (or vice versa) saying, “Meet me at the back bay doors” behind the stage. And there they would hang, talking mostly about their love lives — or lack of love lives, they said.

“Everybody thought we were talking about scripts, but we never were,” Ms. Pill said, and Ms. Treem continued: “We were only ever talking about boys. It was kind of pathetic.”

At this point in the conversation Ms. Treem was summoned back into the writing room at HBO.

“It was good seeing you,” Ms. Pill said, smiling and waving and offering to give her friend a 29th birthday party on her return to New York.

“Drum on,” Ms. Treem said, and her image disappeared from the screen.

Damn, these two are THROWING DOWN right now. Good lord.