The biggest shocker on Sunday night's episode of Big Little Lies was the revelation that there is more than one therapist in Monterey. For nearly a season and a half we've been treated to the luxurious, dulcet-toned, therapeutically-sound, Ann Taylor Loft reads of Celeste's therapist, Robin Weigert. (I presume the therapist character has a name but I prefer to refer to her as Robin Weigert. It is also how I refer to my own therapist. This is my process, okay?) Early in the third episode, we watch Madeline (Reese Witherspoon) and Madeline's husband (Adam Scott) in a visit with Robin Weigert, widening the Weigert Therapeutic Universe. Personally, I was fine with this. Robin Weigert is a fantastic actress and is written as a wonderful therapist and I'd pay large dollars to watch her sit in a glamorously dark room, squinting kindly at each Big Little Lies character, and gently but firmly dismantling their psyches.
However, when Amabella, daughter of Renata Klein (the ICONIC Laura Dern), experiences a panic attack all of a sudden Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock are in the building because it takes two (therapists) to make a thing go right. This show, a masterpiece of straight-faced camp, really took us from Amabella in a hospital room to Amabella descending the Kleins' massive staircase behind a grown woman (Reno 911's Kerri Kenney) talking in baby voice and wearing a Little Bo Peep costume. You really have to stan the narrative audacity even as you squint at the screen, Robin Weigert-style.
Let me make one thing clear: I would give my life for Dr. Peep. She is a grown-ass, New York-bred, actual doctor who really moseyed into Monterey's one over-the-top costume shop (I presume it's called Over the Top Hat), bought a Bo Peep costume, and did what she had to do to earn that therapeutic coin. Robin Weigert must be shewk. Is this how all child psychology is performed? I really want to know. I was, unfortunately, an un-therapized child which is why I am writing things on the internet for public adulation as an adult. Can you imagine what my life would have been like if some 45-year-old wearing fake teeth and carrying a shepherd's crook had come to my house and talked to me about my existential dread? Truly a dream life.
It turns out, per Peep, Ph.D., that Amabella is having intense anxiety about climate change. Whom amongst us is not, really? She was so shewk by her second grade teacher's lesson on sustainability that she up and fainted in the closet, which prompted the arrival of Dr. Peep. Listen, there are a lot of people making very bad life choices on this show but Amabella continues to be my idol. A girl for few words, she's able to generate so much drama just by being and when she's over it, she quietly excuses herself to the nearest open doorway, peaces out of consciousness, and stops the show. We stan an anxiety-ridden scene-stealer.
Let's talk about this lesson, though. LOL at the hot teacher, who probably also has a name but I'm just going to call Vestless DeRay McKesson, going H.A.M. on these children about climate change. Even I, an adult viewer at home who has received some but not enough therapy, was like "FETCH ME MY WEIGHTED BLANKET. I CAN'T HANDLE THIS." He also, hilariously, tries to tell the children that the main takeaway from Charlotte's Web is that the spider is a lying scammer. Sis was putting that Comparative Lit degree to work. He was like, "Oh, and by the way, Templeton the rat was an anarchist. Deal with that, kiddies!" Next week he'll be using Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to talk about negotiating polycules and an equitable distribution of wealth under monarchy. "Grumpy's refusal to conform to the group-think forced positivity is an act of resistance, children!"
Honey, Monterey is wild. I'm just glad that there are at least two people with licenses to practice therapeutic care in the area and I wish that more characters took advantage of it. I was starting to think that Madeline and Celeste were under the impression that Madeline's car was a therapist from the amount of time we spend sitting in the backseat of it watching them process.
"I have an appointment with my doctor, Kitt Vroom-Vroom, this afternoon if you want to come."
Other methods of therapy employed, to varying degrees of success, by the residents of Monterey:
- Yelling at teachers
- Having conversations at coffee shops that are not appropriate for coffee shops
- Oversharing to their children
- Throwing elaborate parties
- Lies, big ones. But also little.
As you can see, Dr. Peep's presence is very needed. Please fix their lives, Bo, and then come fix mine.
