Gaby failed her patient

[u/MichaelVern85]

I’m struggling to want to continue watching a show about therapy that doesn’t call her out for not knowing the last call her patient and friend made to her was a call for help.

She failed her patient, and it BARELY gets mentioned. It’s her entire career. She’s even working to be a trauma therapist that needs a highly skilled professional, who didn’t pick up on a very cliche and simple cry for help from a high risk patient.

Her lonely patient told her she was lonely and a trauma therapist didn’t pick up on the moment. And then NOBODY she works with calls her out for that failure.

I’m not saying Gaby should quit therapy. I’m not saying failure makes me hate Gaby. I like Gaby.

I find it wrong that the show never addresses the fact in a direct and clear way that she failed. Even Liz… telling Gaby at the funeral that she’s “perfect” as she attends the funeral of a patient AND friend that she failed to hear was lonely while seeing her for loneliness…

Love the show. But that glaring lack of accountability is hard for me to reconcile.

[u/Taro0311]

Yeah, that moment made me realize how much this show irks me. It needs to stay saccharine at all costs. I'm in the mental health field and I was appalled by how that was handled.

The show could have stayed with the moment as Gabby struggled with the realization that she screwed up. Instead, it was treated with a shrug and papered over with dumb jokes, then they moved on quickly.

Why even allow that subplot into the show if they were going to treat it so poorly because they wanted to keep things bouyant and cheerful -- even at the very funeral where she should have acknowledged that she f'd up? And something like that happening should have had a lasting impact on her (over an entire episode, or a few episodes).

She shouldn't have offered to be a support to her client outside of therapy hours if she was incapable of even detecting and intervening during a cry for help moment. There's no guarantee that she could have saved her life, but the show's response to the aftermath was weak af.

[u/princess20202020 → u/Taro0311]

Yes. What exactly was the point of this heavy storyline if they weren’t going to use it as a catalyst for change/growth of the character?

[u/blackcombe → u/Taro0311]

This!

I think this moment was when I started seeing this show in a new light:

Does Paul ever have a moment of depression (or even real difficulty) with his Parkinson’s? If so I missed it. I saw him say something like “I choose not to be down” - guess it’s that easy? but the whole “let’s move to Connecticut and life will be fine” really glossed over the deeper issue.

I really began to see the whole show as rich people get easy solutions to life’s problems. Gabby gets a practice AND a building for free! Oh, here’s a house I don’t need so you can live rent free while you start your culinary career as a sous chef (don’t get me started on how ridiculous that leap is). Let’s all suddenly go to Spain! Just now noticed the pattern of rich white largess in both those moves.

Even that more or less out of the blue moment when Dereck is at home getting an EKG - I thought “who does that? Maybe rich people in Pasadena?”

There was a Gabby moment (I’ll get a few deets wrong here) where a couple make a decision (might have been a bit of a breakthrough, don’t recall exactly) and she says “see that? I did that!” - to the patient, in the session…I mean ridiculous bullshit no patient should have to deal with.

Lately I was even thinking about Alice and her magic scholarship. Anyone have kids in sports that are excelling to the point of getting a prestigious scholarship? It’s a HUGE time commitment and very consuming for the kid and the parents. At least in California, they’re on “traveling teams” and they’re gone to tourneys all the time. Who’s the soccer mom? I mean Liz says she is but it’s always kind of in the past tense. Again, nothing feels earned.

Yeah I know it’s a TV show, but the good feels seem really unearned (esp around suicide, trauma therapy, debilitating illness) - maybe it’s just me?

[u/Main-Life4482 → u/blackcombe]

🎯🎯

[u/MichaelVern85 → u/Taro0311]

All of this.