Adele -- Week Five

As Paul prepares to drop his son off at Steve's house, Max worries about leaving his father alone in Brooklyn. When they arrive, Paul meets Steve for the first time, but declines to stay for coffee. Paul shows up at his session with Adele late from the drive home; he's frazzled and takes an aspirin he brought with him. After the incident making pancakes, Paul finally had an open discussion with Max. When he realized his son was only staying out of concern for him, Paul decided the right thing to do was to send Max back home to his mother. While Steve seemed nice enough, leaving his son at the house may have been the hardest thing Paul has ever had to do. During Paul's retelling of the story, Adele picks up on his decision to take the session with Jesse and thinks that Paul is looking to evoke a certain response from her. Paul is irked that Adele seems to be dancing around the fact that a week earlier, he revealed his feelings for her. Though he first dismissed the feelings as an outgrowth of therapy, he now believes the two of them could really make each other happy. He imagines a life with Adele, in which they sit and discuss their patients over wine. Paul wants to discuss his session with Sunil and whether he might be a threat worth acting on. The session is over, but Paul persists. He knows that she has no more patients because he waited outside her building last week for over an hour. Paul presses on and Adele finally snaps. She says Paul has asked her to be everything to him -- colleague, supervisor, life partner -- except his therapist. Furthermore, she continues, Paul has been paralyzed to act in all aspects of his life, whether it is with his son, his patient, his girlfriend, his health. She recommends he see her twice next week, but Paul refuses.