Gypsy - The Rabbit Hole

Maybe the title could've been different, but I think I will really like this cancelled Netflix series with Naomi Watts, called Gypsy, released June of this year. Because of all their programming, this show will eventually fade into obscurity but I think Watts and some stellar cinematography left me quite impressed. I do plan to fit the ten episodes in this month. Watts is a therapist with what appears to be a picture perfect life of affluence and domestic bliss. Dinner conversations with her successful lawyer husband, Michael (Billy Crudup), and active child, Dolly, appear quite cordial and hospitable. Even we see them as relaxed and okay, with laughter and shared complimentary dialogue seeming to express a model idyllic family life. Michael appears to respect and love his wife although he does have good chemistry with his secretary, Alexis (Melanie Liburd). I guess that is a seed planted for us as Jean (Watts) doesn't like her at all, and Alexis shares a warm, friendly camaraderie with Michael. There's a scene where Alexis is putting together a personal profile for a dating site when her boss passes by needing her assistance. She alternates back into her job right quick-like, too. Alexis sees to Michael's calls and modulates his busy schedule, often a filtration system for him in terms of important messages that should or shouldn't interfere with his work day. When Alexis tries to persuade Jean that Michael is on busy calls with important clients, it just annoys her and causes her to raise her voice. Jean just doesn't like her. Alexis handles his complicated schedule like a boss, totally reliable and dependable. Only Jean undermines her efforts to allow Michael to continue to go about his day without reminders of a trip to Belize or their daughter trying to be affectionate towards another girl at school. Nothing from what we see in the first episode would indicate any funny stuff between lawyer and secretary. Just a good working relationship. Will it remain that way? The remaining season should reveal anything else. What Jean decides to do, when not in therapy sessions with clients, certainly might cause as much suspicion...

So, as a therapist, Jean Holloway (Watts) tries to tend to her patients by allowing them to talk out their troubles and perhaps work them out with her. What is the solution to Sam Duffy’s (Karl Glusman) obsession with Sidney (Sophie Cookson), a coffee bar café barista who sings on the side? Jean tells him maybe to pack up her stuff in a box and give it to her. Jean, however, goes against perhaps the ethics of her profession by meeting Sidney at the café stop, seeing just who is so impactful towards Sam’s life.

Sophie Cookson does have that enigmatic, charismatic quality where eyes just draw towards her on a stage when performing. As a barista, it is a job and during an initial scene in the café you can hear fellow employees balking about customers (leaving tips and general attitudes towards them) as Jean awaits her order (which is often an Americano). So it is when Sidney gets away from the café where she captures the most attention. Jean arrives at the café, noticing Sam as he seems still quite unable to let her go despite bringing Sidney’s box of stuff to her (as told to by Jean as a way of “letting go”). Jean flees before Sam can see her, which indicates to us that she knows that what she is doing is perhaps questionable.

Sam speaks to Jean of how it seems Sidney has this ability to sing on stage directly to you specifically. Jean understands this as she goes to a performance of Sidney and her band after an uneventful night with the gossiping wives of her and her husband’s friends. Jean felt almost compelled to go, after introductions at the café seem to go cordially. And the presentation of the episode cleverly made sure to establish that when Jean’s eyes and Sidney’s (as she goes into the song completely in command of her audience with a voice that seems to work as a lure of the fly into her web) do meet it is as if the therapist (posing as a childless freelance writer named Diane) is being directly courted. When the two later meet around a street corner as Sidney takes up a smoke with a band mate, Jean does agree to go for a drink. A slight touching of finger as Sidney seems to initiate contact for something more “affectionate”, Jean realizes attraction, backing away. Again, a tease for the remainder of season between these two? I think most definitely.

Sidney tells both Sam and Jean different past stories involving her father. Whether he died or was a lying criminal, the past is Sidney’s so Jean soon realizes from Sam that both were told something right the opposite of the other. What is the truth? Does it even matter? Will Jean—who lied to Sidney about who she is and what she does—take too much offense to being lied to by Sidney or just be drawn further into her orbit?

*The Rabbit Hole is the location of the coffee cafe.