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Which patient has the most unrealistic and unbelievable story, and why?
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(32 of 47)
Re: The most unbelievable story line
Jun 6, 2009 11:14 AM
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The Penn diplomas show up most prominently in Week Five's Alex episode (at the end, after they fight). The text isn't clear enough to make out what degree he receieved. Maybe our forum hosts can find out for us??
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Re: The most unbelievable story line
Jun 6, 2009 10:59 AM
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If memory serves, you get a pretty good close up of the Penn diplomas during one of the later Alex episodes. You can catch glimpses of them throughout the season. I'll check to see if you can see the degree. Penn does their diplomas in Latin (useful!), so I doubt I'll be able to figure it out. What is clear, however, is that they wanted informed viewers to know he went to Penn. They show the diplomas often and they are displayed prominently by his door. My guess would be that they moved him to two NYC schools to better explain his move to Brooklyn.
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Re: The most unbelievable story line
Jun 6, 2009 1:47 AM
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I remember someone posting last year about seeing Paul's diplomas on the wall and their being from the University of Pennsylvania. I guess the writers this season thought the fans didn't notice them, but you don't get much past the devoted fans of the show.
BTW, in which episode did you notice the diplomas? Can you tell what degrees Paul earned? Last year, several patients referred to Paul as a psychiatrist, so I wonder if one of the diplomas from last year show him to be a M.D.?
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Re: The most unbelievable story line
Jun 5, 2009 11:09 PM
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I just finished watching both Seasons 1 and 2. On Paul's wall in the first season are two diplomas from the University of Pennsylvania. Both have his name on them, so it's clear they went to some trouble to make them. In season 2, we are told (through Mia's reading of his dossier) that he went to Columbia and the New School! And the Penn diplomas are not in his new Brooklyn office!
What gives?? Now THAT is unbelievable....
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Edited by dcdrew72 at 06/05/2009 8:12 PM PDT
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Re: The most unbelievable story line
Jun 5, 2009 12:42 PM
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> if there is anyone out there who, in their
> hospital experiences either as a pro or a patient,
> has ever seen the likes of Laura working as a doctor.
> And no making things up!
>
>
>
> Is there anyone out there who has seen/worked with a
> Psychologist who looks and acts like Paul (either as
> a patient or colleague. Could you please give me his
> number????
Right?? If Gabriel Byrne or look-a-like were my doctor, I sure would find it distracting! Probably too distracting to be able to seriously concentrate on any kind of meaningful therapy session! 
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Host_Ginna
HBO Forums Host
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(27 of 47)
Re: The most unbelievable story line
Jun 2, 2009 7:26 PM
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if there is anyone out there who, in their hospital experiences either as a pro or a patient, has ever seen the likes of Laura working as a doctor. And no making things up!
Is there anyone out there who has seen/worked with a Psychologist who looks and acts like Paul (either as a patient or colleague. Could you please give me his number????
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Edited by MissPDX at 06/02/2009 4:26 PM PDT
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(26 of 47)
Re: The most unbelievable story line
Jun 2, 2009 1:48 PM
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Hey, Avid! The REAL reason for the move (behind-the-scenes) was that Gabriel Byrne had asked for it (since he lives in NYC and his kids are there).
Actually, I believe it was in Mia Week 1 that where Paul said he had been offered a teaching job at Columbia University (his alma mater) and hence the reason for the move to NY, as well as seeing "new" patients.
Also, there was some mention of the chance to "start over" again after his divorce from Kate. And it's close enough that he can get on the train and see his kids on the weekends in Baltimore.
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Edited by jtomppert at 06/02/2009 10:49 AM PDT
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Re: The most unbelievable story line
Jun 2, 2009 11:01 AM
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I forget if there was a reason given for Paul's move to Brooklyn. I mean, it's hard to see a person of his occupation move so far not only from everyone he loves, but from his patients. I'm no psychologist, but I think it would be hard for him to build a new practice, aside from the issue of abandoning many patients who trusted him and relied on him. (Idea for Amtrak - encourage folk to commute weekly to their shrink hundred of miles away. I know it's different for him as he sees his kids over the weekend.)
And why New York? I forget if this came up.
(By the way, in the Israeli show Paul's character and his long-lost girlfriend develop a love relation. Also, he only moves from a Tel-Aviv suburb to an apartment in the city, thus, I assume, maintaining his previous practice.)
As I write this I feel a bit weird digging into lives of figments of someone's imagination. I guess this is the gist of shows like this - one cares.)
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Re: The most unbelievable story line
Jun 1, 2009 7:33 PM
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Better late to the party than be a no-show.
Not sure I would call Laura an unbelievable story, but it was the most uninteresting for me. Somehow I don't want to see a therapist as vulnerable as Paul was portrayed -- not saying it can't happen, but I didn't want to witness his "acting" on it. I believed Paul to be a very ethical therapist, and to see him touch the line, and some would say cross it, made me understand why some think those who become therapists are really lost souls wanting to save themselves.
I also didn't like Mia, although I find it very plausible that an aggressive lawyer would be comfortable speaking her mind, so to speak. I found her pathetic and lonely. Putting a therapist in the position of maintaining the "line" when he's in trauma himself made my attention shift from HER problems to HIS.
Sorry for the disjointed thoughts. I found Season 2 to be less satisfying than Season 1. In 1 I followed the patients, and in 2 I followed Paul. This past season I was focused on how Paul reacted to his patient's issues, whereas in 1 I was focused on how Paul helped each patient down the path. I liked the way I felt in 1 better, and hope that 3 will resemble 1 more than 2.
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Re: The most unbelievable story line
Jun 1, 2009 4:10 PM
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if there is anyone out there who, in their hospital experiences either as a pro or a patient, has ever seen the likes of Laura working as a doctor. And no making things up!
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"I know you think I'm a dirty chinchilla" - Lois - "Big Love"
Hey, hows about the drs/dentists who sexually abuse their patients????? There's tons of them out there
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(22 of 47)
Re: The most unbelievable story line
Jun 1, 2009 3:00 PM
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> I'm with you, avidreader111. Compelling points.
I'm dubious how realistic the Israeli verson was, either. The very characeterization of Alex as a "fighter pilot" rings false. In the military history I read, fighter pilots engage enemy aircraft; protecting, clearing the way for bombing missions. Alex describes bombing missions, not fighting enemy aircraft. Or did I miss something?
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Edited by babeeblues at 06/01/2009 12:04 PM PDT
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(21 of 47)
Re: The most unbelievable story line
Jun 1, 2009 2:33 PM
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I gave up trying to imagine how Paul was Gina's patient, among other things, for years, while not getting to matters they did this season, or resolving them.
I've known women like Laura. For me, the character was compelling.
I have not known CEOs remotely like Walter. But I mght be reacting to the casting more than the writing.
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(20 of 47)
Re: The most unbelievable story line
Jun 1, 2009 12:02 PM
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Oh yeah, hey! The whole Alex thing, I didn't think of him! You have made some very good points!
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Re: The most unbelievable story line
Jun 1, 2009 7:59 AM
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Laura is not unbelievable. She is a professional woman, still unattached - probably spent her earlier years becoming the accomplished person she is, trying to connect to someone. She was abused as a young teenager, therefore promiscuous and unsure in her relationships. Please, don't make her a Ted Bundy! She grieves for a strange dog hit by a car and is deeply disturbed by a mistake she makes in her practice. She falls in love with Paul - who are we to blame her?
I was sorry they did not - what do we call it - hook up together. If they did it would not be her fault but his, and after going so far Paul can't perform. It's not ethics that keep them apart, at least not consciously.
I thought Alex's was the more unbelievable story. It was literally transported from an Israeli plot, and it did not fit. His swagger and outwardly God-like confidence is purely Israeli air force pilot. The enormity of his gay tendencies is also more fitting to the Israeli plot. Israel is a small country with two degrees of separation at best. The likelihood of him being "discovered" in a gay bar and the speed with which this juicy bit would travel is much more Israeli than American.
And then there's his father...
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Re: The most unbelievable story line
May 31, 2009 12:59 AM
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> If I recall, Philip Markoff was a med student who had
> the rest of his life ahead of him....instead, he was
> recently charged with murder of a girl in a hotel
> room, robbing two others in similar situations,
> engaged to be married and had a gambling problem
> which most people did not know about and you find the
> Laura character, unbelievable? He was going to be a
> DOCTOR, for goodness sakes!
>
> To address your comment above, most hospital
> personnel handle themselves very professionally
> however, through my life I have known a few people
> in the medical field who were completely different on
> a social level than they portrayed in their careers.
>
> I think it is very believable that Laura could handle
> herself professionally and then act differently
> outside the hospital setting.
> > --
> > You get what you concentrate on...there is no
> other
> > rule
>
> --
> Edited by itfan at 05/30/2009 8:30 PM PDT
it: I agree that "you can't tell a book by its cover". I mean wasn't Ted Bundy charming, handsome, intelligent and a professional? Scott Peterson? There are so many famous psychopaths now I'm not sure who wins the "Normal at Work, But Kinky, Crazed Killer After 5" award. (Not to leave out the ladies, but ...) I never really gave Laura's profession a second thought until she recounted her "near death" accident that she dealt one of her patients whilst daydreaming of witless Paul. It may have been at that precise point that found her profession as an anthesiologist something to roll my eyes about, if not outright exclaim, "Oh yah....whatever....anesthesiologist my ass!". But I never really thought of her as anything more dangerous than a beautiful homewrecking wench.
I can totally believe, however, that there are professional people out there who can sit at a desk by day and tear up the town by night....as is so evident when Laura skillfully and craftily managed to show up at Paul's after her oh so dramatic night out....mascara running down her cheeks....stockings torn...hair rumpled.....poor little girl lost. I bet you that if a lot of us women got together and produced a book as thick as a phone directory, we could call it "How To Get A Man In the Twentyfirst Century" , with a sequel of "How To Get A Woman.....". Laura would be the poster girl, of course. She is so opposite of how I picture the comportment of a "doctor". But then, my doctors were probably all married with children. I would just be interested to know, in a purely statistical sense, if there is anyone out there who, in their hospital experiences either as a pro or a patient, has ever seen the likes of Laura working as a doctor. And no making things up!
--
"I know you think I'm a dirty chinchilla" - Lois - "Big Love"
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