"I got a choice:" "Either I accept your superiority, as if you're some kind of god, or..." "I use my intelligence, and do a little investigating." "Yeah, you'd be real surprised the kind of information you find out from a few phone calls." "I found... a hell of a god, a god whose wife is sleeping around behind his back, whose daughter is fucking junkies." "And then Laura comes along, and you fall in love with that crazy slut." "Don't you fucking talk about my patients, you fuck!" " Oh, hi." " Hey." "Gosh, you never get the mail." "Yet today, 30 seconds after it arrives, you're sprinting down to the curb." "What on earth could you be expecting?" "A love letter, maybe?" " I saw her, Paul." " Who?" "Who?" "Laura." "I saw her." "What, what do you mean, "you saw her"?" "I was taking out the trash, and I saw her leaving." "I thought you said, she quit therapy." " She did quit." " Then what the hell was she doing here?" "Her father's in the hospital, and, uh, she called me and asked me if she could come in." "What should I have said, Kate?" ""I'm sorry about this crisis with your father, but I've told my wife that you've quit therapy."" "No, you should have told me that she came back." "It wasn't a social call." "And if you wanted to find out what was going on, all you had to do was ask me, Kate." "Don't you dare turn this around on me." "What, you, you think you deserve her, you've earned her, because of what I did to you?" "For Christ's sake." "Well, lucky you." "Saved by the bell yet again." "S01E27:" "Alex, Week Six" "I'm glad you came back." "I went against all my instincts." "Come on in." "So, what were your instincts?" "You want the truth?" "The first was to come back here and beat the shit out of you." "And the second one?" "The second one was an instinct that I learned in the, uh... in the Navy." "It's a survival tactic we teach:" "to think like the enemy." "I'm trying to understand, why you're all so afraid of me." "When you say "all", who would you be referring to?" "You and the rest of the world." "Listen." "I realize I threatened you." "And that's where your aggression comes from." "So, in what way do..." "you threaten us, you think?" "You consider me a murderer." "The last couple of weeks " "I've been trying to figure out..." "When people look in my eyes, look at my hands, can they... can they tell that I've killed 42 people in the past 20 years?" "That's 42 human beings." "You can't hide something like that, right?" "There's something about me, they, they've gotta see that." "And it scares them." "So, do you think that there is something about you, something -- obvious that people see?" "You probably wanted to strangle me the first time I walked through that door." "In the last session, you finally got a chance to show your hatred for people like me." "I, I think, maybe that's how you see yourself, Alex." "Maybe that's why you pushed me to such a... a violent place, so that I'd treat you the way that..." " you think you should be treated." " Let me remind you, you attacked me." "So, what did you feel... when I... attacked you?" "What did I feel?" "A slight tremor in the wing." "That's it." "So, no big deal?" "No big deal." "But, Alex, I pushed you against the bookcase, I threw coffee in your face." "I'm just curious -- what, what happened in your... in your body, what was going through your head?" "Well, hold on a second, I just realized something -- you... you haven't apologized yet." "Okay, before anything else, you're supposed to say" ""I apologize." "I'm sorry." "It'll never happen again."" "Now I've been here, what, five minutes so far, and I got nothing from you." "You're right." "You're absolutely right." "I apologize." "It should not have happened." "But..." "I... felt very..." "offended by what you said." "Offended?" "No, no, no, no." "That's not part of the deal." "No, I can say whatever the hell I want, in here." "That's the point of going to a shrink." "You want me to censor every sentence, or keep wondering if what I say might hurt you?" "Well... it's still like a relationship, Alex." "There are, there are boundaries." "I felt that you were out to hurt me, and I... was very hurt." "What offended you so much?" "It was all true, wasn't it?" "Well, you invaded my privacy." "You talked about the people I love, and you spoke about them with contempt and with what I felt was... deliberate cruelty." "Okay." "So, I guess my therapy is over?" " Now, right?" " That's, that's, not what I said, Alex." "No, but it's what you think." "Listen, you're tired of taking the shit I give you all the time," "And, actually, I don't blame you." "If I were you, I'd have gotten rid of me a long time ago." "So, is that why you say those things, in the hopes that I would, uh, what, run away, kick you out?" "It's not gonna happen, Alex." "You know, you guys really do live in a bubble." "You live in this world, you don't... you know, it's all theories." "You don't engage, you..." "What?" "Finish that thought." "What would, would -- what were you going to say?" "No, I just remembered this -- dream I had." "I was -- on the ground, I was driving this little car on the, uh, Iraqi international airport highway." "They call it "the highway to hell."" "And -- all of a sudden I'm in Baghdad, in this traffic jam." "Above my head" "I see this enemy plane -- it's a Czech Mig or," "I'm not sure what it is exactly, but this, this Mig is being followed by one of our -- jets, an F-16." "Everyone's looking up, watching, and I say to myself..." ""Why isn't he shooting?" "Why doesn't he blow him out of the sky?"" "Now, maybe he's afraid that all the debris will fall on the people below, but, but I know in the dream the orders are to take that fucker down." "So they're flying, they're flying real close like this and maneuvering, and our guy doesn't launch." "And the enemy plane is getting away, and it's driving me crazy," "I mean, shit, he's on his way to our base camp, and all the people on the ground below, they're waiting for him to take the Mig down, and they're bloodthirsty." "And it doesn't happen." "They just -- fly away." "And that's it." "So, do you think you would have done better if you'd been up there?" "Shit." "Any pilot worth his salt would have blown that asshole to kingdom come." "And who, who is the pilot?" "Maybe it's me." "I don't know." "You're the one who can't shoot?" "Why not?" "I don't know, maybe... maybe because the other guy, the other pilot... is not that dangerous." "I knew that." "He's only..." "What?" "He's only what?" "Who's, who's... who's sitting in the plane?" "Who's sitting in the enemy plane that you refuse to shoot down?" "I don't know, I don't know who's there." "I, I don't know." " No." "Who is the enemy, Alex?" " Hey, stop, man." "Jeez, when you wanna pressure, you pressure." "I don't know." "Who's my enemy?" "You?" " Is that how it feels?" " No, it's not you, 'cause you're not there." "I don't know." "Maybe it's my father." "What?" "What, you know the answer, but you don't wanna..." " you want me to come up with it." " No, it's a, it's a, it's just a dream." "I, I, I'm just helping you to, to, to look at it, that's all." "Okay, well, then you must have some chart or something around here, telling... telling you what every part of a dream represents in reality." "No, no." "Not really." "Sometimes a number of images can, can represent the same thing." "So, it's me?" "That's what you're saying, right?" "That I was the enemy pilot?" "I'm my own enemy?" "Well, look, it's not clear, actually, that he's even an enemy, I mean, it's not that he doesn't have identification marks on the plane." "I'm just not familiar with it." "I don't know for sure." "But he is, he is trying to get away from you." "What do, what do you think of this guy, this, this pilot, this -- fleeing pilot?" "I think, he's a fucking coward." " Oh, yeah?" "What else?" " He's not a man." "He's running away like a pussy, instead of turning around, standing his ground and fighting." "I'm dying to come up to that pitiful fucker and shove an air-to-air missile up his rear burner." "What're you thinking?" "Just say it." "You think I'm a faggot?" "That would go right along with all my father's theories." ""Only girls and fags see a shrink."" "So, what if I'm a fag?" "You know, you said it... very clearly before." "Did I?" "Well, maybe you didn't say it, but you've been leading me there." "I have?" "Yeah." "You're dying to say it's a homosexual dream." "I'm tailing him," "I see a, a fire coming out of his back burner," "I wanna shove my " "It all fits, doesn't it?" "Even Daniel never suspected it." "That could explain a lot of things." "What things?" "Laura, for instance." "That lousy fuck we had the first time." "And Michaela." "The fact that I'm suddenly not attracted to her anymore." "We saw each other, this week at a restaurant, and she wants me to come back home, and thought it'd be better if we... talked to each other in person." "She was, she was... driving hard, man, just on a mission, just on the attack." "She wanted us to start off by getting a room ASAP." "There's that hotel above the restaurant." "And I said, I couldn't, I couldn't." "I told her I had somewhere to be... that we would do it another time." "Now, I really did have something else to do that night." "I was supposed to go with Daniel and his, uh... his partner Sean to a party." "You understand, this amazing woman wants to fuck the shit out of me in a five-star hotel, and instead I'm going to Georgetown with these two fags." "Do you understand that?" "And, and why do you think you'd rather spend time with, uh... with them?" "Everything's a joke with them." "I mean, I don't know if you're familiar with their world, but their humor... is in seeing everything from the outside, like they're not a part of it, like..." "like... they're above it." "And, and by "they", you mean..." "you mean homosexuals?" "Yeah, yeah, especially Sean's crowd." "I mean, he's genuinely queer." "You know, he's not that kind that's in conflict with himself," "I mean, he's... this -- Sean is immune... to tension." "He's happy, he's happy all the time." "He -- he just has no subconscious." "Everything is... right out in the open." "Is that something that..." "Is that something that you envy?" "Well, they don't pressure me." "I mean, they, they give you shit, to provoke you, and they love that shit, but..." "You know, Sean asked me..." ""Why do you always desperately... try to please everybody -- all the time?" "God and country -- everybody?"" "But it's bullshit, I mean, with them, they don't care, they really don't care." "They... they don't demand of me to be anything... extra." "That night -- we got home about 4:00 a.m., and, uh, Daniel went to the bedroom, and..." "Sean and I stayed out in the living room." "He got a DVD, some gay porn thing, and..." "Look, I don't know if he was trying to provoke me -- or what." "And, uh..." "He even suggested afterwards I'd be ready for bed." "He said it jokingly, but... he won't playing." "He told me once," ""I didn't know the meaning of life until I got fucked in the ass."" "I once read that, psychologically, water symbolizes emotions." "I wonder what your collection of boats says about you." "I don't know." "Maybe that I'm an emotional wreck." "Maybe you want to go out to sea... but you don't." "You mean that I want to express my feelings, but I can't." "You know, my father's a lifetime democrat... a war protester." "And I knew... that, if I joined the Navy, it would piss him off." "So, fuck it, I went ROTC in high school, and then I got my wings." "He couldn't tell me -- shit." "I remember, the first time you were here, you said that... that you didn't chose to be a pilot, that life chose it for you." " Yeah." " But I don't know about that." "I think, maybe you did choose that path, and that you did it to defy your father." "He wanted me to be hard." "There's nothing harder than a TOPGUN grad." "Yeah, but, that's still a reaction to him." "It's not your desire." "I don't think you're in touch with what you really want." "What, what I really want?" "What are you... what are you saying?" "What I really wanted was..." "to be something else?" "Gay?" "Have you ever been attracted to men..." "Alex?" "No." "Ever had a sexual fantasy about a man?" "I have never, no..." "No." "So, when you say the word "gay", what do you mean by that?" "I don't know." "Don't take me there, man." "This, this saying what you think all the time -- that's gay." "I mean, those guys, they have no filters." "What else?" "Talking about your feelings all the time." "So, what you do here, for example, the way you interact with me " "Your father said -- he said that anybody who goes to a shrink is a, is a, is a fag." "How did you get on with your dad when you were a kid?" "Um..." "I remember, as a kid... my father taking me to a church, this was the Riverside Church up in Harlem." "And... back in those days, I lived kind of a double life." "During the week, I went to this all-boys private school." "It was elite... the finest teachers, it was..." ""The best", right?" "Right." "It was also a totally sheltered environment." "So, on the weekend, my dad would take me to all these... real rough ghetto areas, you know, to places where he volunteered his time and money." "He wanted to make sure that I, I knew how lucky I was to live my little soft, cushy life." "I dreaded those fucking weekends -- hated them." "It's like he was always trying to test me." "Anyway, the Riverside Church had this athletic program that my dad supported." "He needed to talk to the guy that ran the place, so, they told me," ""You wait outside, shoot some baskets."" "So, it's early, and the courts are deserted." "And this is, it's a really -- it's a bad area." "But long story short, this kid comes up." "He's about..." "I don't know, he's 14." "And he beat the hell out of me." "He, uh... kicked me in the head a few times." "He had this box cutter." "I thought, he was gonna... slice my face." "But he wound up taking some little bullshit chain I had, and... my sneakers, he took my sneakers, took my socks, and he... even took this little half-full..." "pack of chewing gum." "And..." "I went upstairs... and my dad sees me, and he sees, I just got my ass kicked, that I got no sneakers, no socks." "And I started to tell him what happened." "And I, I " " I started crying." "So, my dad... slapped the shit out of me." "Sounded like a whip crack." "And he made me walk around barefoot for the whole rest of the day, just to teach me a lesson." "What age were you?" "Eleven." "And the next weekend, he took me to a gym... to meet up with this guy named Tom." "And Tom said that there are two types of martial arts." ""One is the kind that's a physical and spiritual discipline, a way of life." "The second type... is where you learn to fight," "And this here is a fighting gym." "You got a problem with that?"" "I didn't have a problem with it..." "'cause I didn't want anybody to ever put their hands on me like that ever again." "So I came four days a week after school, and I learned, and I learned fast." "And the next time some kid picked on me," "I beat his face -- to a pulp." "You couldn't even recognize him." "'Cause, see, fear is like fire." "If you master it, then it can heat your house, cook your food, but if it gets the best of you, it can burn you, it can destroy you." "You control your fear..." "You control your fear, you control your life." "Excuse me." "Are you all right?" "Yeah, I don't think I can do this." "Do what?" "This therapy, I..." "That's just -- it's too much for me." "I think I need a break of, of..." "a few weeks or months." "Just don't think it's leading anywhere, that's all, I, it's... it's not leading anywhere." "Where do you want it to lead, Alex?" "Someplace where I feel less shitty about myself." "So, at least where I could find some balance -- in my life." "Some place sane." "I miss flying." "Somehow everything is just much simpler up there." "I can focus on something." "The only thing you have to think about is the mission." "It's quiet." "Is it possible to get that feeling... on the ground, do you think?" "I don't know." "You know, I got a call from my wing commander, he's, uh... he is *** to know how I'm doing." "He's ***, and he's trying to figure out if I'm ready." "For active duty?" "It's, you know, it's all sorts of tests, though, it's, it's a long process." "Do you think you're ready for that, Alex?" "What do you think?" "No, I don't think you're ready." "Maybe I can discuss it with Michaela." "I don't think Sean and Daniel would be much help, 'cause they..." "Gays don't really understand the military... or vice versa." "Alex, these, these feelings and, and memories that you have about your father..." "I think... this is really something we should... we should come back to." "Yeah, uh..." "I might actually have to go in over the next few weeks... some days for some meetings and..." "So I keep you posted if I can't come next week." "Sure." "Thanks."