After many years off the air, HBO‘s In Treatment is back for a fourth season. The original show debuted in 2008 and ran for three seasons, starring Gabriel Byrne and Dianne Wiest.
With Uzo Aduba now in the lead role as Dr. Brooke Taylor, the series also stars Anthony Ramos, Liza Colón-Zayas, John Benjamin Hickey, Quintessa Swindell and Joel Kinnaman.
Per the network, the reimagining of the series is “set in present-day Los Angeles and brings a diverse trio of patients in session with Brooke to help navigate a variety of modern concerns. Issues such as the global pandemic and recent major social and cultural shifts are a backdrop to the work Brooke will undertake — all while she deals with complications in her own personal life.”
In a recent chat with Shadow and Act, Aduba talked about stepping into this role and the importance of the show coming back with a Black woman as the headliner.
“I think it was exciting and it was great,” said the actress. “We’ve seen a lot of shows addressing mental health, whether it’s television shows, films, theater even, but rarely have we seen someone like myself sitting in as the therapist. So it was exciting for that to happen. I hope that with that happening, it helps to start some kind of conversation or opening for our community to confront mental health. But I also hope that the world at large is able to see the visibility of someone like myself, a Black woman in this seat, charged with treating people to understand that we can occupy this space as well.”
The show also highlights the importance of mental health awareness amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. With people having less human interaction, what better way to explore In Treatment than during this time in history that we’ve been in?
“I don’t think there’s anybody in our global family who could now look at people and think that they’re alone period or that there’s anyone without a problem,” Aduba explained. “I’ve been saying, even back in our before times, [if you] thought there were people in this world who didn’t have problems [and] things that they were sorting through…we’ve all been through a pandemic…so at least everybody has one on the board! I think it fractured this idea of perfection, which I think is an interesting thing to tackle in someone like Brooke who presents like everything’s perfect — whether it’s in how she dresses and does her hair and her makeup each day, to the way her home looks. She’s trying to present this idea of no cracks and fissures anywhere, but there’s a lot going on underneath. And I think that having gone through something like a global pandemic, [that] reveals [things] for a lot of people. No matter what the outside veneer might present, everybody is going through something.”
Watch the full video below in which she talked bout the show’s stirring monologues, Dr. Taylor’s iconic wardrobe and much more:
In Treatment premieres Sunday, May 23 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
