Mr. & Mrs. Smith S1E6: Couples Therapy

The title is very literal for a change, as we open with Jane and John in couples therapy. At the end of the previous episode, their mysterious boss offered Jane a promotion, and asked if she’d like to replace John with a new partner. This was private, but the bottle of wine sent as a thank you — to Jane only — was not. Obviously Jane didn’t opt to replace John; he’s the co-creator of the show, apart from anything else. But he knows, and feels understandably hurt.

So, couples therapy, with special guest Sarah Paulson. John thinks Jane’s controlling; she thinks that’s unfair. He thinks she’s threatened if he does well at the job. And as far as the therapist knows, that job is software engineering. Which is tricky for the Smiths, because that’s a much flimsier justification for Jane not wanting to have kids than “people are shooting at us all the time.”

It’s also tricky to talk about the specifics of their work honestly, so we get the juxtaposition of a recent mission in flashback, and their fumbling to pretend it was about signing up software clients, while still trying to get into their issues as partners.

And the mission does bring up some issues. John has to win the trust of a group of black men about his age — he’s got an obvious advantage there, so Maya’s on the outside listening in. He’s chummy with them, and while she chafes at some of their sexist banter, there’s no way to know whether John’s speaking his mind or just saying whatever will win his new friends’ approval for the sake of the mission.

Except his comments keep getting personal. He says there’s something wrong with a woman who isn’t close with her family. (Maya cut hers out of her life when she took this job; John still breaks protocol to call his mom.) And then the conversation gets into some questionable talk about Asian women. Jane decides she has enough and interferes. “Aggressively,” as John puts it.

It’s all very well done, in that both of them are in the wrong to varying degrees at different times. And it’s largely the fault of the job they’ve trapped themselves into. They were dropped into this marriage and have to make the best of it. They’re under tremendous pressure, and they constantly have to act like different people, to the point where it’s difficult to know what’s real.

And, like any couple, they’re flawed people. Jane is too controlling, but she’s also legitimately better at the job than John is and gets frustrated with him. He can be too flippant; she can be too self-serious. He’s easygoing, and she’s tightly-wound, but she sees that as him being less committed to the job. Which, as we established last week, he is! It also means he doesn’t assert himself as much in the relationship, but then gets upset when everything seems to be about her.

It’s all classic married-couple stuff, just exacerbated by the fact that their ability to work well together is life-and-death. It’s the entire premise of the show distilled to its essence.

And it strikes at the heart of what it’s like to be in a bad marriage. You get into things with the best intentions, and only with time can you learn whether you’re really compatible. And sometimes you aren’t. You have different priorities, different modes of communicating, you chafe against each other, the hurt piles up, you voice all your deepest resentments, you say awful things… and then you still have to wake up and make breakfast every morning. You still live together, your finances are tied together, maybe you have kids to take care of, maybe there’s a secretive international spy agency that will murder you if you leave. You know, normal married couple stuff.

To make things worse, the therapist keeps unknowingly twisting the knife. They should take a break from work. They should try working separately. And worst of all, “No one is forcing you to stay together. No one is holding a gun to your head.”

Once again, the enormity of their situation hits Jane and John like a ton of bricks. They don’t seem to be able to work out their fundamental disconnect, but they can’t stop working together, and they can’t simply break up. They’re in it until death do they part, which might be disconcertingly soon.

Stray bullets:
• The therapist is also pretty awful, which Paulson plays wonderfully. She and John gang up on Jane at one point, which is horribly unprofessional. And she starts a story, “when I was spending time in the jungles of Costa Rica….” But after a tense session, they’re able to laugh about her together. Our Smiths are always at their best when they have a common enemy.

• There’s a kicker at the end that reminds us that, whatever their issues, Jane and John are ultimately on the same side. But it doesn’t paint them in the best light.

• It’s only mentioned in passing, but they fail one of the missions we flash back to. They can fail three times, according to their boss, and that’s number two.