TL;DR: The only real reason I continued to watch until the end is because I hoped there would be some sort of closure. There wasn't. Avoid this like the plague.
In a nutshell, Gypsy is the story of Jean Halloway, a clinical therapist, wife and mother who is apparently bored with her suburban home life for reasons the show doesn't really bother to explain.
We're meant to understand that she is a "free spirit" who is "wild" and feels trapped and desperate now that she's been "tamed" by marriage and family. We're meant to sympathize with her and see all her irrational actions as desperation to break free.
The problem is, we're never SHOWN this supposedly free spirited side of Jean. We're given nothing to work with. From the beginning all we're shown is a manipulative woman, unethical clinician, unfaithful wife and emotionally absent mother.
We are never given a clear reason as to why Jean decides to invade her patient's privacy and toy with their personal and romantic lives in the way she does. At no point does the show even remotely attempt to help the audience understand why she chooses to risk her marriage and her career by behaving so unethically and dangerously.
This issue is worsened by the fact that Jean's marriage is shown to be a happy one, to a handsome, powerful attorney who dotes on her. They're shown to have a very active and exciting sex life which Jean seems to enjoy, so her seeking out an affair with the ex-girlfriend of a patient makes even less sense.
The biggest problem is that there seems to be no real payoff in the end, neither for the audience, nor the Jean. She abuses her patient's and her husband's trust, entangles herself in a web of lies seemingly for nothing and in the final scene, not one single thread or storyline is resolved.
In a nutshell, Gypsy is the story of Jean Halloway, a clinical therapist, wife and mother who is apparently bored with her suburban home life for reasons the show doesn't really bother to explain.
We're meant to understand that she is a "free spirit" who is "wild" and feels trapped and desperate now that she's been "tamed" by marriage and family. We're meant to sympathize with her and see all her irrational actions as desperation to break free.
The problem is, we're never SHOWN this supposedly free spirited side of Jean. We're given nothing to work with. From the beginning all we're shown is a manipulative woman, unethical clinician, unfaithful wife and emotionally absent mother.
We are never given a clear reason as to why Jean decides to invade her patient's privacy and toy with their personal and romantic lives in the way she does. At no point does the show even remotely attempt to help the audience understand why she chooses to risk her marriage and her career by behaving so unethically and dangerously.
This issue is worsened by the fact that Jean's marriage is shown to be a happy one, to a handsome, powerful attorney who dotes on her. They're shown to have a very active and exciting sex life which Jean seems to enjoy, so her seeking out an affair with the ex-girlfriend of a patient makes even less sense.
The biggest problem is that there seems to be no real payoff in the end, neither for the audience, nor the Jean. She abuses her patient's and her husband's trust, entangles herself in a web of lies seemingly for nothing and in the final scene, not one single thread or storyline is resolved.