Following Gigi’s announcement that the whole band would go through some serious therapy sessions in last week’s episode, I had some new-found hope for this show. What better setting to give the SDRR crew a little more depth than by laying them down, one by one, on the Doc’s couch? But alas, I’m afraid that we’re not getting any closer to learning something real about Johnny, Flash and co. The only member of the band who takes this whole therapy malarkey seriously is the one who suggested it in the first place: Gigi. In her first session with the neo-hippy, therapeutic shamanist (Griffin Dunne), she admits to acting tough on the outside, while being plagued by fear on the inside. Ava has only one thing on her mind, namely “the vagina on Steven Tyler’s face” and Flash can’t stop obsessing over his looks, constantly asking the Doc for reassurance that he looks no older than thirty. It was obvious that Johnny and The Assassins wouldn’t find just any regular psychiatrist, but what on earth made them decide to go with Doctor “The Egg and I” is beyond me. While Dunne is brilliant as ever in his role, his quirky techniques feel like yet another desperate attempt to make SDRR something that it is not: funny.
We already know that The Heathens/The Assassins are more fucked up than Aerosmith, Kings of Leon and Metallica combined, but we’re still not any closer to sussing out the real root of their individual problems. The Doc suggests that a band is similar to a family dynamic and in order to create a new bond, there are two key factors they all need to work on: communication and forgiveness. He believes that “a box of yesterday’s rain will heal today’s spiritual wound,” but Johnny’s not having any of it:
“I’m sorry, this sounds like some creeped out Grateful Dead bullshit to me”
Rehab agrees until he realizes that the Doc is able to prescribe drugs and herbal remedies— including “kick ass peyote buttons.” In order to get the healing journey started, the Doc speaks to each of the members individually. Gigi is ready to dig deep into her soul and even Bam Bam opens up about his issues with food and growing up with three dads—two of whom were alcoholic druggies, and the third was a cop who arrested his former two dads. Various members of the band and other musicians have described Johnny as an egomaniac, and he proves them all right by showing up to his therapy session wearing a t-shirt with a print of his own face on it. They briefly discuss his Jonah Complex before Johnny falls asleep on the couch mid-session. In an attempt to better the band’s trust and bonding issues, the Doc introduces an exercise referred to as “The Egg and I.” Six eggs meant to represent each individual band member are cradled in a lovingly prepared nest, in the centre of the Doc’s praxis space. The idea is for each person to pick up another person’s egg and carefully pass it around the circle before returning it back to its nest without breaking it. But even in this exercise, the band is incapable of leaving their egos at the door, complaining about the eggs’ differences in appearance.