Last week, Ike convinced Marty to not only renovate the Hampton house but buy the property next door as well. Marty’s beloved family cherry tree was lost to Ike’s insistence and gaslighting, and now Ike’s plans for Marty’s property, and money, are likely to come to fruition. Now, it’s time for the housewarming party.
Welcome to the Jungle
Ike’s party goes off without a hitch, and it spared no expense. The safari-themed event featured all of Ike’s friends as they trashed Marty’s property. Marty served as a gracious host, and cook, and drink opener, and clean-up crew. Notably, he was not included as a guest at the party he was supposedly co-running.
In their session following the event, Marty is shocked to hear Ike is already planning another party. He doesn’t want to do that again anytime soon (and introverts everywhere nodded their heads in agreement). However, Ike does what he does best and coerces Marty into thinking it’s something he can fix, he can make Marty a social butterfly, if only he keeps trying.
At the end, Ike gifts Marty a koi fish. While it may seem like the most random thing, it’s clear that Ike’s intentions were to get Marty to build a koi pond on the property.
One Year Later
It’s time for another party a year later, and a bus pulls up to the Hampton house yet again. This time, it’s interesting to note the Herschkopf written on the mailbox. Ike pushes one of his other patients, Miriam, to go chat with Marty as he grills and we learn from Miriam about a few other likely inappropriate relationships Ike is maintaining with his patients. He’s got a few other high-profile names he sees, and Marty had no idea.
One patron is shocked to find out that Ike doesn’t own the home when Marty shows her where the bathroom is. Bonnie listens in on the conversation and seems anything but pleased as Marty dances around just admitting that the home is his and not Ike’s.
Ike isn’t pleased about that either, and he scolds Marty during his session about it. The session that Marty pays for. He’s very adamant that Marty not tell the guests the house is his, but only their’s, if anything.
Five Years Later
It’s a pirate theme this year, and the bus arrives in the Hamptons. Marty is still behind the grill as Ike schmoozes with the guests, this time with a live parrot (probably bought on Marty’s dime.) Marty heads into the house to get more of his famous kebabs and finds Bonnie crying in the kitchen. She doesn’t like who Ike has become, she wants her husband back. But now he’s a socialite with an agenda, not that he always wasn’t, but now he has the means.
Marty awkwardly leaves, still too emotionally stunted to console her despite over a decade of therapy now.
10 Years Later
You guessed it, another party, but with this one comes a bombshell. This particular party isn’t going over well with guests, and it’s hard to tell if that’s because of the more formal setting, the cooler weather, or possibly Ike himself. Ike finds Marty hiding at the koi pond, and he’s become quite the fish whisperer. But Ike doesn’t love Marty’s lack of enthusiasm. After convincing him to pound back a couple of beers, Ike tells Marty that Miriam is a prankster, and to liven this party up he should go push her into the pool. As always, Marty listens, but Miriam is far less than amused. She’s livid.
Marty follows her as she leaves, soaking wet in her brand new dress, apologizing profusely. But Miriam isn’t mad at Marty, not in the slightest. She’s furious with Ike. She knows that Ike put Marty up to it, and she asks why Marty is still listening to him at all and that she didn’t even want to attend this party at all. She calls Ike an asshole and then she confesses that Ike convinced her to cut her own mother off — just as he’d done with Marty and Phyllis — and that when her mother died she never even got to say goodbye. Clearly, this is a habit for Ike and his patients.
Marty takes Miriam to his guest house since Ike and Bonnie occupy the main house (what the second house is doing is anyone’s guess but it isn’t Marty’s). She details how Ike doesn’t care about her, he never did, despite the fact that she even loved him. But Marty isn’t having it. He gets as emotional as we’ve ever seen him thus far as he details that Ike saved his life, Ike loves him, he’s his best friend, which we all know to be false. Even after all these years, and all that money spent, Marty is still wholly under Ike’s spell. So much so, that when a now platinum blonde Bonnie (I guess she’s gotten used to the new man he husband has become in the past decade) comes in to fetch Ike for karaoke (the man needing a partner got them opening tickets to the New York ballet) Ike sends Marty into town to fetch limes for margaritas.
An Unexpected Run-In
On his stop to get the limes, Marty runs into an old neighbor who thought he’d moved (due to the name change on the mailbox). She asks about Phyllis, to which Marty has no answer, and then tells him about his niece’s new baby which shocks him to the core. He’s finally seeing all he’s missed out on during his years with Ike. The thoughts begin to haunt him, maybe Miriam’s confession about not being able to say goodbye to her mother is finally sinking in. After a few dangerous traffic maneuvers, it seems like Marty might be heading in another direction than back to Ike, but in the end, Marty pulls up back to the house.
After a brief flashback to his childhood, Marty heads straight back to his sanctuary — the koi pond. He sits in the water with his beloved fish, likely the only beings in the world who appreciate him, and Ike finds him. In a rare moment of what appeared to be sincerity, Ike sits in the water with him and asks him to introduce him to all the different koi. Marty does so happily and then tells Ike that he’d like to head back into the city for the night. And of course, Ike has a favor to ask.
No Longer a Nice Guy
Despite Marty having a car, he takes the bus back to the city with all the party guests, sitting next to Miriam for the drive. When the bus engine overheats, Marty asks Miriam to accompany him to the gas station down the road where they can call for help. She heads inside to use the restroom while Marty heads to the payphone (no one had cell reception) but when Miriam gets back outside, Marty is gone. The payphone rings and Miriam answers. It’s Ike, and he’s ending their professional relationship. Marty races back to the bus — which is fully operational — and strands Miriam in the middle of nowhere. No doubt this was Ike’s favor.
Marty has abandoned all morals and values in favor of Ike. So much so that the man who used to buy his employees a birthday cake every single year is now abandoning women in desolate gas station parking lots. This is a horrifying development for Marty, proving his absolute dependency on Ike and that there is no task too outrageous, too cruel, or too farfetched that Marty won’t do for the manipulative man he calls his best friend.
Episodes 1-6 of The Shrink Next Door are available exclusively on Apple TV+. Episode 7 will release Friday, December 10. Be sure to keep up with our continuing coverage of the series!
