The answer to the above headline question is probably no, because according to Vanity Fair, Gypsy is one and done. Netflix announced that the 10-episode first season would not have an encore just six weeks after its premiere, “the quickest Netflix has ever canceled one of its original scripted dramas.”
A so-called psychological thriller with minimal thrills, Gypsy is the epitome of first-world problems. It centers on an obsessive, self-destructive Manhattan clinical psychologist Jean Holloway played by Watts who passive-aggressively (or sometimes aggressively) manipulates her patients beyond any ethical boundaries.
Watts delivers a fine performance as does Billy Crudup, who is solid as Watt’s lawyer husband. In fact, you’ve probably met someone very much like the Crudup character in real life.
It’s not clear whether the creators/showrunners are mocking the pampered lifestyle of Holloway and those in her Manhattan and upscale Fairfield County, Conn., orbit or presenting the narrative as a legitimate slice of life. If it’s the latter, the showrunners would seem to be wholly disconnected from the real world.
That said, Gypsy contains occasional perceptive dialogue about the human condition as well as some interesting verbal jujitsu when the Watts character almost spills the beans about her extra-curricular activities/alter ego to her clients during office sessions.
From The Hollywood Reporter:
“Watts doesn’t play Jean as victim or villain and Gypsy doesn’t judge Jean, though many viewers are probably going to think it should. Professionally, the things she’s doing are wrong and the show’s only real tension comes from playing the same, ‘Is she about to get caught in her latest lie?’ beats over and over without offering an alternative perspective, allowing us to root for the cruelly manipulated patients…Even if we’re aware that Jean is screwing up everybody’s life, including her own, we’re supposed to be complicit in her desire.”
The subplot involving the Holloway’s gender-fluid, eight-year-old daughter seemed, at best, off putting.
With all the loose ends, the showrunners apparently expected Gypsy to be renewed for a second season, but presumably the Netflix analytics were really grim.
