‘Breeders’ Episode 10 Ending Explained: Could Paul seeking therapy pave the way for Season 2?
Paul (Martin Freeman) and Ally Worsley (Daisy Haggard) have been struggling through parenting, their careers, managing their relationship and many other smaller factors that don’t seem obvious but make a lot of difference to family dynamics. That changed a lot lately with Ally and Paul getting married and then she immediately moving to Berlin for her new project while he held the fort back at home. Then their son, Luke (George Wakeman), falls sick and that makes Ally rush back only to find out that their son is diagnosed with encephalitis and that could be fatal if not put in coma.
This situation brought a huge change within the family, interpersonal relationships, including that between Paul and his father, but most importantly, it made Paul revisit his own behavior. So far, Paul’s personality has mostly reflected anger, frustration and intolerance towards his children’s behavior. His kids are no doubt, extremely stubborn and could prove to be implausible at times. But when Luke is put into coma (for the treatment to work better), he realizes that he could be a better father and prays to what he believes is “God” (even if it’s David Bowie for him). He promises himself to not shout, rage or lose his temper on Luke and be more patient.
Fast forward to a few days at home, after Luke is discharged from the hospital, Ally and Paul are talking about how to manage once she goes back to Berlin. You would think that after whatever happened to her son, she might not want to leave him, but she has to go anyway, or her company could lose everything. This means Paul cannot take up the new job that his friend was trying to rope him into. Even Paul wanted to. After all, he had not thought about himself or his career in a long time.
But he cannot pursue that anymore now that Ally needs to go away and Paul needs to look after the kids and home. This starts to frustrate him perhaps, internally. As he hears Luke and Ava (Jayda Eyles) fighting over a toy, Paul is back to his swearing, screaming mode and gives them an earful. All his promises to himself about dealing with family goes out of the window the moment things at home go back to “normal”.
And thus it ends, with Paul finally resorting to therapy, and seeking help for his anger issues.
What does it all mean for the story? Does Paul’s realization of his mental health issues open up another chapter for the Worsleys? We want to believe it does, and it’s rational. Despite the dark turn of the story before the climax, it is essentially a comedic take on parenting struggles, which is technically an ongoing journey. While it may appear that a particular chapter of their lives has ended, it only means that another one is coming soon and will take them on yet another ride. Paul seeking therapy explains why this story cannot end so soon. Him realizing that he has “issues” opens up possibilities of him exploring ways to change himself, which itself calls for a whole new season.
While waiting for updates about the next season of FX’s ‘Breeders’, you can catch all 10 episodes of Season 1 when they rerun on Hulu.