Another wild audio ride from the folks at Wondery is heading to the small screen: The Wrap reports that The Shrink Next Door is the latest podcast to become a limited series adaptation, and the talent involved in this one makes Dirty John look like a Lifetime Original (which, it kind of was). Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd have signed on to star in MRC Television’s adaptation of The Shrink Next Door, the riveting true story of a charismatic psychiatrist who slowly takes over the life of a vulnerable patient. In an inspired bit of subversive casting, Rudd will play the psychiatrist, Dr. Isaac “Ike” Herschkopf, with Ferrell starring as his patient, Martin “Marty” Markowitz. Michael Showalter is directing the series from a script by Succession’s Georgia Pritchett.
Here’s the official synopsis for The Shrink Next Door from Wondery and Bloomberg Media:
Veteran journalist Joe Nocera’s neighbor in the Hamptons was a therapist named Ike. Ike counted celebrities and Manhattan elites as his patients. He’d host star-studded parties at his eccentric vacation house. But one summer, Joe discovered that Ike was gone and everything he’d thought he’d known about his neighbor — and the house next door — was wrong.
Nocera’s story is a deceptively simple one that examines the vulnerable nature of the therapist/client relationship and how easily it can be corrupted in the wrong hands. Certain developments in Ike and Marty’s relationship may seem unbelievable, but further inspection reveals the slow and deliberate manipulations that led to Marty’s victimization, and how no one—least of all himself—saw it coming.
The Shrink Next Door is the latest Wondery podcast to be adapted into a limited series. USA is set to debut the second season of Dirty John this fall; Amanda Peet and Christian Slater will headline the series, which revisits the infamous Betty Broderick case. Peacock, the upcoming streaming platform from NBC, is developing Dr. Death as a limited series starring Jamie Dornan as the eponymous doctor alongside Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater.