The Talisman Effecthad quickly become huge and the producers wanted more excitement, more arguments on the show. Chaos, suffering, fights on live TV.
The TV sites were jammed with news about crazy people from the show – like the woman who fell for her daughter’s teenage husband, which was a huge draw on the tabloid sites.
As the show grew bigger, Rose was scared that her own backstory would come out, but she found that her role as the calm therapist meant media outlets focused on her wisdom rather than trawling her background.
Inevitably, ratings overcame the requirement of actual therapy or the questions of morality about who they had on the show.
Other therapists openly dissed her for her approach, angry at how Rose had made a business out of ‘people’s pain’.
All of it stung Rose. She knew what was happening and yet she felt stuck on the juggernaut of a successful show.
Rose treating the weirder guests upset her beloved Theo, still steadily by her side but unhappy about the way the show had gone.
‘Someone is going to get hurt, Rose, and you’ve got to pull back. Nobody gets the help they need in an hour-long show and it’s going to backfire. The guests are getting closer to the edge where nobody’s going to be able to help them.’
‘I do my best!’ Rose protested. ‘Doesn’t everyone deserve mental health help?’
‘Yes, but some of the people on the show need psychiatric help before they can benefit from therapy! You know this,Rose. Please, get off the merry-go-round. You’re better than this.’
That comment had hurt most of all.
Better than a TV show that was watched by millions and did try to help troubled people?
‘How can you say that?’ she hurled back at him. ‘Am I too low-rent for you?’
That night, he came home very late and slept in the spare bedroom.
Rose felt the arctic blast of being dismissed.
The next day, she moved out of his house and into a hotel. She thought it was just for some breathing space. But when the pops of the gun were heard two weeks later onThe Talisman Effect, Rose was alone.
In the midst of the fear and chaos, she had no beloved Theo to hold her in the maelstrom.
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That was the history of her show in four headlines.
The news outlets didn’t know about the producers’ anger at Rose for leaving, their desire for someone to carry the can, her agent’s many attempts to coax Rose back to LA.
‘If you go, your TV career will be over,’ her agent said in a message that Rose deleted instantly.
She didn’twanta TV career any more.
As she hadn’t witnessed the on-set shooting, she didn’t need to hang around once her original statement had been taken.
There was no point showing the world the emails she’d sent to the producers after she and Theo had split.
‘We need to rethink the show,’ she’d written. ‘It is becoming dangerous to guests’ psychological well-being to create so much tension on set. We are risking lives here. As a professional, I will have to step away from the show if we cannot address these issues.’
Within a few days of the shooting, Rose Talisman was in the wind, leaving the home she’d shared with Theo, and her life, behind.
Rose stops pacing and tries to fix her hair in one of Adriana’s big mirrors. Her hair has come down out of its knot and she didn’t wash it today, so it’s flyaway, needs taming.
