Shrinking

Many times in the past, I tried to watch the series Shrinking — a show with Jason Segel and Harrison Ford. I mean… on paper, that should be good, right? But for some reason, I could never get past the first few minutes.

Well, with season three about to be released, I decided to finally give Shrinking a real try — and I wasn’t disappointed.

Recap

In the series, we follow Jimmy, a therapist who is grieving the death of his wife in a car accident, and his two colleagues : Paul - his mentor - and Gaby.

In the first episode, Jimmy is clearly at rock bottom.

In his personal life, he’s spiraling out of control — sleeping around, drinking too much, partying too much. And professionally, while he still technically does his job, he’s mentally exhausted from trying to stay neutral and professional with his patients, wishing he could just say what he actually thinks about their situations.

And one day… he does.

He breaks what are definitely more than a few professional rules and starts telling his patients exactly what he thinks, and starts using some very unorthodox methods.

He takes one of his patients, Sean — a young army veteran suffering from PTSD and anger issues — boxing. Then, he tells, or more accurately demands, that another patient, Grace, who is in a toxic, abusive relationship, leave her husband.

Jimmy’s mentor, Paul, strongly disapproves of what Jimmy is doing. To Paul, Jimmy isn’t helping his patients — he’s making decisions for them. By telling them what to do instead of guiding them to their own conclusions, even if the results sometimes look positive on the surface.

Not long after that, Sean ends up moving into Jimmy’s guest house following a major falling out with his family. What starts as a temporary solution slowly turns into something more permanent, and an unexpected bond begins to form — not just between Jimmy and Sean, but also with Jimmy’s daughter, Alice.

As I mentioned, Jimmy was barely holding things together at home. Jimmy was so emotionally checked out that their neighbour, Liz, had quietly taken on the role of a second parent to Alice; driving her around, feeding her, and generally being the stable adult presence.

But as the season progresses, Jimmy slowly begins to climb out of his emotional hole. He starts drinking less, becomes more present, and — awkwardly, imperfectly — tries to reconnect with Alice.

Their relationship doesn’t magically fix itself, but Jimmy begins putting in real effort: showing up, listening, and taking responsibility for the ways he failed her after her mother died.

We also learn that Jimmy has pushed away one of his closest friends, Brian.

Jimmy is forced to reach out to Brian again — this time in his professional capacity as a lawyer — when Sean gets into trouble after violently defending Jimmy and beating up a man.

Brian is upbeat, optimistic, always trying to keep things light — and that’s exactly why Jimmy couldn’t stand being around him after Tia’s death. Brian’s cheerfulness became unbearable to him, a reminder of an emotional state Jimmy simply wasn’t capable of reaching anymore. So instead of dealing with that discomfort, Jimmy just cut him out of his life.

Over the season, we learn that Paul had been diagnosed with early-stage Parkinson’s disease. At first, he kept it mostly to himself, but the diagnosis forces him to confront the fact that he doesn’t have unlimited time left, and that he will slowly loose his autonomy.

Paul starts making an effort to reconnect with his daughter, relationships he had emotionally neglected for years in favour of his career. And in a quiet twist, we also discover that Paul has been secretly seeing Alice as a patient, helping her process her grief

Strenghts

What I enjoyed of the first season is how it’s a fun lighthearted comedy. Don’t get me wrong the starting point is not fun, but even at the very start, when Jimmy is still spiralling out of control in his personal life, you get the opposite with his nosy neighbours Liz and Derek bringing humour relieve. And we have that balance - being funny while dealing with normally heavy topic.

Even if the show has a big emphasis on the main character of Jimmy, it’s not all about him. Virtually all of the side characters have their own emotional journeys, their time to shine, their own flaws and growth.

Lastly, the fact that the show has fairly short length episodes, the series doesn’t have too many filler moments, it has a tight pacing, and it’s making it easy to binge.

Critique

Let’s start with the most obvious: Jimmy’s unethical therapy methods would most likely have immediately lost his licence to practice. I guess even Paul and Gaby probably could face a fine for not reporting Jimmy’s unethical methods right away.

Then, the fast pacing also means that some emotional beats and conflicts get wrapped up a little too neatly— like arguments resolved within one or two scenes, forgiveness coming too fast. It’s not enough to ruin the show, but maybe overly optimistic.

Lastly, it will not appeal to those who don’t like huge tone shifts— it feels that at times, the show wants to be a normal drama show, and at other times it wants to be the big sitcom.

Acting

Third star : Christa Miller as Liz

Second star : Harrison Ford as Paul

First star : Jason Segel as Jimmy

Final thoughts

While Shrinking isn’t perfect, it’s a heartfelt, sincere show about grief, mistakes, and second chances. It mixes serious beats with humour. And it’s carried by good acting performances.

If you’re like me, you’ll simply binge-watch the show, and it’s okay. At this point, there’s still a season 2 to watch and a third one about to air.