Shrinking can’t seem to find itself
Katherine Dee
The world of Shrinking is an ambiguous one. It exists in a liminal space between film and TV. It boasts the cinematography and soundtrack of an A24 flick and the writing of a first-year TV writing student still wrapping their mind around the fact that there’s a craft to this whole thing. It’s as though nobody told the writers that TV has its own structure; it’s not just a piecemeal, episodic film.
Apple TV+’s new psychotherapeutic family dramedy doesn’t know it’s a television show, or at least isn’t confident that it’s one — surprising for a show from the creator of Scrubs and Ted Lasso. It feels like it’s still figuring itself out: part indie movie, part creative project from people who are, perhaps, awkwardly navigating the boundaries of on-demand, streaming entertainment.
Shrinking’s narrative universe is equally fuzzy. We follow Jimmy (Jason Segel), a Pasadena, California, therapist and recently widowed father of emotionally distant 17-year-old Alice (Lukita Maxwell). Immediately, we’re meant to know that this Jimmy is a man struggling with grief.
He’s messing around with drugs, a confounding combination of Adderall, painkillers, and alcohol. He’s arriving at work, again, as a therapist, with a hangover. It’s unclear how this man hasn’t lost his license. It’s not only that Jimmy’s disorganized, but he’s also wildly unprofessional. Jimmy isn’t unprofessional in that classically Southern California way, either — he’s unprofessional in a “there’s probably a court case here” way. He implores one patient to leave her husband, screaming at her with the register of an exasperated friend. He’s constantly taking patients off-site during their sessions. And then there’s his relationship with Sean (Luke Tennie), a black Army vet with a PTSD-induced rage problem who, in the second episode, ends up homeless yet can somehow still afford therapy at a Southern California practice where one of the therapists drives a Tesla.
Naturally, Sean ends up living with Jimmy because we’ve entered a jurisdiction where the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, the governing body that licenses mental health professionals, has no authority.
These are all details that — especially since they’re played straight, Shrinking isn’t exactly 30 Rock — should be significant plot points. They aren’t fully appreciated, though. It should be a scandal that Sean moves in with Jimmy. What catalyzes Sean’s move should be a scandal, too.
While Sean and Jimmy are at Alice’s soccer game, which is already indicative that they have an inappropriate therapist/patient relationship, the husband of the patient Jimmy begged to get a divorce shows up and attacks Jimmy. Sean rushes to his defense and beats the you-know-what out of him, causing him to spend the night in jail. After Jimmy bails Sean out, Sean’s parents kick him out of the house, and he ends up homeless. Good thing Jimmy’s estranged gay best friend, who’s been waiting in the wings for a phone call, is a lawyer who can swoop in and save the day at the eleventh hour, though. Close one!
The show’s real star is Harrison Ford, who plays Paul, who I can only imagine is supposed to be Jimmy’s boss. Paul is world-weary, Parkinson’s-ridden, and the only character who feels in touch with reality whatsoever. He, too, is struggling with grief, both over his Parkinson’s and a mysterious problem with his possibly estranged family.
Paul acts as a Virgil figure to everyone else in the show. Though he doesn’t have it all figured out, he seems to know something the others don’t. Maybe it’s just that he’s more willing to face his grief head-on, or maybe it’s that he’s the only character who’s been shown the mercy of good writing, something that is otherwise sorely lacking. It makes one wonder if Ford had any say in the development of the only character with good dialogue, funny jokes, and a sympathetic arc.
A word to the wise to the writers of Shrinking: You might want to see if Syd Field ever wrote about TV writing. You may also want to hire a real-life therapist to consult. It might help. Currently, this show is an interesting concept that’s failed by writers who don’t understand their craft or the world they’re writing about. Its saving grace is that it’s not wasting Harrison Ford. But sadly, a decent performance from Ford a watchable TV show does not make.
Katherine Dee is a writer and co-host of the podcast After the Orgy. Find more of her work at defaultfriend.substack.com or on Twitter @default_friend.