“Shrinking” Season 2 Premiere Review: Growing or Shrinking? | Art

After a 19-month break, “Shrinking” will now air its second season. Set a few months after the events of the first season, we continue to follow main character Jimmy, played by Jason Segel, in his struggles as a grieving widow, single father and unconventional therapist. However, this season, compared to last season, it seems as if the show's plot is not just focused on Jimmy, but instead deals more with the other characters in his life: neighbors, colleagues, patients, and of course his daughter.

Episode one of season two begins with a visit to Grace, played by Heidi Gardner, a patient of Jimmy's who is in prison after pushing her abusive boyfriend off a cliff. This is a seamless transition considering the season 1 finale ended with the shocking event. Aside from that, continuing Grace's story seems unnecessary and fails. In the first three episodes, the only notable patients Jimmy sees are Grace and Sean, played by Luke Tennie.

This trend seems different from the first season, where Jimmy constantly visited different patients, with a focus on Grace and Sean. Sean, a nuanced character who shows promise in managing his anger issues and excelling in the world, forms bonds with many of the other major characters in the new season. It makes sense to include Sean further into the second season – not only is he important to the plot, but his connections to the rest of the cast also provide warmth and fascinating commentary on unexpected friendships. However, Grace reads like a one-dimensional character who is harder to empathize with.

Throughout the first season, Grace served as an example of Jimmy's overinvolvement in his patients' lives, with her rash and violent decision in the season finale profoundly affecting Jimmy. Her storyline was useful in providing a transition into the second season and a wake-up call for Jimmy to restore a more professional therapist-patient relationship, but that's not worth the amount of screen time given to Grace. Their scenes generally feel awkward and out of place, and they would have felt more effective if the writers had identified that Jimmy had made a mistake and shown him how to correct that mistake when dealing with new patients.

Jimmy's lack of new patients—and, moreover, the absence of most of his old patients—signals a shift in the series' focus from Jimmy dealing with his grief vicariously through others to him dealing with it alone. This season, he begins to actually process the loss of his wife and openly recalls his memories of her. Most importantly, he does this without doing anything completely irrational, as was common in the first season. In the coming episodes, we may see Jimmy dealing with his grief in a healthier way.

On the other hand, Jimmy's daughter Alice, played by Lukita Maxwell, who struggled to trust and forgive her father after his destructive spiral last season, is now in a spiral of her own. Given the opportunity to meet and interact with the drunk driver who killed her mother, she understandably finds it difficult to express her thoughts and feelings in any way other than violent anger. With her father having gone through this phase of his own grief journey, it looks like Alice will find herself in a very similar situation in season two to what Jimmy was in at the beginning of the series. In doing so, it seems that the second season will focus on exploring the differences in the way a teenager and an adult deal with a similar loss.

The first few episodes of season two have already established major storylines not only for Jimmy, but for many of the show's main characters. “Shrinking” expands the theme of grief to include the ways in which different generations deal with it. For example, Grace and her neighbor Connor, played by Gavin Lewis, appear to have a budding relationship, perhaps complicated by a love triangle with Grace's best friend. Sean continues to struggle with being a veteran and is encouraged by others to face his fears about his old life, while he remains focused on building his new life in the form of his food truck with Jimmy's neighbor Liz (Christa Miller). Jimmy and his colleague Gaby, played by Jessica Williams, continue their will-they-won't-they relationship in the first few episodes, as Gaby deals with a career change to science, a desire for something more in her romance, and Deals with the stress of moving to a new house. Finally, Jimmy's colleague Paul, played by Harrison Ford, continues to battle Parkinson's disease while grappling with the realities of aging while also pursuing a budding romance with his doctor Julie, played by Wendie Malick.

Overall, “Shrinking” expands its focus on themes of generational difficulties that change with age, hoping to engage viewers with an expanded world and storyline. Other than that, the overall vibe of the show remains the same – “Shrinking” is about acts of kindness and lifting each other up. The second season is a refreshing and humane take on dark themes while portraying the complications of relationships in a realistic and humorous way.