Healing Doesn’t Happen in a Straight Line

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MOVIE REVIEW
Shrinking: The Complete First and Second Seasons
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Genre: Comedy, Drama
Year: 2023–2024, 2026 DVD
Runtime: 22 episodes, approximately 30–45 min each
Writer(s): Bill Lawrence, Brett Goldstein, Jason Segel, and others
Cast: Jason Segel, Harrison Ford, Jessica Williams, Christa Miller, Luke Tennie, Lukita Maxwell, Michael Urie, Ted McGinley
Where to Watch: available on DVD October 20, 2026. Order your copy here: www.moviesunlimited.com or www.amazon.com

RAVING REVIEW: Jason Segel is why I gave SHRINKING a chance. I'd missed watching him in HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, and the idea of him playing a therapist who could barely manage his own problems sounded like a natural fit. Somewhere along the way, though, my reasons for watching changed. I became invested in the people surrounding Jimmy Laird, each dealing with their own complicated lives, questionable decisions, and occasional breakthroughs. I still enjoy Jimmy, but after spending this much time with everyone else, I can't imagine the series without them.

SHRINKING begins with Jimmy, still falling apart after the death of his wife, deciding he’s tired of listening to his patients make the same mistakes and starts telling them exactly what he thinks. Professional boundaries disappear, his personal life starts bleeding into his work, and the therapist who should be helping everyone else is barely managing his own life.

There’s a version of that premise where Jimmy just breaks another rule every episode and gets another disaster in return. SHRINKING has some of that, particularly early in the first season, but creators Bill Lawrence, Brett Goldstein, and Jason Segel are much more interested in what happens after the joke. Jimmy’s behavior has consequences. Advice changes lives, sometimes for the better and sometimes in ways he never anticipated, while his belief that good intentions should count for something repeatedly gets challenged.

Segel makes Jimmy frustrating without turning him into someone I stop caring about. He’s selfish, impulsive, needy, emotional, and can convince himself that helping someone else excuses whatever boundary he just crossed. He can also be incredibly funny, deeply compassionate, and painfully aware that his daughter Alice deserved a father who didn’t disappear into his own grief when she needed him.

That relationship carries so much of the first season. Lukita Maxwell doesn’t play Alice as a teenager who exists merely to forgive her father once Jimmy finally starts trying again. She’s angry because she has every right to be, and the series keeps that anger complex all the way through the end of the second season. Jimmy lost his wife, but Alice lost her mother and then effectively lost her father for a while too.

SHRINKING rarely lets grief belong to one person. That becomes increasingly important as the series grows, because nearly every character carries something they’d rather not. Sean (Luke Tennie) is dealing with trauma and anger after military service. Gaby (Jessica Williams) is rebuilding her life after divorce. Paul (Harrison Ford) is living with Parkinson’s disease and more. Liz (Christa Miller) struggles as the people she's spent years caring for no longer seem to need her quite as much.

The show’s amazing because it stays funny without pretending pain is simple. Jessica Williams can turn a conversation about something genuinely difficult into one of the episode's funniest scenes without undercutting what her character is experiencing. Ted McGinley does something similar as Derek, who initially seems like a wonderfully dry supporting husband before becoming one of the show’s most dependable sources of warmth. Then there’s Harrison Ford.

Paul could have been nothing more than the cranky old therapist who rolls his eyes at Jimmy’s nonsense, and Ford would probably still be funny enough to make that work. Instead, SHRINKING gives him some of the most vulnerable material. His Parkinson’s diagnosis affects his independence, his relationship with his daughter, his work, and the version of himself he’s spent decades believing would always be there.

Ford is hilarious because he doesn’t seem particularly interested in being funny. A look, a pause, or the irritated way Paul responds to something can destroy an entire room. When the series asks him to drop that armor, though, Ford exposes Paul’s fear. Watching those two sides exist within the same character is one of the pleasures of both seasons. I love Indiana Jones and Han Solo, but this may be his most defining role!

Season 2 takes everything the first year established and pushes the characters toward a much harder question. Moving forward sounds wonderful, until it means confronting the person responsible for something that changed your life forever.

Brett Goldstein’s surprise appearance as Louis completely shifts the series' direction. His connection to the death of Jimmy’s wife could have turned him into just a target, someone placed there so Jimmy and Alice could direct their anger toward a human face. SHRINKING refuses to make things that simple. Louis has to live with what he did too. Goldstein has an incredible knack for making his characters all too human, just as he did with Roy Kent in TED LASSO.

That doesn’t erase Jimmy’s pain or magically make Alice forgive him because he feels bad for what he did. Instead, the season focuses on the uncomfortable space where accountability and empathy can exist at the same time. Someone can cause irreversible damage and still be a human being afterward. Forgiveness can help one person while being impossible for another, and neither reaction has to be right.

I’d be lying if I said I wanted SHRINKING to get colder, because warmth can sometimes make it feel less real. The affection between these characters is a huge reason the show works. There’s something comforting about watching people screw up, try to apologize, fail, try again, and discover that being there for someone doesn’t require the perfect thing to say.

That also helps explain why the therapy premise becomes less important as the series continues. SHRINKING isn’t really trying to present a model for ethical mental-health treatment, and anyone using Jimmy’s professional decisions as a guide should probably reconsider. Therapy gives the show its starting point, but the real subject is what happens when people stop pretending they can handle everything alone.

It’s a bit strange to see these seasons packaged together now that another season is already out, and another is on the way, but as a two-season story, they still offer a satisfying arc. Season 1 is largely about surviving grief and accepting help; Season 2 focuses on what happens when survival isn’t enough. There’s a meaningful difference between getting through something and actually deciding how you’re going to live afterward.

Nobody reaches some magical point where their loss has been processed, and they can close the door on it. Jimmy gets better and still screws up. Alice moves forward and still hurts. Paul adapts while his disease continues progressing. Sean makes real changes without being free of everything that happened to him. The characters aren’t fixed because people generally aren’t.

After 22 episodes, that's what I appreciate most about SHRINKING. Jimmy begins the series believing that radical honesty can solve other people’s problems. The show gradually proves that honesty is only useful if someone is willing to live with what comes after it. These characters tell each other the truth, hurt each other, disappoint each other, forgive each other, and occasionally repeat the same mistake. They also keep showing up.

Two seasons in, I’m no longer watching to see what irresponsible thing Jimmy does with one of his patients. I’m watching because Paul, Gaby, Alice, Sean, Liz, Derek, Brian, Jimmy, and everyone pulled into their world have become people I genuinely want to spend time with. SHRINKING started with a therapist breaking every rule he knew, then became something much better. It shows how hard it is to move forward, and how much easier it becomes when someone is willing to walk beside you.

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[photo courtesy of WARNER BROS. DISCOVER HOME ENTERTAINMENT]

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