Shrinking Season 1 Review – A comedy drama with an empathetic core

Episode Guide

Coin Flip -| Review Score – 4.5/5
Fortress of Solitude -|Review Score – 4/5
Fifteen Minutes -|Review Score – 4.5/5
Potatoes -|Review Score – 4/5
Woof -|Review Score – 3/5
Impostor Syndrome -|Review Score – 3.5/5
Apology Tour -|Review Score – 4/5
Boop -|Review Score – 3/5
Moving Forward -|Review Score – 2/5
Closure -|Review Score – 3/5

Co-creators Bill Lawrence, Brett Goldstein, and Jason Segel make an impressive mark on Apple TV Plus’ ever-growing database with comedy drama Shrinking.

The therapy-focused show strikes a skillful balance between its lighthearted and heavy elements. With similarities in tone with the streamer’s upbeat comedy Ted Lasso, it also takes up with Hulu’s recent and much darker series, The Patient, a compelling trend of exploring the messiness of therapy and the humans that partake in it.

In the case of therapist Jimmy Laird (Segel), the mess extends from intense grief in his personal life. Shrinking picks up a year after the death of his wife Tia (Lilan Bowden). After his loss, it’s clear that his life–and his approach to therapy–will never be the same.

Suddenly fed up with how his patients keep coming to him for advice and yet never change, Jimmy decides it’s time to shake things up in his practice: by telling his patients exactly what they need to do, no holds barred.

The show is held together by a stellar comedic cast, replete with Lupita Maxwell as Jimmy’s 17-year-old daughter Alice; show-stealers Harrison Ford and Jessica Williams as coworkers Paul and Gaby; Michael as best friend Brian; Christa Miller as the nosy but well-meaning neighbor Liz; and Luke Tennie as Jimmy’s new patient Sean, with whom the therapist’s unorthodox methods will be tested through a series of comical trials and errors.

Hilarious and cringeworthy mess-ups ensue on Jimmy’s part as he increasingly blurs the lines between the personal and professional in his therapy practice. Segel gives a nuanced and tender performance, striking all the right comical and sorrowful notes.

Depending on the approach, the blend could have gotten Shrinking designated as a dark comedy–but it’s not in the same vein of shows that turn morbid reality into unexpected laughs. The Apple TV series has a softer approach. It doesn’t chase morbidity but opens up to its characters the possibility of light and laughter coming out of grief. While it sometimes fails to avoid a few cheesy clichés, this makes for heartwarming storytelling on the whole.

Writers find a way to pull in all the major characters into Shrinking’s themes of loss, and the show tenderly explores how grief can manifest in different ways: through death, illness and ageing, rocky relationships, loss of friendships, divorce, etc. 

In all these huge changes the characters have to adapt to and learn from, the biggest hang-up I have about the series is Jimmy’s failure to do just that. After a few episodes of the therapist’s resolute obtuseness and failure to grasp that he might be crossing an ethical line…things start to get repetitive.

But then, perhaps that’s the point. It mirrors the frustration Jimmy has with his own patient’s failure to change. And it drives home the idea that, where humans are involved, things are always going to be a little messy. That message envelopes Shrinking–a cozy comedy drama with a strong empathetic core.

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