‘Shrinking’ Season 2 Review: A Shapeless Hangout

The Apple TV+ dramedy “Shrinking” is — or a minimum of, was — a couple of therapist, Jimmy Laird (Jason Segel), throwing skilled ethics out the window within the wake of his spouse’s tragic dying. No matter one considered how the present portrayed remedy, and many have been appalled by the concept that doctor-patient boundaries are extra annoying inconvenience than ironclad precept, Season 1 of “Shrinking” a minimum of had a hook-y premise to construction its broader examine of grief. Season 2, which premieres this week after a 19-month hiatus on account of final yr’s strikes, backs away from this fundamental basis, leaving a narrative that’s simply as tonally muddled however even much less centered.

To the present’s not-really-defense, it’s by no means taken a powerful stance on Jimmy’s new strategy, which adopted a yr of catatonia, debauchery and pawning his teenage daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell) off on their neighbor Liz (Christa Miller) to surrogate dad or mum. When the Season 2 premiere sees Jimmy’s boss and mentor Paul (a curmudgeonly Harrison Ford) demand his protegé cease treating Sean (Luke Tennie), the veteran with anger points crashing on Jimmy’s sofa, it’s unclear why he’s placing his foot down now relatively than at any earlier juncture. However on “Shrinking” — a team-up of Segel and “Ted Lasso” collaborators Invoice Lawrence and Brett Goldstein — Jimmy’s antics are neither a brand new flip within the widower’s downward spiral nor a superb innovation his friends may stand to study from, nonetheless problematic such an angle may be. They’re only a setup for a handful of vaguely comedian conditions, like Jimmy crashing a affected person’s date. Having taken a minimal curiosity within the observe of remedy to start with, “Shrinking” already finds itself distracted.

In Season 2, Jimmy offers his method a reputation (“Jimmy-ing”), however appears to do much less of it than ever. With Sean off his docket, a pure new focus can be Grace (Heidi Gardner of “SNL”), a girl who snapped within the Season 1 finale and pushed her abusive husband off a cliff, impressed by Jimmy’s unfiltered recommendation. This consequence is a logical immediate for Jimmy to do some critical introspection. That by no means arrives, subjecting poor, jailbound Grace to a wildly oscillating spectrum of stakes. Jimmy’s different sufferers don’t seem till previous the season’s midway mark; he takes on no new ones. Sean sticks round, however his relationship with Jimmy and Paul bears more and more little resemblance to any type of remedy, conventional or not. He’s simply one other participant in a shaggy hangout, one oversharing good friend amongst many.

Jimmy’s colleagues are equally disengaged. Paul pushes his longtime cost Raymond (Neil Flynn) out of the nest, leaving him to concentrate on his Parkinson’s prognosis and budding romance with neurologist Julie (Wendie Malick). Gaby (Jessica Williams), Jimmy’s coworker, shut good friend and someday fuck buddy, has largely turned her consideration to instructing a university class, in addition to some household strife that’s abruptly launched. Together with Miller, Williams offers one of many few performances that appears to grasp “Shrinking” is a sitcom at its core, however she stays marooned on a extra pleasing present.

This pivot begs the query: If “Shrinking” isn’t about remedy, what is it about? The lengthy tail of mourning continues to loom massive, with Goldstein casting himself as a personality with an essential half to play in Jimmy and Alice processing their trauma. The particular function is taken into account a spoiler, although the efficiency comprises ample alternatives for Goldstein to look pained whereas on the verge of tears. Maybe the author and performer wished to point out off his dramatic vary. The arc is nonetheless an overcorrection from the comedian ire of “Ted Lasso’s” Roy Kent.

However for probably the most half, “Shrinking” sans shrink-ing is a shapeless, listless mess. The present takes place in a model of Pasadena, the prosperous Los Angeles suburb, that appears to be the dimensions of a snow globe, or possibly Stars Hole with palm timber. Characters continuously collide at random, like when Sean’s semi-estranged father stumbles on the meals truck he’s began with Liz. The Sean-Liz partnership is one in every of many random-seeming relationships among the many ensemble, an undifferentiated mass the place everybody appears equally, unconvincingly near everybody else.

Jimmy’s lack of boundaries might now not be as related to his skilled life, nevertheless it’s nonetheless felt within the sequence’ construction, or lack thereof. Storylines really feel more and more atomized: Jimmy’s good friend Brian (Michael Urie) considers having a child; Gaby counsels her college students; Liz, now an empty nester, casts about for a function. Performances, too, are discordant; Segel and Urie particularly go so large they drown out extra refined deadpans, like Ford’s, or dramatic work, like Maxwell’s. Platonic chemistry alone can’t present sufficient glue to cobble these mismatched components collectively. “Shrinking” is meant to be in regards to the work of therapeutic wounds, however in Season 2, it’s damaged into extra items than when it started.

The primary two episodes of “Shrinking” are actually out there to stream on Apple TV+, with remaining episodes airing weekly on Wednesdays.