Like many of Bill Lawrence’s series, Shrinking on Apple TV has become known for its cast’s crackling chemistry and a feeling that Lawrence has been fostering in his shows since at least Scrubs: A loose vibe where people who enjoy each other’s company just hang with each other and riff. And in Season 3, that vibe dominates, even while the characters’ lives undergo big changes.
SHRINKING SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Paul Rhoades (Harrison Ford) is washing his face at the bathroom sink, when his girlfriend Julie Baram (Wendie Malick) gets into the shower. Paul grouses that she’ll fog up his mirror, but wants her to unfog the shower door to show the “fun zone.”
The Gist: Paul is also finding that he’s having more problems keeping his hand steady, and it shows during a session with a patient; his Parkinson’s meds aren’t quite working as well as they used to, so he goes to see his neurologist Dr. Sykes (Amy Rosoff). In the waiting room, he talks to a patient named Gerry (Michael J. Fox) whose Parkinson’s is much further along. “I’m still here, so fuck Parkinson’s,” says Gerry.
Later, Paul tells his colleague/friend/protege Jimmy Laird (Jason Segel) that “fuck Parkinson’s” is going to be his new outlook, and that Jimmy needs to pull him out of it if he sees Paul spiraling. Jimmy is dealing with changes of his own, as his daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell) is being recruited by the soccer coach at Wesleyan, which means she’d be going to college on the other side of the country.
Everyone comes out for Alice’s next game: Jimmy and Paul, their colleague and friend Gaby (Jessica Williams) and her boyfriend Derrick (Damon Wayans Jr.), neighbors Liz (Christa Miller) and Derek (Ted McGinley), Sean (Luke Tennie), who used to be Jimmy’s patient and lives in their pool house, and Jimmy’s college buddy Brian (Michael Urie) and his husband Charlie (Devin Kawaoka).
After the match, where Alice does well despite the warm but distracting support from her people, Paul and Julie talk to Brian about the legal hoops they need to go through so Julie can be Paul’s caretaker. Then Jimmy throws out the possibility that getting married would clear a lot of that up. “Did you just propose to my girlfriend?” Paul says with his usual bemused anger.
One they figure out it’s a better to get married, though, Gaby swings into action to plan a small wedding at Liz’s house, over both Paul’s and Julie’s objections.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Brett Goldstein created Shrinking along with Bill Lawrence and Segel, so the Ted Lasso comparisons are inevitable. The show also has a similar feel to some of Lawrence’s other “found family” shows, like Cougar Town and Scrubs.
Our Take: At this point in its run (with a fourth season already ensured), Shrinking is in its well-oiled-machine phase, with a core group of stars that play so well together they feel like they’re old friends in real life, and guest stars like Fox, Wayans, Malick and Neil Flynn that effortlessly slide into the ensemble.
The hour-long season premiere pretty much has stories for everyone in the gang. Liz and Derek’s son Matthew (Markus Silbiger) has to move back in after losing his job. Paul tells Sean that “The Field” will tell him what the thing he’s supposed to do in life is, and a skeptical Sean ends up seeing it when he advises Alice and Jimmy after Alice initially turns down the Wesleyan coach.
Brian doesn’t want the birth mother for the baby he and Charlie are adopting to be as involved as it looks like she might be. Jimmy continues to talk to Louis (Goldstein), the driver of the car that killed his wife Tia (Lilan Bowden), and they encourage each other to move to the next phase. Paul encourages Jimmy to find love again, and not be the lone wolf example he set.
It’s a lot, but it’s all managed smoothly, because the relationships are already so well-established at this point. Even when the show sometimes just feels like old friends riffing, though, there are life changes happening. Jimmy is definitely looking forward more than ever, even encouraging Alice’s desire to not play the “dead mom card” anymore.
Paul is really appreciative of what he has with Julie, and tells her so after his usual spate of grumpiness, but Parkinson’s is inevitably making him take stock. Liz is her usual demanding but warm buttinsky self, but is looking forward to caring for Brian and Charlie’s baby. Gaby is enjoying a stable and mutually beneficial relationship for once, but is a bit bored with her therapy patients.
It’s a bit of a tricky balancing act, to make characters grow and change while not fundamentally transforming them away from what we like about them to begin with. But if anyone knows how to do that well, it’s Lawrence and Goldstein. And the season deals with all of these changes by getting off to a funny start.
Performance Worth Watching: It feels like Harrison Ford’s Paul is going to be the emotional center of Season 3, and if so, he deserves it. He’s playing Paul’s Parkinson’s-created life changes with his signature gruffness that we know is barely hiding the softie he really is. If he doesn’t finally win an Emmy this time around, we’re going to be shocked.
Sex And Skin: Besides seeing Julie’s bare back as she gets into the shower, there’s nothing.
Parting Shot: Paul discovers another Parkinson’s symptom that he didn’t expect, and this one throws him.
Sleeper Star: We loved seeing Michael J. Fox in the first scene he had with Ford, and now we’re even more intrigued by his character Gerry now that we know who he really is.
Most Pilot-y Line: While it feels like Urie is a lot more integrated into the goings on of the gang lately, it still feels like he’s in a different show than the rest of the cast, including this adoption storyline. Then again, we’re sensitive to inaccurate depictions of adoption, so maybe it’s just that.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Season 3 of Shrinking opens with the series operating at peak story efficiency, being able to give its stellar cast meaty stories while maintaining its funny hang-out vibe.
How To Watch Shrinking Season 3
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Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.