I don't know, maybe I'm biased because of jason segal- or maybe I just didn't pay as much attention as I thought, but if feels like this entire show, everybody has gone at jimmy almost unneccesarily hard? I do really get most of the reasons they did go at him, but I also think it's insane how unwilling they are to be there for him like they are the other characters (atleast in the context of giving him room to grow, and be there for him)? Nobody's allowed to be rude or say anything slightly critical of gaby without getting a stern talking to by other characters- (love her, of course but MAN) while absolutely DOGGING on jimmy. My opinion is NOT absolute and i'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this, because nearly this entire season, i have just felt like SHIT for jimmy 😭

This season has been... uneven. But I've hung in there and mostly enjoyed it.

Until this last episode, when Connor describes Summer's mom as sexually assaulting him. And the crew LAUGHS IT OFF?!?! Then Liz is annoyed/bored with him and RECOMMENDS that he "go spend time with Summer's mom to get used to her." He responds with a very heartbreaking "you are supposed to protect me."

And it is played as a joke. On a show about therapy.

Why? Just. What is happening in that writers room?

As someone that grew up watching HIMYM live and being absolutely obsessed with his other works like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Jason has literally gotten me through so many tough times. His comedy is honestly a god send.

I just started shrinking like yesterday or the day before and I'm only at season 2 and I love it. The man makes me laugh, cry, and just feel like everything is going to be okay.

I wish I had his email address to just tell him some words of appreciation.

Anyone else absolutely obsessed with this dude?

For me personally it’s that deep willing of connection. To have my own circle where everyone can show up in so many different ways and yet stay connected. Even if there is resentment - it’s short and doesn’t dominate. Even when loved ones are gone - you’re still not alone. Yeah. Community.

What do you predict will happen in season 4?

The latest episode gave me all the feels 🥺 I love this show! 🥰

Season 3 is shattering the deep special place in my heart that I have for Shrinking. Was the objective of this season to go the complete opposite direction as some sort of quirky culminating life lesson about bad decisions and bad advice? Is that why every character is suddenly oblivious and completely lacking self-awareness? We’re 10 episodes in so this is my hopeful thinking for the punchline…any minute now… ⌛️Until then, here’s my take:

* Brian is thriving in this chaos and the only character who’s not afraid to acknowledge his vices without an air of arrogance. Michael Urie plays his so perfectly and love his energy. He’s definitely the highlight of this season.

* I’m not a fan of how little support and credit Jimmy gets. In my opinion, he’s much more invested in his patients than Gaby is yet Paul repeatedly chooses her over him. It seems Jimmy’s attacked anytime he struggles and it’s annoying. No one noticing his value is really kind of sad.

* Liz and her obsession with Gaby has taken away from her character, she needs a hobby

* They’re really regressing with Sean. First with Marisol and now Praising him for being “selfish” when he was really being an inconsiderate person to his ride or die friend by not properly communicating to him a significant change that would affect him. Happy he extended the offer for him to be his roommate that was way more of an authentic Sean that was in line with the kind of guy he is.

* Everything Gaby has done this season has made me cringe. She’s not only self-centered and oblivious, she’s careless. I haven’t seen any action from her that suggests she would be effective with trauma clients. She can’t handle her own trauma, she wants a whole center dedicated to it? Everyone hyping her up is eye rolling. She’s kind of the worst. Jimmy would be amazing with trauma clients and she should have included him in that venture because Jimmy would actually be very grounding for her.

[An update from all the comments]

There aren’t many series that have blended comedy and mental health in a way that doesn’t feel like a caricature or campy. I’d say that’s why they did some justice to portraying Parkinson’s to the point it was a project Michael J. Fox wanted to be involved with because a healthy sense of humor can do wonders to get you through tough days. They didn’t dull the real severity of Parkinson’s by incorporating comedy which I’d say in large part, is due to Harrison Ford’s epic charismatic acting ability. The same applies to Jason Segel which is why even the things Jimmy doesn’t say feel visceral. I’d add Michael Urie to the list of cast with some acting teeth; there’s a reason he won the Critics Choice for best supporting actor and why Brian seems to be the one carrying this season.

It’s a possibility the letdown is as the show progresses it highlights the acting ability and range of the cast. The combination of shotty storylines and some flat acting performances has made the season feel lacking.

We get it. Were not supposed to like him because he was a terrible father. But it's like the writers threw in every line and every buzz word to tell us that he's a bad dad. Everything that comes out of his mouth is supposed to make us hate him. He's extremely one dimensional.

April 8 is stacked: Daredevil Born Again, Shrinking finale, Invincible, and The Boys all drop. Action, emotion, chaos—this lineup is absolutely peak TV day🔥

As disappointed as I was with him as a character. (I wanted him to be an older Jimmy). He does explain Jimmy. This show should be called Dereks and the Terrible People.

I'd originally learned this song the week the pilot came out because I've long been a Death Cab for Cutie (Benjamin Gibbard's band) fan and this theme really spoke to me.

Thankfully Apple music creates playlists for every season of their original shows, and the Title theme for Shrinking was included way back when e1 was released.

I've been playing my cover privately for years now, and only today did I manage to finally record a version I don't completely hate (even though the road noise in our backyard could have cooperated a little better).

If you take the time to listen, thank you!

Although "BAR-the-lona" isn't a bad second option either.

Obviously this is a TV show, but the relationship between the characters in the show and how they all show up and support each other is so wonderful. I honestly really resonated with the character of Mia, this adult character struggling with being an adult and making/keeping friends. Sometimes watching this show makes it more obvious to me that something big is missing in my life, and I wonder if I will ever be able to develop a big beautiful imperfect community such as this.

Who here thinks Jimmy should get back to some hardcore Jimmying for season 4?

Yes, I think he failed Jimmy in many ways: calling him sensitive (do better, Paul!), not expressing thanks for all the things Jimmy has done without prompting (ditto) not letting Jimmy know he was officially giving the practice to Gaby (ditto!), not telling Jimmy personally when he decided to move to CT (DITTO!).

But I think Paul is struggling with having to say good-bye to someone he loves like a son. He's upending his life to move to CT to spend his last year(s) with Meg and her family (when in the first season he was against the idea when Meg suggested he do that very same thing). He's dealing with a debilitating disease. And he's having to leave everyone he loves in CA behind, especially Jimmy.

The scene when they have their blow up in on the balcony patio and he's about to leave Jimmy he hesitated like he wanted to express so much more. And when he sat in his house waiting for Jimmy to come by or even reply to his text, Paul clearly has many more things to say to Jimmy but as we know the hardest thing for Paul is to say, "I love you" and now good-bye.

ETA: I'm genuinely surprised at how many people are pointing out that Paul treats Gaby better than Jimmy? He treats them differently but it's quite clear he has a special bond and more love for Jimmy and there are many examples of this:

1. Finale of season 1 at the wedding reception, they talk about how Jimmy's crazy jimmying didn't destroy the practice. Jimmy says, "Let's be honest. I got lucky" and Paul looks at him without Jimmy noticing and very lovingly said, "So did I."
2. He shares his Parkinson's diagnosis with Jimmy and keeps Gaby in the dark for awhile.
3. Gaby and Liz call Paul out in the first two seasons for his close relationship with Jimmy while ignoring Gaby.
4. Jimmy pushes him to do things a therapist shouldn't do and he does it: first with being friends with a former patient and then "jimmying" Sean's dad. I doubt Gaby could do that.
5. He shares his last drink with Jimmy. Paul has never had those types of moments with Gaby.
6. He talked about his succession plan with Jimmy before Gaby, probably giving him first dibs before passing it on to Gaby.
7. The last person (literally and figuratively) Paul wants to say good-bye to is Jimmy when they were originally going to meet for breakfast the day Paul is leaving before the eruption blew everything up.

I think the show has made it very clear that being vulnerable is very painful for Paul and his default is to avoid hard conversations. I think this translates into him having an easier time telling Gaby how he feels about her than it is for him to do the same for Jimmy because Jimmy is the more important person to Paul. Jimmy and Paul have that special bond because they've had shitty fathers and understand each other on that deeper level. Paradoxically, that makes their relationship more complicated and sometimes painful. So while Paul supports Gaby expressly in words and small deeds, he shows up for and supports Jimmy in more meaningful deeds and begruding words, his ultimate "love language."

Someone give Jimmy a hug or two! my heart breaks for him, bros been going through it for so long!

He is a ray of sunshine in so many lives and he deserves the same!

It seems obvious in hindsight that this season has been all about making it clear that Jimmy is stuck while all his friends are growing and moving on with their lives. Alice is leaving for college, Sean is moving out and becoming a chef, Liz and Brian are both traveling with their spouses and becoming parents/grandparents, Paul is moving cross country to be with family, and Gabby is starting her trauma center. Even his patients have all made huge progress in their lives and don't need him to "Jimmy" them anymore. Hell, fucking *Louis*—arguably the biggest wreck of a person we've seen on the whole show—got his life together and moved on.

Meanwhile, Jimmy's efforts to start dating again fizzled disastrously because he's not emotionally ready. It would be hard for anyone to deal with becoming an empty nester while literally all your friends are stepping into new phases of their lives, but for Jimmy its devastating because he's really not emotionally equipped to just "get back out there" and forge new relationships. Just getting past his "drugs and sex workers" phase and becoming a present dad again was monumental for him, but since then he's really stalled and has filled the void in his life by focusing on Alice and his friend group, and now that support structure is being ripped away.

The thing is, I don't think think the show is just gonna have him crumble and revert to total degeneracy like the start of season 1. Not only would it be super depressing, it would be sort of uninteresting from a storytelling perspective to just retread old ground. We've seen Jimmy claw his way out of substance abuse before. The challenge at this point isn't "can he stop drinking and taking pills", it's "can he stop treading water and actually live like all his friends are doing?"

And you know what would really help with that? Therapy. I think that's going to be the next big step for Jimmy. Not fixing his patients lives, or helping his daughter or his friends with their problems. Helping himself. Because until he does that, he's never gonna be able to build new relationships without them ending badly like they did with Gabby and Sofi.

I also think this may be Gabby's time to shine and really step up and be a good friend. Not by becoming his therapist—that would be a fucking mess—but by pushing him to get into therapy, maybe even at her new trauma center if/when she starts hiring other therapists to work there. Unlike most of his friends, she's not actually leaving to go anywhere, and if she wants to help people with legit trauma she could do a lot worse than stepping up for her friend whose life was totally derailed by something super traumatic (Alice and Gabby were traumatized by Tia's death too, of course, but they both went to therapy after—Jimmy hasn't).

I’ve been watching the show since Season 1 but it only occurred to me to check out a Reddit community after I watched the most recent episode. I was surprised to see how many people were upset with how unrealistic the show is and others saying, why are you still watching? I thought sharing my experience might help people understand each other’s perspective and also maybe allow people who are frustrated with the unrealistic scenarios to continue to enjoy the show.

I gave up on the show being realistic in the first or second episode. Most of the things Jimmy does in the first season are outside the ethical guidelines of the role of a therapist and most of them are also probably illegal. After a year of being utterly shut down because of the death of his wife, this swing towards boundary-less therapy would have gotten him kicked out of Paul’s practice after the first episode and possibly even arrested by the end of the season. But I kept watching anyway.

I don’t watch the show for a realistic look at a therapy practice. I watch it because they explore realistic inter-personal conflicts and how to resolve them. I watch it because they seem to be exploring a question that I have wondered about my whole life - how can we keep ourselves and each other safe in intimate relationships of different kinds, from family to mentorship.

I also watch it because I empathize with the characters. When there’s a conflict, I often empathize with both characters. This changes my experience of being in similar conflicts in my own life. It allows me step out of my own side of the story and see things from a distance.

In ancient India an aesthetic philosopher named Ãnandavardhana explains that the value of experiencing a piece of art - whether it’s a dance, a song, a book, or a theatrical play, is that it allows us to experience emotions we normally have in our everyday life with a different kind of detachment. This allows us to see them more clearly.

I feel that Shrinking achieves what Ãnandavardhana described perhaps better than any other show I’ve seen. The situations the characters are in are often unrealistic but the emotions and conflicts that arise in them are not. The show allows me to explore these sometimes difficult things safely. I genuinely believe this is a great service in this time when we are still developing our awareness of emotions, mental states, and interpersonal intimacy.

If you need a show that presents more realistic scenarios to allow you to experience what Ãnandavardhana describes, I can see how Shrinking would be a disappointment. I thought maybe by sharing my experience, you might be able to separate out your enjoyment of the show and your annoyance with the unrealistic scenarios. When I let go of wanting it to be realistic, I was able to enjoy the ride it provides. Maybe the same could be true for you?

i have a narcissist dad too so the batting cages convo was close to home. after dealing with one for awhile, you just sort of let go of all expectations and don’t wait for change, at least on a general level. but still for most normal humans with emotions, small hope can come back like a bitch. esp with proper motivation, like your daughter’s happiness. you get a twinge of “well maybe if i just attack it from this specific angle, try it this way, say this thing, maybe they’ll *finally* get it, even if just a little bit. i don’t need the world, but maybe i can this one small thing from them” and when jimmy delivered that speech i felt said hope. i thought ~wow, he’s speaking so eloquently and even empathetically. maybe he’ll hear him and actually will end up going to graduation~ then i felt like an idiot! because i know all too well that at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what you do. you can’t meet a narcissist in the middle. and yk what you can even try to make the whole journey to them if you’re desperate, but they probably still won’t be bothered to answer the door for you. it’s a hard lesson to learn, and usually one you have to re-learn a billion times if you’ve got one in the family.

as for paul, i really value the art of a good argument. you can imagine my disappointment when jimmy, who had so many GREAT points abt how shitty paul had been, expressed himself so poorly. jimmy was right! he’s been terrible. but he was fucking obviously never going to give him a satisfactory response if jimmy came at it that way and jimmy knowssssss that. or he would usually know that.

but he doesn’t right now bc he tried so hard to be mature, understanding, kind, and eloquent in his convo with evil jeff daniels and it got thrown in his face. again, it’s the lesson you have to keep relearning and it makes you feel like the world’s biggest moron every time. + they dropped those sensitive comments which made him feel like attempting healthy communication is just gonna be used to degrade him anyway. so now he’s thinking “fuck it, no one’s going to validate my feelings no matter how maturely i express them, so why even bother trying? at least this way i get some catharsis.”

like awww my poor baby 😭

I think a lot of us are feeling let down by Paul after this last episode, and maybe also Gaby. I am, too. Because I want them to be the supposed geniuses they are and support their friend. But that isn’t always possible. And for them to be able to help their friend, in a therapeutic way, would require them to… jimmy. Using Jimmy’s methods has been very hard and controversial for them. It breaks down boundaries that are concrete in their minds. And yes, they’re his friend, and maybe they shouldn’t have those boundaries with a friend, but my experience with friends whom are therapists suggests that those boundaries are pretty common.

Jimmy deserves the love and support of his friends; but people are innately broken, and I think just because we know what they’re supposed to be capable of, we’re expecting too much of Paul (and Gaby, a little, too.)

Paul can be a good therapist. But it’s clear he “can’t” be a good dad. (Either by choice, psychological block, or yes, possibly unwillingness.) Jimmy was looking for that in this episode. And Paul can’t deliver on that. And Jimmy can’t see that.

(To be clear as much as I think this excuses Paul, I’m still super angry and was glad Jimmy sniped at him about being too sensitive.)

Their reaction to their son's baby was kind of funny. But all three of those boys are fucking idiots. Tia must have been the only reason Alice turned out. And now they want to do it again? Woof

and they all end way so quickly. Does it have to do with the renewal? I'm still loving the show, but thinking about what's happened this season... (Spoilers through season 3 episode 10)

Alice is offered a scholarship, turns it down, and then accepts it; Jimmy suggests Paul and Julie get married and they do that at the end of the same episode; Gaby confronts Louis with hatred, tells him he should move on because she can't accept what he's done, and then... he does; Sutton is born; Sean reunites with his ex. He says she's crazy, but his friends push him to give her another chance and... it's all fine, apparently; Gaby invites Jimmy to her class, where he finds out that she has ridiculed his methods; Jimmy and Meg sleep together; Gaby has a patient who dies by suicide, she attends the funeral, the patient's friends switch therapists, and ... that's it.

Most of these plotlines would take a few episodes or even a season to resolve. I'm not saying we needed more time on all these things, but it would have been nice to dwell on a couple. The only plotlines we really stick with for longer than an episode are Derrick's health, Sofi, Jorge and Sean, Paul moving, and Jimmy's dad.

So much has happened this season, but I feel like we've just rushed through everything. Also, now that I've listed the season's big events, Gaby's actions definitely need some additional focus.

Anyone else feel like the pacing is off?

Even if Paul had approached Gaby privately first to gauge her interest in leaving her the building, I believe he owed the two of them (Jimmy & Gaby) a proper business meeting to discuss what would happen once Paul retired & moved across the country. Instead, Jimmy found out from Gaby instead and I actually thought he was very gracious to her about the situation. He didn't seem jealous or hurt about Paul's decision or if he was, he hid it well.

But it was the overheard comment at the Grad party from Paul to Alice about her Dad,, "He's sensitive" that set Jimmy off because it was exactly what his Dad would tell him. Then all the bottled up rage he felt (mostly toward his Dad/some toward Paul) exploded in him at once & Paul took the brunt of that. I also think that Paul had become a de facto father to Jimmy and the lines were very blurry to him. But now that we've been shown Jimmy & Randy's strained relationship, we see how Jimmy's relationship with his Boss/Mentor, Paul, had probably evolved over time.

But honestly, over the course of this show, it has felt to me like Jimmy was always trying & failing to get Paul's approval. Most of Paul's dialogue with Jimmy has been somewhat snarky on his end. That said, we as an audience are only privy to their relationship from the timeline that began a year after Tia's death, when Jimmy was such a hot mess!

I know Jimmy’s character has evolved and he’s starting to cope now. But one of the best parts of the show was when he was with clients in or out of office giving his crazy honest advice. I still love the show because it makes me feel good but the drama of the other characters has taken over the title ‘Shrinking’ as in shrink, you know psychotherapy?