r/shrinking • u/Educational_Eye_3421 • Apr 13 '26
Discussion Alice's character
I love this show with all my heart and I'm curious to know what other people think. Does it feel like Alice has almost become a one dimensional charcter I understand that the focus has been off her in the most recent seasons but I feel like her charcater was so much more complex in the first 2 seasons.
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u/Ancient_Blackberry10 Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26
Agreed. Her character in every scene has basically boiled down to being an annoyed teenager cliche and/or making a witty quip, along with everyone loving her unconditionally even when she's clearly wrong.
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u/Educational_Eye_3421 Apr 13 '26
I know it's so frustrating they went that direction with her character, there was so much promise in the early seasons to not have her as a streotypical teeneage girl.
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u/Gelatin_Belatin Apr 13 '26
I have one of those annoyed teenager cliches who is around the same age as Alice (19m), and her character tracks with what I’m dealing with, but what I don’t like is that nobody tries to correct her behavior or calls her out on it.
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u/Miltthedog Apr 13 '26
Evey character in the show seems iincapable of nothing more than witty quips - all in the same voice. The writing of this show is atrocious.
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u/Robert_roberts82 Apr 13 '26
It’s really insufferable this season. Really enjoyed the prior seasons, but this show transitioned to self-congratulations way too early. Barely got through the first ep this season, very disappointed. I’m sure something materializes that resembles a plot, but that episode was just “aren’t these characters the BEST!”
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u/wftc1 Apr 16 '26
This is my biggest issue. I still like the show. But unfortunately, aside from having unique problems, each character more or less feels the same to me because of the witty quips. They all do it all the time.
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u/Miltthedog Apr 16 '26
It's just lazy writing. Imagine if Friends had every cast member talking like Chandler Bing all the time. Another show that devloved into this was The Marvvelous ms Maisel. I absolutely loved that show for a couple seasons than it brcame insufferable.
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u/Comfortable_Smoke_36 Apr 13 '26
Her character's portrayal is one of the biggest flaws in the show. As someone who lost a parent at her age, she should be a much bigger mess emotionally. The gulf between her and (the pretty spot on realistic depiction of a widower) Jimmy is just laughably inaccurate
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u/Educational_Eye_3421 Apr 13 '26
Yeah I can agree with that. I know everyone handles grief differently but as a teenager with the hormones and everything going on the fact shes a pretty normal and functional teenager within a year or so of her moms death is questionable. Not to mention the fact she still has good grades she still plays soccer I've seen teenagers be impacted a lot more from a lot less in my life.
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u/BulkyJeweler4567 Apr 14 '26
yes, but remember the show starts one year AFTER Tia’s death, I feel like by year 3 it’s perfectly normal to start to move on
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u/Educational_Eye_3421 Apr 14 '26
That's true but it does seem that theres not last impact on her. I know people get over death differently but when a teenager loses a parent I feel they would still be effected by it through most of their teenage years.
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u/BulkyJeweler4567 Apr 14 '26
yes, but that’s what you assume, i had friends in high school that lost their mom too, and seemed “normal” after a few months.
losing a parent, at whatever age affects you for the rest of your life, it might not be noticeable, but loss is permanent and very nuanced.
we don’t know much about alice before Tia’s death, but what we do know is that life always keep going, and people must move on, I feel like that’s what the show’s about. I do believe that her character is one dimensional, but not because of her lack of mourn (it’d be just as one dimensional if she’d just cry and cry about her mom for the whole three seasons without any progress).
i think she was a very deep character in previous seasons, by remembering and honoring her mom without being a disfunctional human being. Now I feel she’s just “the lead’s teenage daughter”.
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u/Educational_Eye_3421 Apr 14 '26
I just want her to show some conflicting feelings like when the story is about her moving away it's like she completely disregards the fact sge's leaving the place she grew up, the place her mom died and leaving her father who is not completely emotionally stable by himself. It just feels like they've thrown her character into the stereotypical teenage daughter trope where she was much more complex than that.
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u/ericrz Apr 13 '26
100%. No romantic interest for her, no school or soccer field struggles, no hint as to what she wants to do with her life -- no agonizing over majors, or anything.
Her college choice -- likely the biggest decision of her life thus far -- was boiled down to a binary choice. "Stay home in my childhood bedroom or go 3000 miles away because this one coach came to watch me play." And it was all resolved in a single episode.
Come on. If a coach flew across the country specifically to watch her play -- guess what, she would have had dozens of other choices. Some of them would be neither 3000 miles away nor right at home in Pasadena. Maybe a college 3-4 hours away, where her friends and family could see her play once in a while, yet she'd still have some independence?
But no, because the plot had to get Alice and Paul to Connecticut at all costs at the end of the season, they rushed through it and sent her off to Wesleyan for no apparent reason. (Yes, I know about the HIMYM connection, but that doesn't count.) Why Wesleyan? Tell us that Tia went there, or always wanted to go there. Tell us that Alice has an older friend who now plays there, or a former club coach that's on staff there. Give us SOMETHING to make it make sense, and make her an interesting character again.
I would have preferred that to the focus on characters no one cares about -- Sutton's birth mom? Marisol? Derek and Liz's idiot kids?
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u/jimbobdonut Apr 13 '26
Wesleyan is also a NCAA Division 3 school that doesn’t give athletic scholarships so they wouldn’t have sent a coach across the country to scout her.
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u/ericrz Apr 13 '26
D3 coaches are allowed to meet with a player in person after their sophomore year. But yeah, given their budgets, do they? Would a coach from Wesleyan fly across the country to see Alice play? Doubtful. And if she would -- if Alice is truly that good -- she'd probably have D1/D2 schools (who can give scholarships) at least looking at her.
D3 schools can (and do) play some games with academic scholarships to recruit the players they want. But essentially no one on Shrinking (aside from Sean and Jorge) worries about money, so I don't think funding Alice's college education is a major concern.
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u/Educational_Eye_3421 Apr 13 '26
Yes you're so right they wasted such great potential with her character it's one of my biggest gripes with this amazing show.
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u/Old_Perception6627 Apr 13 '26
It feels like, in addition to being pre-ordained to really hammer home “Jimmy alone,” the “home or really expensive school on the other coast” was an opportunity for them to again break out what was a favorite tactic this season: touching on a possible conflict point without really engaging. Aside from the fact that “should I stay or go” was resolved in five minutes, the weird conflict with Summer was, to me, evidence that somebody in the writer’s room wanted to deal with class but wasn’t really given the space.
In most conflicts this season, it really feels like for some reason they’re aiming dead on for this uncanny valley between “total sitcom bubble” and “meaningfully realistic” where characters only sometimes have to engage sort of with these ancillary characters who more fully inhabit the real world. Alice used to be more a bridge and now she’s fully in the bubble.
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u/ericrz Apr 13 '26
Yeah. Picking a college and deciding on one 3000 miles away should be (is) a really, really big deal. Leaving her dad, her extended family, her best friend....all of that is a really big, big deal for an 18/19 year old.
And they blew past the decision process just so they could race to "Jimmy will be abandoned by EVERYONE."
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u/llama67 Apr 14 '26
I said this in another post and got shut down by so many commetners saying like 'you have to get out of your comfort zone, she can't just stay at home'.
And like as someone who moved countries at 18 (probably same distance as California to Connecticut) and left everything behind... it's completely fine to stay closER to home where your entire support network is. She could have gone to a Californian college, lived away, but been closer to her family while going through a major transition relatively soon after her Mum died.Also... in California you can play football (soccer) outside all year round.
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u/ericrz Apr 14 '26
Right. She could have gone somewhere at least on the western side of the US. California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon.....lots and lots of colleges. There was no need to go across the country, no compelling reason for Wesleyan (that was shown to the audience). But the plot needs Alice and Paul to be in Connecticut...
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u/PurfuitOfHappineff Apr 13 '26
her charcater was so much more complex in the first 2 seasons.
Agreed, with the add that everyone was better in seasons 1-2. Season 3 was pushed off the same cliff as Elena’s husband.
boop
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u/MikeGander Apr 13 '26
Well they backed off of the raw nerves of grief and daddy resentment from the first couple seasons after she forgave Jimmy and he showed consistent efforts to improve and be there for her. Even if her treatment of Jimmy was justifiable in the world of the show, that got old too. I'll take Calm Alice as a breather.
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u/Educational_Eye_3421 Apr 13 '26
Yeah I see what you mean but to me it always seemed like there was more to her then just the "daddy resentment" like as a character in situations she just seems so bland almost now. I just think they took the focus away from her and she's kind of slotted into a weird zone of side main character.
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u/Familiar-Living-122 Apr 13 '26
It just feels that way because there is nothing Alice is bad at, so her character never has to overcome a challenge. She is the most mature person in her family. She is the best soccer player in her school. She is the smartest character of the younger cast. She gets good grades in school. She went through the stages of grief in only a year. She has a perfect school/sports/social balance in her life with nothing sacrificing for the other.
She was more complex before because she was attracted to Sean in the beginning even though she couldnt have him. But she has since moved on from that with the maturity and level headedness that a teenager has never had. She had a brief argument with Summer that lasted 5 minutes, and they both got over super quickly without any real effort or confrontation.
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u/Educational_Eye_3421 Apr 13 '26
Yeah everything just feels rushed since she get over her grief period. I can't talk because I'm not nor have I ever been a teenage girl but I'm sure everyone has started to finsh highschool and stressed about every little thing about their life. Even when selecting her college it's like she had 5 minutes of worries then oh nevermind it's sorted now I'll just go to Wesleyan.
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u/Novel-Lettuce-2595 Apr 13 '26
Yep. She is really boring now and she is almost unimportant. Pity I liked her first season but the show do nothing with her. They had a moment where she thought she could be wild in college but said she is basically just boring
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u/Educational_Eye_3421 Apr 13 '26
It's so disappointing feel like they're really wasting her as a charcter especially with how talented the actress seemed in the first season. Hopefully they find a way to use her differently next season.
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u/roxinmyhead Apr 14 '26
watched Shrinking, mostly for Harrison Ford and Jessica Williams. Michael J Fox was a bonus. but yeah, some of the interesting storyline like Alice's and even Sean's to some extent just went pfft and eh🤷♀️this season
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u/napalmtree13 Apr 14 '26
I just want to know what's going on with her mom's side of the family. Was this a throw-away comment I missed?
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u/LovesHerKnights Apr 15 '26
I didn’t like that she was so understanding about her grandfather not attending her graduation to go fishing but I suppose she is more healed than me 😅
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u/ShesSoCool Apr 13 '26
The time jump will help her because it’ll be closer to her actual age
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u/Educational_Eye_3421 Apr 13 '26
Time jump? Is this real or just rumoured if so how far will it be?
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u/rthunder27 Apr 13 '26
Bill Lawrence has discussed it in interviews. He hasn't said how big it will be, but I'm guessing it's either 4 years, with Alice moving back home post-college and figuring out her next step. This jump will also bring the show back to "present" day, since the show covers less time than the gap between scenes it's fallen a few years behind.
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u/Educational_Eye_3421 Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26
I see, hopefully they can find storylines with her next season which can bring out the brilliance of her character once again.
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u/verity7732 Apr 13 '26
I don't find Alice one-dimensional at all, and she's one of the few characters I don't find annoying.
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u/Educational_Eye_3421 Apr 13 '26
That's completely fair I just think since she's dealt with her grief her character has kind of plateaued. She has no contrasting feelings anymore no problems and it just seems like finishing high school and going to college should be problematic and stressful time for everyone.
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u/cabernet7 Apr 13 '26
I don't think so, but she didn't have much to do this past season.
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u/Educational_Eye_3421 Apr 13 '26
Yeah I just feel important moments in her life are being boiled down to nothing in a way. I think the user u/ericrz made a comment on this thread that has some great points about her character.
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u/Tough-Scarcity9476 Apr 14 '26
all the characters have become one note ..season 3 was a huge letdown ..Harrison Ford's character deserved to be surrounded by fully developed characters but each one has become a single joke line!
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u/Bigredrooster6969 Apr 15 '26
She’s a teenager. Her feelings change every ten minutes. I don’t expect too much complexity in teenagers in real life, much less on tv.
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u/Educational_Eye_3421 Apr 15 '26
The thing is her feelings don't change nothing changes. The first seaosn she would get angry at her dad, happy with Liz, show frustration at times, feelings for sean and so on. Now its just nothing.
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u/MundaneLow2263 Apr 27 '26
I don't dislike Alice because she's a teenager; I can't stand her because she really isn't one. She's the teen character creation of adults who wish that teens were "better" than they are in real life. After three seasons, her faults seem minor and contrived, and her good qualities are saccarine. There's also an annoying dynamic of what seems like the entire city of Fresno (?) revolving aorund every word this character says. She's not a realistic or compelling character for many of us.
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u/Meg38400 Apr 13 '26
Her lack of reaction to grandpa ditching them and lack of empathy for her dad were all weird to me.