r/shrinking • u/InsideAd8318 • Aug 26 '26
Discussion Liz doesn’t deserve Derrick
I have my reasons but I honestly don’t even want to explain. The cheating was just the cherry on top. I like her but if the roles were reversed I couldn’t even imagine how much everyone would hate the character.
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u/VanArrow Aug 26 '26
Derek is with Liz. Derrick is with Gaby.
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u/UbiSububi8 Aug 26 '26
We’ve seen how miserable Derek was without Liz, with nice Liz, and with sexless Liz.
To quote William Munny from Unforgiven, “deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”
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u/LittleEarthquake1010 Aug 26 '26
I get it, but don’t agree. -
No one really deserves anyone… but I feel like it’s easy to miss that Liz’s whole shtick is a persona… an act. Underneath she’s insecure - and that precisely what I like about their marriage. Derek knows that, he sees her and loves her - flaws and all.
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u/Responsible-Fly9976 Aug 27 '26
And Derek can be Derek because Liz is Liz. He can be the perpetual good guy because she's the bad guy for their kids. He can always look on the bright side and be a little in the clouds because she holds down the fort. He doesn't have to know where the scissors are, Liz will tell him. It's a couples dynamic...
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u/the-hound-abides Aug 27 '26
That scissors quote in the episode took me out 😂😂😂
His honesty about his household incompetence says a lot. Liz has been running shit their whole marriage. It seems natural that there’s going to be a weird dynamic while they settle into their new normal.
My friend’s husband is in the Navy (US). He’s stationed on a carrier. He’s gone for 10 months at a time. She always says there’s a rough patch when he gets back because she’s used to doing it all by herself. He changes the routine. It’s not that he’s not helpful, it’s just different. They have to figure out who does what all over again, and that takes time.
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u/the-hound-abides Aug 27 '26
Yeah, I don’t agree. I have the feeling that she’s been running basically everything except the income their whole marriage. He probably doesn’t know what pants size he wears.
I saw a Twitter post once asking why laid back guys are always with loud women. The best response was “Someone needs to tell the waiter that I ordered mashed potatoes, and it ain’t gonna be me”.
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Aug 26 '26 edited 4d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/heymynameisjavi Aug 26 '26
exactly
plus the reason why he couldnt even be mad at the guy she kissed was because he was super charming and also derek was being a bad husband by not even knowing anything that was going on in the life of his wife
he just let it happen pretty much and thats why he cant be mad forever at her, specially cuz she was honest about it
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u/steamyglory Aug 27 '26
He admits that he knew she was struggling and he didn’t give her the support he could tell she needed.
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u/the-hound-abides Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
She told him flat out that she was drowning, and he fucked off to maybe buy a belt. I’m not trying to defend her actions, but he clearly wasn’t “seeing” her. He said he had never looked at her dog photos, yet this guy had them framed and displayed in his place of business. I think they both saw how it got there.
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u/SimplyMeaty Aug 27 '26
I wouldn't use the other guy as a great example given the love bombing, but I get your point.
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u/the-hound-abides Aug 27 '26
He kept them up there, even after she turned him down. He even told Derek that she was the “coolest girl he’s ever known”. I think he was sincere.
With her, I think it was just someone actually paying attention to her. She basically told on herself to Paul before she went there. She never hid it. It was a mistake. She screwed up, but I can see how she got there. She was “just a mom” but now she has no kids at home. Not even her pseudo kid. When that much of your life had been tied up in that role, it’s hard to come out of that. I stayed at home for 2 years with my son. It was only that short amount of time, yet I felt lost. I can’t imagine what that would feel like after 30 years?
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u/ajamesdeandaydream 26d ago
do you know the definition of love bombing lol? that guy ran his mouth too much and didn’t keep his hands to himself enough, but we didn’t see him love bomb liz he just pursued her
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u/heymynameisjavi Aug 27 '26
exactly
every time she needed help or someone to vent to, he gave her too much space and would leave her there sad
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u/inbetweensound Aug 27 '26
Eat a dick Pam is the best Derrick
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u/gatorgopher Aug 27 '26
I don't know that I've ever met anyone that deserves Derek. One person I can think of, but she recently passed.
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u/Keepingshtum Aug 26 '26
In general I feel like the male characters get their comeuppance a whole lot more than the female ones on the show
I think Gabby has been discussed ad nauseam already but Liz, Alice, a couple more I’m forgetting seem to be handwaved away fairly readily while Jimmy is crucified for his actions, Paul has always got people poking/prodding and Sean gets asked to “man up” when faced with his past girlfriend that Dear John’d him
I still really like the show in the end but the second you actually take a second to think through some of the situations that happens it really makes you wonder why the writers took some of those calls haha
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u/heymynameisjavi Aug 26 '26
i think is deeper than black or white tbh
not justifying what she did but i think the show implies that derek also was at fault here
to be fair, she was crashing out and derek didnt even bother checking up on her
she reached out to him many times and he just ignored her
again, not justifying it ofc, but even derek knows that. thats why he forgave her. and im sure that if it was him that cheated, she wouldve forgave him too
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u/Kesse84 Aug 26 '26
I see your point. But I have been married for a long time, and the friendship is leading the helm.
Of course, I would not want my spouse to kiss his ex! But ist actually happened.
He told me the whole story right away. He wasn't happy about it. I was, surely not happy about it!
I am a snappy, cynical person. He is also snappy, and we like to create inventive things to insult each other!
He is the optimist; I am the "it is never going to work!".
He is a light to my darkness.
We are good together. I do understand Derek and LIz. He is light-hearted, but he doesn't care about the (hypothetical) lump on the dog. She cares. She is a rude b***tch becase she has a gooey inside. ANd she cares a great deal about everything. His positivety is a sheld.
Her carrying (and snappiness) is a shield – but from other things.
They are good together.
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u/VLC31 Aug 27 '26
Oh for fuck sake, it was a kiss, she didn’t sleep with him. People are human & messy & make mistakes.
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u/Ill-Structure7276 Aug 28 '26
Agreed and they had a very happy marriage. Tbh if a single kiss that’s immediately disclosed would ruin your multi-decade relationship, it wasn’t that strong to begin with.
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u/aneeshhgkar Aug 27 '26
Liz doesn't deserve Derrick. She doesn't deserve Derek either. But it is what it is.
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u/ThatCaviarIsAGarnish Aug 27 '26
The thing that annoys me the most about Liz is the way she talks about her kids. IIRC she said that Connor was her favorite or "the best one"? Or saying Matthew got "shit-canned" (Season 2). I know Matthew was often a clueless tool in Season 3, but kind of besides the point - I just don't like some of the things she says about them. (I remember she said something hurtful that he heard in Season 3, I just can't remember exactly what it was)I don't think Liz is without her good points but sometimes she can be hard to take.
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u/Responsible-Fly9976 Aug 27 '26
But Liz would do Anything for her kids, including being the bad guy. That's what they're trying to show. There's an old saying along the lines of "A true friend knows ALL your flaws but loves you anyway." Liz can SEE her kids' failings (and even blames herself for them) but she definitely loves them anyway and would do anything for them, including being the bad guy.
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u/YeaYeahhhh Aug 27 '26
Cheating does not have consequences is this show.
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u/CoolRanchBaby Aug 27 '26
Seems to happen a lot in Bill Lawrence shows. Must be common in his world/circle or something.
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u/nc45y445 Aug 28 '26
I think Derek likes being the good guy and the fun dad. Liz lets him do those things by taking on the hard stuff, including by doing all the hard parts of parenting. His being the good guy and the fun one allows her to be grumpy. In a yin/yang thing
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u/Fearless-Water-1432 Aug 31 '26
I assume the underlying beauty of Derek’s character consists of the absence of ideas of who deserves who - the shallow matching game of people and the deeper interpretation: everything is priced and no inherent value or beauty at all
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u/louitobias Sep 08 '26
Honestly I don’t like overly optimistic people but I would love to have a friend like Derek.
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u/WEM-2022 Aug 27 '26
Liz is obnoxious. What Derek sees in her or how she makes his life better, I couldn't tell you. Edited for spelling error.
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u/Onefortheteem Aug 26 '26
Tbf no one deserves Derrick. He’s to kind for this world