It's truth-bomb time in a touching Shrinking

Shrinking is at its best when it allows its characters (and its audience, in turn) to embrace the messiness that comes from growth. Such growth can and does often happen during therapy sessions. And it can also happen from taking the tools learned in therapy even if they’re passed down by friends and family members alike. And as “In A Lonely Place” attests, leaning into such messiness and growth may well finally let the show get out of its own way in crafting a helpful model for how to acknowledge the importance of tending to one’s own mental health—whether one is a therapist grieving his late wife, a moody teenager riddled with anger from losing her mom, or a veteran whose PTSD has left him wounded in ways he’s still sorting through.

We begin, of course, with the fallout from two events that risked upending the entire Shrinking ecosystem: Alice’s tryst with Connor (which made an irate Summer dump Connor, who has opted to forgo school in hopes of fixing it — much to his mom Liz’s chagrin) and Sean’s run-in with some very violent construction workers (which landed him in the hospital with many a broken bone).

But it’s Sean’s hospital stint that gets the gang back together, all arriving to greet him while he’s clearly high on painkillers. And in so doing the show gives Luke Tennie the chance to voice truths everyone may not want to hear: He tells Jimmy he has a big head, calls Gabby a “Jimmy fucker,” berates Liz for betraying him as a business partner, and even reveals that Alice once tried to kiss him. It’s truth bomb-dropping time and it’s as awkward and hilarious as it sounds. And it sets the stage for one third the episode’s focus on healing as Jimmy and Paul are asked to go talk with Sean’s father and convince him to come back and care for his son. “Is that something therapists do?” Sean’s mom asks. “No,” she’s told by Paul who, because this is Shrinking, nevertheless eventually agrees with Jimmy that even if it’s not something therapists do, it’s something therapists who Jimmy their patients do. And so off they go on a buddy adventure to find Sean’s dad, who’s off fishing in quiet solitude (though obviously not for long). 

Meanwhile, Alice and Brian set off on their own journey when Alice notices Louis (that’d be Brett Goldstein, a.k.a. the drunk driver who killed Alice’s mom) had left an “I am sorry” note in her wallet when he returned it. Brian is eager to manage how Alice reacts to Louis’ message—mostly because he’s been, uh, more than nice that one time. As he spills (in a deliciously erratic and comedic masterpiece of a monologue delivered by Michael Urie), he’s actually been in close contact with Louis. They’ve been hanging out. They’ve been texting. And won’t you believe it, Louis is struggling! 

Alice’s expletive-laden response is warranted. But so is the thawing lucidity that follows. She wants to finally talk to Louis, a proposal Brian only agrees to because she knows how to wield the info he just gave her. (What would Jimmy make of his new BFF?) And so, just as Jimmy and Paul go and meet with Sean’s dad to help him find some closure, so do Brian and Alice head to meet Louis for a similar kind of meeting.

Gabby, not one to be left behind in this quite crowded (plot-wise) episode, thrusts herself back into the world of her mom (in dire need of cataract surgery) and sister (a recovering addict who’s ready to let go of her full time caretaking duties if only Gabby would let her). The scene between the sisters is touching, prompted as it is by Liz finally letting Gabby see how selfish she’d been in assuming her sister should care for their mother forever. The two finally come to an agreement: In three months’ time, Gabby will “release” her sister from her responsibilities and hopefully figure out what to do with their mom who, yes, finally did have the surgery she needed and found both her daughters at her bedside.

Similarly neat are the conclusions at those other two testy meetings about how to heal from anger. Jimmy and Paul find Sean’s dad, Tim, fishing. And the way to bond with him is by, eventually, sharing how difficult their own parenting journeys have been. It’s in sharing how the two therapists have felt, at times, like they’d failed their own kids that they get Tim to open up about how he’s at a loss as to how to help Sean. By the time the two therapists leave him to fish on his own again, it’s unclear whether Tim has heard the call toward empathy that they voiced. Sean was clearly hoping to hurt himself when he met his attackers: How can a father help a child of his who’s carrying that much guilt, that much anger, and that much pain?

Quite touching as well is Alice’s awkward meeting in Louis’ empty, rather depressing house. She voices her anger, and he just takes it in. There’s no rancor in him—just grace, for her and for himself. “Not a single day goes by that I don’t think about her,” he tells Alice. “And you. And your dad.” What would otherwise have been a raging encounter turns instead into a productive moment of healing where Louis’ questions about Alice’s mom and her favorite memories of her end up nourishing them both. It’s a beautiful moment that gets at how difficult it can be to let go of anger and also how generative it can be to look past it.

This tees up the beautiful moment Jimmy and Paul witness when Tim does eventually arrive at the hospital for his son once more (another successful patient being Jimmy’ed!). Liz, as it happens, is having a kind of crisis in front of them all. And it drives her to meet up with Mac (Cougar Town’s Josh Hopkins), the one ex who apparently gets under Derek’s skin.

“What if I escape with you?” Those are the lyrics that close out the show (courtesy of Kx5’s “Escape [feat. Hayla]”), and they are truly a window into what Liz may well be thinking—or allowing herself to ever so briefly imagine as she agrees to go to Mac for an impromptu pet photo shoot that no doubt means more to her than he likely knows.  

Stray observations

• • You gotta admit: Gabby And The White Saviors does sound like a killer band. 
• • Segel and Ford are quite a pair. I may give the show plenty of flack for its near irresponsible depiction of therapists and therapy in general, but there’s no denying seeing these two working together is worth the price of admission. Ford saying “Don’t Bugs Bunny me!” alone was a highlight of the episode.
• • Watching Brian navigate how good of a father he might be is endearing (even if it weirdly advances the “breeder agenda” he’d one railed against). But then he says he’d name his son “Peter Bernadette” and, well, I lose myself in quirky giggles all over again.
• • How many more times are we going to see Paul cave to Jimmy’s unorthodox ways and yet chastise him for not being able to maintain clear boundaries with his patients?