Honesty Is The Best Policy In ‘Shrinking’ Season 2, Episode 5

Summer is in her “Honesty Era” in Episode 5 of Shrinking Season 2, which proves to be bad news for everyone, but Alice in particular. As if the revelation of her emotionally charged one-night stand with Connor wasn’t bad enough as a starting point, we’re also mid-season in an outing that is consistently and relentlessly challenging all of its characters. Sean still hasn’t addressed his daddy issues, Liz runs into an old flame named Mac who makes even Derek uncomfortable, Gaby still needs space from Jimmy, and Brian hasn’t told anyone about whatever conversation he had with Louis. It’s a mess!

Luckily, everyone else is feeling pretty honest too, and the episode is about how being open about how you feel can have positive results. It can also have some not-so-positive ones, as we’ll see, but at the very least it puts you in the right position to deal with whatever’s coming your way as a result of your truths. Class slut? A beating from a bunch of roadworkers? A very bad tattoo? All of that can be taken in stride. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Paul and Susan Play “Pick and Sip”

Paul’s predicament in “Honesty Era” is that along with his daughter Meg, his son-in-law Dave — whom he can’t stand — and even more worryingly his ex-wife Susan are all in his house. Paul hasn’t spoken to Susan for years, and the reason behind her sudden reappearance is a mystery to him. As is typical, Paul is great with other people’s feelings but terrible with his own, so he tries to use Brian as an excuse to avoid them.

Paul and Brian are a phenomenal character pairing — I feel like Brian is the best character in Shrinking by quite a margin — and their scenes together are a delight. But what they’re talking about is pretty important, and not in entirely expected ways. Paul relates how his first marriage broke down — when his career took off he and Susan became distant, and then he cheated on her — and the estrangement that has followed terrifies Brian. He sees it as something that might happen to him if he and Charlie go through with the adoption.

So, Brian pushes Paul to find out what Susan wants. As it turns out, she just felt they should reconnect before he dies of Parkinson’s, which is a cheerier idea than it seems. She forgave him years ago for the affair. There’s no lingering animosity there. Sure, she never bothered to tell him, but whatever else went on between them, they managed to make Meg. They both won.

“Pick and Sip”, a drinking game they used to play when they were together and bored at Meg’s school plays, makes a reappearance all these years later when they’re sat in attendance for one of Meg’s work speeches. Even Julie joins in. But not Dave, though. Never Dave.

Lily Rabe in Shrinking | Image via Apple TV+

Liz Has A Meltdown

Things haven’t been going especially well for Liz throughout Shrinking Season 2, and in Episode 5, she finds a convenient outlet for all of her frustration — Jimmy.

To be fair, he is the common denominator. He introduced her to Sean, and giving away her half of the food truck continues to torment her. He had an ill-advised relationship with Gaby, who became Liz’s closest and coolest friend, and now she doesn’t come around anymore. Jimmy accidentally let slip about Mac to Derek, and ever since then, he has been giving her the cold shoulder. Oh, and Alice might have ruined Connor’s life.

Needless to say, a lot of this isn’t Jimmy’s fault, or at least wasn’t intentional, but no matter. Alice overhears Liz’s rant and later apologizes to her for what she did, helping to take some of the weight off. She might have hurt Connor, but he’ll get over it, and Liz reassures her that she’ll remain her rock. Hopefully, once she calms down, she’ll cut Jimmy some slack too.

Jimmy Is Jimmying again

Remember the season premiere? Well, Jimmy’s “Jimmying” again. He has two targets in “Honesty Era” — first Alice, and then Gaby. I can’t imagine how he’s going to cope when he finds out about Louis, but that’s on the back burner for now.

Since Alice is afraid of going back to school and facing judgment over what she did to Summer, Jimmy takes her to get a tattoo. Since he figures she’ll get one eventually whether he gives her permission or not, he figures he might as well just get it over with. Luckily, she only opts for a small one — her mother’s initials. As a bonus, the artist throws in a matching one for Jimmy, which he handles with all the grace of a newborn baby (the tattoos aren’t very good either.)

Michael Urie in Shrinking | Image via Apple TV+

But it helps. And with that handled, it frees Jimmy up to address the Gaby situation. Gaby spends most of Shrinking Season 2, Episode 5 at her mother’s house with her sister, Courtney, where she convinces their mother, Phyllis (played by a guest-starring Vernee Watson), to get cataract surgery after her recent run-in with a towtruck.

Gaby needs to hear the hard truth that she’s wrong in expecting Courtney to look after Phyllis on her own as penance for all the help she needed from Gaby getting into rehab. Gaby has essentially been using that to swerve responsibility and live her own life, almost independently of her family. It takes Jimmy to break this news, even though she knows it’s true. Nobody said honesty was easy!

Sean’s Truth Backfires

Speaking of honesty not being easy, we finally move to Sean. After some sage wisdom from Paul and Jimmy, who both advised that he was truthful with his father about how he felt let down and rejected when he tried to open up years prior, Sean does exactly that. And his dad doesn’t want to hear it. He lashes out about the sacrifices he has made for Sean and claims that the therapists are filling his head with parental blame that he doesn’t deserve.

This, predictably, makes Sean’s mad. And since Sean’s usual way of dealing with his anger is to assault people, “Honesty Era” plays with the idea that he’s going to pick a fight with the road workers he clashed with in the previous episode, who have now taken to throwing beer bottles in the yard. Correction: He does pick a fight with those guys. But in the parking lot of the bar he follows them to, he relaxes his clenched fists and walks headlong into a beating instead of dishing one out.

Does this count as growth? I’m not sure. It’s probably not a good coping mechanism either way, but at the very least he won’t get arrested for it. That’s a start.