Summary
Shrinking Season 2 has already exceeded its excellent predecessor, and Episode 9 is just about perfect in every way.
Whenever I do my obligatory promotion of these recaps, I usually mention in a casual way that Shrinking is one of the best shows on TV. I mean it, too, even more each week. This has been the trajectory throughout Season 2, and it has reached an apotheosis in Episode 9, “Full Grown Dude Face.” This is sublime, emotional, poignant, hilarious, thoroughly brilliant television.
I’m not surprised; it has been good since the beginning, after all. But it continues to impress me how much Shrinking can keep topping itself; how much more we can care about every character, laugh at every joke, and invest so completely in every predicament. It’s remarkable, really. It feels like it might never run out of legs.
Anyway, enough gushing. Onward.
Alice Learns to Embrace Her Dead Mom Face
“Full Grown Dude Face” is a reference to the guy Alice is seeing, Dylan, who looks like a 30-year-old playing a 17-year-old heartthrob in a YA blockbuster. Jimmy’s so thrown by him that he tries to show off by catching a grape in his mouth, almost chokes to death, and has to be rescued by Dylan’s Heimlich maneuver.
But the point is that Dylan goes to a different school. Alice hasn’t been seeing him long, but he represents an opportunity to re-enter the world as someone new, not the girl who slept with her best friend’s boyfriend or, crucially, whose mom died. All throughout the episode, Jimmy feels and acts like he’s letting her go, like she’s moving out and might never return. There’s a coming-of-age air to every element, even something innocuous like dress shopping, where Gaby tears up at how much Alice resembles Tia.
It ends up being a big step for different reasons. Alice is quickly recognized and outed thanks to her recent virality, so she calls Jimmy to meet her nearby. She doesn’t want to go home, she wants her dad to help her find the strength to go back into the afterparty and face the awkwardness she’s so frightened of. It’s a testament to how good of a job Jimmy has done, often in spite of himself, that she knows he can provide this. He explains how his frequent joke about having “dead wife face” is a deliberate technique to soften the moment and make people feel less like they’re walking on eggshells around him. It gives him a tiny bit of ownership over the worst thing that ever happened to him. Alice employs the strategy herself, and it works a treat.
Despite Alice explicitly warning Jimmy not to drive by and check on her, he does anyway. Her subtle mouthing of “love you” almost gave me a coronary event. Just beautiful stuff.
Lukita Maxwell in Shrinking | Image via Apple TV+
Gaby Embraces Being A Caretaker
I’m on record as not agreeing with Gaby’s position about her mother and sister. And that’s fine since her arc has not been discovering that she’s wrong, but figuring out how to deal with the fact she knows she’s wrong and is still reluctant to do the right thing. Shrinking Season 2, Episode 9 helps her along by allowing Courtney to find her purpose, accelerating the timeline of Gaby’s decision.
Courtney, inspired by Sean and his old military buddy who is now staying with him and helping him out with the food truck, is joining the army. And that means that the responsibility of caring for Phyllis will fall to Gaby. She knows it’s coming, but keeps trying to delay the inevitable by not properly supporting her sister, which isn’t a sustainable strategy. For guidance, she kidnaps Paul not once but twice.
But Paul doesn’t do anything other than point out the obvious. Gaby is a caretaker at heart. It’s in her DNA to look after people, even if it isn’t in her own best interests. Yes, she’ll have to make crucial compromises in her professional and personal lives if Phyllis moves in with her. But, on some level, she knows that she doesn’t have it in her to turn her mother down. And that’s precisely what happens. It’s a compromise, sure, but if we can’t compromise for the ones we love, what’s the point of anything?
Michael Urie in Shrinking | Image via Apple TV+
Brian and Charlie Will Be Brilliant Dads — Just Not Yet
Brian and Charlie’s adoption efforts have been a recurring subplot since Episode 4 of this season, but “Full Grown Dude Face” deals with the issue in the most head-on manner yet. With a five-months-pregnant mother weighing the two of them up against a straight couple, Brian’s anxieties about parenthood come to the fore more aggressively than ever, requiring outside-the-box measures.
One of them is going to Jimmy for a Jimmying session, which is sweet and earnest but doesn’t cover all the bases. For the real ins and outs, they need Liz, who has become immediately obsessed with helping to raise the child. It’s through her that Brian learns how little he knows about babies, but also how brilliant of a father he’d be given the abundance of love and support he has around him.
It’s no secret that Brian is my favorite character by far, so perhaps that’s why I was so deeply invested in this subplot. But the range of emotions Michael Urie displays as he goes from manic to tearful to frazzled to quietly secure in himself, his husband, and his friends is a remarkable thing to witness. And his personal plight is a genius way to tie everyone else’s storylines together. He hosts the expectant mother, Ava, in Jimmy’s house, with Liz present, to show Ava what a tremendous support system the baby would have. But Liz and Jimmy are pulled away last-minute to deal with their own kids, leaving Brian and Charlie alone but more convinced than ever of the kind of parents they want to be — the kind that’s just like their messy, imperfect friends.
The two of them not being chosen as the parents of Ava’s baby feels like Rocky losing to Apollo Creed. It’s a shame, but it probably had to happen this way. Even if they won’t be dads right now, Charlie and Brian will be great at it when the time comes.
Read More: Shrinking Season 2, Episode 10 Recap
