Summary
Shrinking Season 2 (unsurprisingly) delivers a beautiful finale in Episode 12, which is crucially not an ending at all but rather a new beginning.
Somewhat embarrassingly, I let out an audible gasp of relief at a certain point in Shrinking’s Season 2 finale that was so loud and dramatic that my partner jumped in shock. It’s difficult to explain, really, and it’s a testament to the sheer quality of Apple TV+’s comedic crown jewel that I believed so strongly that Episode 12, “The Last Thanksgiving”, was going to do the thing we all dreaded it would. The fact it didn’t do that is probably the easy way out, the softer choice that yields less obvious storytelling avenues for the already-confirmed Season 3. But I’m so glad it didn’t. It would have felt too much like an ending instead of a new beginning.
This show has been about grief since the beginning. Jimmy’s entire arc has been his inability to deal with the loss of his wife and his subsequent failures as a parent, despite his best intentions. It has taken two whole seasons for him to get to a point where he can sit on a bench next to the drunk driver who shattered his life and realize, for the first time, that he’s done okay. That he is okay. And at that point, Shrinking doesn’t need to be about grief anymore.
This isn’t to say that it has run out of road. The Season 2 finale is an ending of the current run of episodes but not of the show itself, which could conceivably go on forever. But the fact that every single personal subplot had a happy resolution isn’t an accident, nor is it a copout. Because there will, inevitably, be teething troubles as everyone tries to shift into this new phase of their lives. Jimmy, Alice, and Louis have to develop a relationship guest-starring Tia’s ghost, Brian and Charlie have to adapt to being parents, Gaby has to learn how to have an adult relationship, and Paul – oh God, Paul – has to deal with his worsening Parkinson’s. There will be new challenges. Many of them will be painful.
Comedies have a tendency to linger in stasis, where nothing ever changes or evolves because it’s easier to mine the original premise. This is why “The Last Thanksgiving” doesn’t feel cheap for having everything go well. It’s shifting into new territory instead of circling the same drain for shock value. That’s a bolder storytelling decision than having Louis jump under a train and Alice and Jimmy blame themselves for it.
Blimey, it was close though, wasn’t it? The whole sequence was so well orchestrated that I was convinced Louis was done for. The phones in the basket! The collapse of Friendsgiving! Louis’s previous admission that he used to fantasize about throwing himself under a train! Admittedly, Episode 12 cheats with the logistics a little bit so we can’t tell how long Louis has been at the station, allowing Jimmy to essentially teleport into the scene at the right moment. But whatever. I’m not going to complain about that when my emotional reaction to how it all played out was so strong.
Harrison Ford and Wendie Malick in Shrinking | Image via Apple TV+
And I’d barely recovered from Paul’s heartfelt speech to everyone assembled for Thanksgiving at Gaby’s. My granddad died 30 years ago, but Harrison Ford’s character is the next best thing. And did you notice that it was Gaby’s reaction again that sold the significance of Paul coming to terms with the difficulties of his condition and the bravery of his admission that he’ll need support from his friends? Just like when he was told that his medication was losing efficacy. She’s like his emotional translator.
What else? Well, Brian and Charlie are going to be parents, and they already have childcare arranged – a very well-put-together nanny and, of course, Liz, who will take the remaining two days a week. Derek organizing this like a backroom deal was hilarious but also sweet. It seems like Derek is just trying to give Liz something to do to keep her off his case, which in a way he is, but he’s also ensuring she has a purpose. Raising children is her gift, even if they’re not her own.
Case in point: Alice. It’s Liz’s house where Alice has been staying while she works through her anger and disappointment with Jimmy. The sanctuary allows her to realize that, while he hasn’t been perfect, he has been impossibly earnest, even in his worst moments. The beauty of this dynamic in Shrinking Season 2, Episode 12 was that these two had already reconciled before Jimmy saved Louis from himself. At that point, he didn’t have to intervene. But he did anyway because that’s who he is.
Everyone needs a Jimmy on some level; someone to be thankful for when times are hard. That’s probably why Thanksgiving is such a perfect background theme for this finale since everyone present has someone or something to be thankful for. Even the stuff that seems like it could be left on the table with the remains of the turkey, like Gaby’s relationship with Derrick, gets a sweet payoff just because. And after how remarkably consistent Shrinking Season 2 has been, it all feels totally earned. Like magic, almost.
