‘Shrinking’ Season 3, Episode 3 Recap – New Beginnings and Coming Ends

There’s a fine line between happiness and crippling trauma. It’s a line that Shrinking has tiptoed along beautifully since the beginning, and never more so than in Season 3, which has an inescapable spectre looming over it that it won’t allow us to forget. Paul is going to die. It might not be this season — though I suspect it will be — but it’s going to be soon enough that every reminder is painful. His quality of life is going to deteriorate, and the vital function he has fulfilled in the lives of his patients, his friends, and his family, which at this point are largely the same thing, is going to be someone else’s responsibility to bear. Episode 3, “D-Day”, is on the face of things a happy outing, with plenty of cause for celebration, but it’s also haunted by this inevitability.

I, for one, don’t feel ready for it, which is probably the point. At the risk of sounding a bit hyperbolic, only rarely in television history has a show assembled a cast of characters so consistently likable — nay, lovable — across the board, and in the most essential dramatic terms, what is happening to them feels, on some level, like it’s happening to you. It’s a show about empathy that reiterates its importance by forcing you to feel it for everyone, all the time. But you feel it tenfold for Paul, especially as his burgeoning acceptance of his own circumstances makes his fate all the more real.

Jimmy’s Dad Is In Town

While it was teased in the previous episode, the arrival of Jimmy’s father, played by Jeff Daniels, feels a bit unceremonious. It’s obviously going to be a bigger plot down the line, but it’s worth mentioning here since it kick-starts a couple of other individual subplots worth paying attention to. The gist of it is that Jimmy has a complicated relationship with his father since they don’t have very much in common; his dad is a macho traditionalist — he only visits Jimmy when he’s in town for a car show or some such — while Jimmy is much softer and more sensitive, and you can tell that this has made it difficult for them to bond. Alice, though, has a very good relationship with her grandfather and wants to invite him to her graduation.

We need more detail here, since at present it just seems like Jimmy is being a little selfish. And I suspect we’re going to get that detail, since Alice is going to invite her grandfather to her graduation, despite knowing that Jimmy won’t love the idea, largely on Paul’s advice. Even though he’s not allowed to work until he has gone a week without any hallucinations, he sneaks off to meet Alice at their bench for an impromptu therapy session and tells her, basically, to extend the invite and cross the Jimmy bridge when she comes to it.

As ever, Alice is reassured by Paul’s presence, especially with all the big changes in her life — like going to college! — that are rapidly approaching. But Paul knows that even though they’d both like to continue this relationship forever, that’s not how things work. And, recognising that, he formally passes Alice on to Gaby as her new private therapist. She’s the right choice, and Alice is happy with it, but it’s another stinging reminder that Paul’s running out of road.

Brian Is A Dad

One of the great things about “D-Day” — which stands for “Delivery Day”, since Ava is due to pop at any moment — is that it gives us lots of Brian at the very end of his rope, which is always a great recipe for comedy. Circumstances even conspire to leave him completely isolated for huge chunks of time. Ava goes into labour unexpectedly, and Charlie is stuck in Chicago on a work trip, so for a good while Brian is left as Ava’s sole support, slightly sickened by the sight of her bare feet and the smell of the room but determined to do right by his baby.

Eventually, Liz arrives and starts taking over. This is a delicate needle to thread, and Shrinking Season 3, Episode 3 does a really good job of it, striking the right balance between Liz being overbearing but also pulling it back when necessary to let other moments breathe. Brian and Ava remain the focal point, especially when Stuart arrives with the good news that Ava hasn’t yet signed the adoption paperwork. Is she having second thoughts? Has her judgmental mother gotten her hooks in? Brian wants to — and indeed tries to, halfheartedly — address the issue while Ava is barely conscious on drugs, but even Liz reminds him that this is a decision that Ava has to come to on her own.

Ted McGinley and Michael Urie in Shrinking Season 3 | Image via Apple TV+

And she does. Brian’s crunch moment comes when it’s just he and Ava, and she asks him directly about what’s bothering him. He elects not to mention the papers, saying his only concern at the moment is the health of Ava and the baby. As it happens, the papers are already signed. Ava just needed the time Brian afforded her, and the fact that he did so reassures both of them that they’re making the right decision.

As for Liz, she redirects her parenting instincts into pushing Jimmy into a date with Kimmy, one of the nurses who can’t stop laughing at his terrible jokes. It isn’t quite Sofi — Jimmy himself says that things with her feel “too real” for him to consider pursuing them just yet — but it’s a start, and it gives Liz something to do that won’t land her in prison.

Even this, though, ends with another reminder about Paul. As everyone assembles to meet the baby, Gaby hands the tiny bundle to Paul, and he tearfully says, “Enjoy the ride, kid.” It’s obvious he feels like his own ride is rapidly coming to an end.

Past Is Prologue

A brief aside for the developing relationship between Sean and his ex, Marisol. I didn’t mention these two in my recap of the previous episode since I wasn’t entirely sure how seriously we should be taking this dynamic, but it gets a bit more airtime here. Again, in brief, Sean’s issue is that the breakdown of their relationship was incredibly sour; she dumped him while he was serving overseas, he was awful to her as a result, and none of that was ever really resolved. Now Marisol is back in town and seemingly has no memory of these events, or at the very least isn’t willing to address them.

Marisol invites Sean to dinner, and as a buffer, he invites Alice to come along. Since Alice is otherwise engaged with Paul, she sends Summer in her stead, which is funny enough but mostly just keeps Sean and Marisol from getting to the point. They do eventually, though, and it’s a surprisingly simple conclusion. All that bad stuff happened when they were kids. They can either live in the past and dwell on it or try to move on from it. Given the kiss they share, it looks like they’re both in agreement about moving on.