Summary
Shrinking Season 3 flirts with a serious tragedy in “Dereks Don’t Die”, and the risk to Derek pushes several characters to make important decisions of their own.
Shrinking isn’t about death, per se, but it’s certainly rather attached to the idea. It occurs to me that we’re in Season 3 now, and none of the core cast has been killed off in any way, even the ones that have come close a few times, so perhaps the fake-out trick is wearing thin. But Episode 6, tellingly titled “Dereks Don’t Die”, is a pretty adroit reminder of just how good Shrinking is at showing us how distressingly brief life can be.
Derek’s predicament also has a major knock-on effect for every other character and their personal subplots, including one I’m genuinely a little worried about. The episode isn’t Derek-dominant, despite his health scare being the catalyzing event, and the way the brush with mortality ripples out is genuinely effective and stirring. But it’s also unavoidable that the idea of potentially losing Derek — not Derek! — seems much more important than everything else going on.
Having a central incident also changes the usual structure a little, making the whole thing a bit more difficult to recap, so let’s just start with the big thing and move outward from there.
Derek Is Okay!
Derek’s random EKG results in an immediate trip to the hospital and then emergency bypass surgery. He has a blockage in the left anterior descending (LAD) artery, a blockage that is often jovially dubbed “the widow-maker”, which probably isn’t the kind of thing a doctor should be telling a patient. Either way, while the surgery is routine, it’s nonetheless very serious.
It’s worth watching this episode for Derek’s “goodbye” speech to Liz, which finds Ted McGinley at a wonderful level. It’s also worth it for Liz’s quiet breakdown, and the lovely understanding of her character that is highlighted by how it manifests as trying to fussily control everything. These two are supporting characters, granted, often a little adjacent to the main threads of each season, but I’m genuinely not sure the show would work without them.
Anyway, good news — Derek survives the surgery. And in so doing, he seems to have reunited the family a bit, not least Matthew, who we’ll talk about next.
Matthew Is A Loser
I’m not totally sure I’m buying Matthew’s arc. He’s such an overblown caricature of a useless spoiled brat, and at the ripe old age of 25, it’s almost inconceivable that he’s as emotionally stunted as he is. Before the heart issues, Derek bribes him to attend a therapy session with Jimmy, and that goes pretty much exactly how you’d imagine. It takes Jimmy visiting him in person and giving him a very stern telling off to finally get him up and moving.
To be fair, though, he does show up for Liz and Derek, so maybe he’s on the right track now. I just can’t help but feel like this is an unusually thin subplot by Shrinking‘s usual standards.
Jimmy and Meg
After hooking up in the previous episode, things are extremely awkward between Jimmy and Meg, mostly on account of the former behaving like a lunatic every time she shows up at the office. Luckily, the fact that Paul doesn’t know about her and Dave having separated creates an easy justification for Jimmy’s off-kilter behaviour. Meg throws Gaby off by claiming he knows about her marriage ending and is just uncomfortable that Paul doesn’t.
Meg’s big decision in this episode, then, is telling her father the truth. Naturally, he’s incredibly sincere about it, reassuring her that despite his constant mocking of Dave, he doesn’t want either of them to be unhappy. Whatever Meg chooses, he’ll support her in it, and what she chooses is to suggest some form of couples’ counselling instead of giving up entirely. You shouldn’t need me to tell you this, but she and Jimmy were never going to be on the cards long-term. Their tryst, though, has probably helped Jimmy get over the hump that has kept him away from Sofi, even if the whole thing wasn’t quite as uncomplicated as he would have perhaps liked.
Sutton Meets Her Grandpa
Brian’s dilemma in Shrinking Season 3, Episode 6 is that he hasn’t told his father, Kip, about Sutton. While this seems pretty indefensible, he has a decent justification. Kip didn’t take Brian’s coming out especially well, and he was the same way about his marriage. Brian is worried that two men adopting a child might push him over some kind of homophobic edge.
Jimmy nonetheless pushes Brian to tell his father by… calling Kip directly. Whatever works. And, refreshingly, Kip is thrilled to hear that he’s now a grandpa. Later, when everyone is still feeling contemplative over Derek’s surgery, Kip meets Sutton over video call.
Something Has to Give
Here’s what I’m worried about. Gaby is still working with Maya, and perhaps crossing some personal boundaries in her choice of approach. She takes her to meet Sean, Alice, and Jorge at an MMA gym, since sparring has helped the three of them deal with their own issues, and this companionship seems to work to some extent. But Gaby also has other things she needs to be worried about, and since Maya still isn’t part of the inner circle, it’s she who falls by the wayside.
This comes to the fore towards the end of the episode, when Maya is lonely, sad, and drinking, and calls Gaby to invite her out. But Gaby’s at the hospital seeing Derek, so she asks if it can wait until their next session. Suddenly, Maya is just a patient again. Gaby isn’t doing anything wrong here, obviously, but you can see how it’d be confusing to Maya, who looks at her refilled wine glass as if it holds all the answers she needs.
My concern is whether Maya will stop at getting drunk or perhaps do something more drastic. I’m not sure how Gaby would cope with the latter. It’d almost certainly put the kibosh on Derrick’s proposal plans. But hopefully it doesn’t come to that.
