‘Shrinking’ Season 3, Episode 9 Recap – Harrison Ford Steals the Show

Even at its worst, Shrinking is still better than most dramedies… ever, really, which is pretty high praise. Season 3 has already threatened to fall into a bit of a holding pattern once or twice, and it does so again for most of Episode 9, which is titled “Daddy Issues” because it finally finds Jimmy’s dad, Randy, sticking around for a full episode. But its highlights have nothing to do with Jimmy or his dad, and instead find Harrison Ford and Jessica Williams, though especially the former, delivering what is arguably the best scene this show has ever produced. Now that’s high praise.

I must confess to being slightly underwhelmed by the rest of it, though. Jimmy’s drama with his dad feels like a bit of a cheap way to erect a roadblock in his relationship with Sofi, Sean’s subplot is rushed through to facilitate a breakthrough for Paul, and now that Matthew has stopped acting like a layabout, there isn’t a great deal for Derek and Liz to be doing. But the Paul and Gaby stuff is so well done that it’s difficult to mind, delivering such profound sentiment at the finish line that the whole episode still feels like a masterclass in acting and writing, even though most of it wasn’t.

Legacy

Let’s start with that, then. Gaby is still getting over what happened to Maya and needs at least another week off work. That won’t cut it for Paul, who doesn’t want to spend his final week in the office without her, and it seems, initially, like Gaby has gotten over things a bit too quickly. But her pushing her dreams of trauma-focused care aside so she can do what she’s already good at isn’t the breakthrough it first appears to be.

Paul is grooming Gaby to take over his practice and carry his knowledge forward, which was already raised earlier in the season and, now that her dreams have been dashed, suddenly seems a lot more viable. It takes Liz storming into the office and berating Paul for him to realise that what he’s doing is inherently selfish, and not what’s best for Gaby. And it takes Sean — more about him specifically in a minute — telling Paul how much he has changed in the last three seasons to convince Paul that Liz was right.

So, Paul visits Gaby at home and tells her that she doesn’t need to carry on his work directly; she is his legacy. The way she has helped him change so much over the years proves that she’s more cut out for the difficult work than she’s allowing herself to believe, and he’s willing to give her his practice for a buck a month on the proviso that she turns it into her trauma centre. Jessica Williams deserves her share of credit for how subtly she sells this scene, since she’s mostly just called upon to be reactive, but Harrison Ford is absolutely impeccable here and deserves to win something for it. It’s the best bit of TV acting thus far in 2026 by a country mile.

Sean Is Being Selfish

Everything else in Shrinking Season 3, Episode 9 kind of pales in comparison to the above, but we’ll go over it anyway. Firstly, Sean is officially offered a job to be the sous-chef of the coolly-named Dre Thibodeaux, but that will mean closing down the food truck and leaving Jorge high and dry, which Sean is reticent to do. As a result, he’s debating not taking the job, even though it’s clearly what’s best for him.

Derek takes Sean to see Brian, who gives him advice disguised as a freestyled TED talk about the value of being inherently selfish. And it’s advice that Sean takes. But Jorge doesn’t take the news especially well. He lashes out at Sean, who remains zen the whole time, which is a testament to his — free — therapy sessions with Paul. It’s a nice moment for the two of them, but it short-changes Jorge, whose outburst is consigned to a quick montage. At first, I thought it was Sean imagining things.

I think Sean should take the job, for what it’s worth, but I do hope that we get some resolution with Jorge, for Sean’s sake if nothing else.

Jimmy Isn’t Ready

Jimmy’s issues with his dad are fairly mundane. Initially, he comes across a little petulant, becoming visibly annoyed when anyone seems to like Randy, which is a bit of a problem since everybody seems to like him. But that’s the problem. He’s charming on false pretenses, telling slightly embellished stories about Jimmy’s childhood to project the image of a great father, but when it counts, he consistently fails. Jimmy’s frustration isn’t that people like his father, it’s that they don’t get to see the side of him that Jimmy does.

But he has to suck it up for Alice’s sake. “Daddy Issues” spends the vast majority of its runtime on a fake-out, with everyone from Alice to Sofi trying to convince Jimmy that he should give his dad a chance to prove himself, which he seems to be doing by spending time with Alice fixing up a second-hand car. When he gifts Alice that car for graduation, despite Jimmy having already bought her one, it does seem like a genuinely sweet gesture, especially since he frames it as an apology for not being present enough.

But he also won’t actually be at Alice’s graduation. A fishing trip with a buddy has come up, and he’ll be doing that instead. It’s a validating but nonetheless crushing development for Jimmy, since Randy seems to be earnestly unaware of how hard Alice is liable to take it. But the unforeseen knock-on effect is that it creates a rift between Jimmy and Sofi. Tia never liked Randy, and she and Jimmy were in complete agreement about his dad’s essential character. In Sofi not validating his feelings, Jimmy can’t help but compare her negatively to his late wife, and when she calls him out on it, he realizes he’s not as ready for a relationship as he thought. I still think he and Sofi will end up together by the end of the season, but it’s obviously going to take a bit more effort to get there than we thought.