‘Shrinking’ Season 3, Episode 10 Recap – Jimmy Is Making Things Morbid

I think it’s worth pointing out that Shrinking has already been renewed for a fourth season. I expected this to go without saying, but Season 3 seems to be building a climax that is pulling all of the key characters away from the show’s gravitational centre. Some, admittedly, are only leaving temporarily. But others are going full-time, and it’s hard to imagine how, after Episode 10 and next week’s finale, we’re going to be able to keep catching up with them in a way that doesn’t feel contrived.

Here’s another worrying thing: The vibes are off. This is mostly Jimmy’s fault, which we’ll get to in a minute, but the entirety of “The Bodyguard of Sadness” is suffused with a kind of maudlin energy that feels unusually contrived. This is the first episode of the season — perhaps of the show overall, now that I think about it — that I came dangerously close to not liking, even though it nonetheless has its dramatic and comedic highlights.

Jimmy’s Spiralling

We might as well start with the Jimmy-shaped elephant in the room. After sabotaging his relationship with Sofi for basically no reason at all, his self-destructive spiral continues here in even more significant ways. We know what his problem is, of course. But his tame daddy issues feel a lot more like his problem is less his relationship with his father and more that he wants everyone else to see Randy the same way he does. And they don’t.

Granted, Paul takes an immediate dislike to him when Alice introduces them. But that isn’t really the point. Gaby seems to like Randy. Alice loves him. You can tell that Jimmy is quietly hoping that letting Alice down by not showing up on her graduation day will finally be the moment when she sees him as he does, but she doesn’t even seem to care. Alice’s entire graduation, now that I mention it, is incredibly understated, with only Jimmy in the crowd. They share a nice emotional moment in the car about Tia, but it’s curiously reserved given how Shrinking usually handles these things.

Is Jimmy Too Sensitive?

And things only get worse when Gaby reveals that Paul has gifted her the clinic to function as her trauma centre. He plays nice at the time, but it comes up again later, when at Alice’s graduation party, he overhears Paul telling her that Jimmy is too sensitive. This is what Randy said about him earlier, and the correlation really sets Jimmy off. He goes ballistic at Paul for handing the practice over to Gaby without consulting him — even though he openly doesn’t want it — and complains that he had to find out through Meg that Paul was leaving. He even lets slip about his one-night stand with Meg, which is weird since it isn’t really anything to do with what he’s talking about, but it gets brushed over immediately because Paul is legitimately taken aback by Jimmy’s outburst.

It’s obvious that Jimmy is really directing all the frustration he has with his dad at Paul, but he really commits to it, up to and including not even saying goodbye to Paul before he leaves. For good!

Brian and Charlie Are Relocating (Temporarily)

Brian’s little subplot in Shrinking Season 3, Episode 10 revolves around Charlie going away on a three-month work trip, leaving Brian to play single dad to Sutton. The option is there for Brian to go with him and work remotely, but he initially rejects it because he doesn’t like the idea of uprooting his life (read: doing anything other than what he wants to do).

The effectiveness of this story is complicated slightly by the fact that Brian and Charlie’s live-in nanny, Kellie, does so much that Brian wouldn’t have been left with a great deal of responsibility anyway, and also by the fact that it’s only a temporary trip, so Brian’s “big decision” to accompany Charlie with Sutton doesn’t amount to a great deal. However, it is part of a larger theme that is also pushed elsewhere in the episode, which is, essentially, making sacrifices for the people you love.

Liz and Derek’s European Vacation

This theme is also expressed through Liz and Derek, who have to navigate the pretty big news that their son, Will, has gotten his totally unserious girlfriend pregnant, and they’re intending to keep the baby. This is another of those subplots that comes totally out of nowhere, so it’s difficult to buy into, but it’s at least coming at the right time, since Derek has been profoundly emotional since his surgery and wants to do as much as he can both with and for the people he loves.

This creates a minor rift between him and Liz, since he wants to go on international adventures, and she… doesn’t, really. She’s all in on being an overbearing grandmother for the rest of her natural life. Eventually, they come to something of a compromise, getting them both tickets for an extensive European vacation that they plan to squeeze in before the baby is born. They can totally commit to being grandparents after. That’ll do for Derek.

Living Arrangements

And, finally, that brings us to Sean. Jorge is still furious about his plans to close down the food truck to take his swanky new sous-chef position — why doesn’t he just give Jorge the truck? — and they end up working through the differences at MMA therapy by sparring, which loses Jorge a tooth and gives him a comedy lisp for the remainder of the episode.

This doesn’t strictly resolve anything, though. Luckily, one of Derek’s altruistic gestures is once again offering Sean the apartment that Matthew is now moving out of, thanks to the unlikely success of his shoe business, and Sean not only decides to accept this time but also invites Jorge to come and live with him. He accepts, and… everything is forgotten about. Also, where’s Marisol?

I dunno, guys. I’m confident Shrinking can stick the landing, since it always does, but there are certainly some warning signs here. Let me know in the comments if you agree.