(courtesy IMP Awards)
Streaming riddle me this: when is a series finale not a series finale?
When it’s the final episode of the third season of Shrinking which was originally scoped out for three seasons until Apple came a-calling again, says the show’s creator creator, and asked whether there might be more stories still to tell about the wonderful found family that fills this dramedy with so much heart and sparklingly witty humour.
One of the things that was really tricky for us is, we all realized [sic] how much fun we were having making the show, and Apple — very nicely — was like, ‘Why are you stopping? We’d love for you guys to keep doing this.’ [So] we had to put in some stories — so it doesn’t feel completely new — that will still be told when we get to come back up and do it. (Deadline)
Thank god they did because Shrinking is one of those superbly good sitcoms – yes, it’s often called a “dramedy” but maybe sitcom with intelligence and heart, though long-winded, might be a better description? – which makes you laugh like a fiend while feeling #allthethings as its characters go through the mill of life and back again and somehow survive it because they have staunch family and friends there alongside them every step of the way.
The final five episodes of the not-final season (once again – HURRAH!!!) tidy things up beautifully while still leaving you feeling like there are lots of stories about this fully-rounded characters left to tell.
The onetime central character in a show that has now become an organically rich and near flawless ensmeble, Jimmy Laird (Jason Segel) is certainly feeling a lot of series finale energy even if that’s not where the show is heading at all.
He is empty nesting with extreme prejudice as daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell) heads off to college on her soccer scholarship, poolhouse tenant and onetime therapy client, Sean (Luke Tennie) moves into a new, far more independent rental, courtesy of Jimmy’s next door neighbours, Liz and Derek Bishop (Christa Miller and Ted McGinley) who are off to Barcelona on the great big holiday of their dreams with Jimmy’s ex-co worker Gaby (Jessica Williams who has ALL the best lines) and her newly minted fiancé, Derrick (Damon Wayans Jr.).
If that wasn’t enough, and remember this is a sprawling ensemble that never ever feels too big so you know that’s not the end of it, Jimmy’s bestie, Brian (Michael Urie) is off to Tennessee for a few months with husband Charlie (Devin Kawaoka) while Jimmy’s old boss and surrogate dad (oh that final episode tugs the heartstrings SO much!) Dr Paul Rhoades (Harrison Ford) has moved to Connecticut with his onetime neurologist and now wife, Julie (Wendie Malick) to be closer to daughter Meg (Lily Rabe) as she deals with his slowly deteriorating Parkinson’s.
That’s everyone, people, and so as season three comes to a perfectly pitched end, and honestly, it’s near impossible to fault it, Jimmy is facing a world, albeit temporarily, shorn of the people that have helped him to weather the death of beloved wife Tia (Lilan Bowden) and who have become a tight, deeply caring and wise cracking family.
Sure, he now has ———- SPOILER ALERT !!!!! ———- things possibly back on track with romantic interest, Sofi (Cobie Smulders) after Paul flew back from Connecticut for a few hours to truth talk his “son” – it’s a beautiful scene and a big step for both of these two central characters – and set things right, and he’s in a far better place emotionally than he was, but it’s still a massive transition to make.
Even so, Shrinking has done such an exemplary job of taking Jimmy, and everyone else for that matter who have all been affected, to greater and lesser degrees by Tia’s suddenly traumatic absence, to a far better place than they began the show way back in season 1 than you suspect Jimmy has some good things in store when season four finds its way to us hopefully sometime next year.
Even so, Shrinking is too nuanced and clever a show, for its hilarity and snappily smart dialogue, to ever depict life for anyone after great personal trauma as a walk in the paradisiacal park.
Is life better? Absolutely, yes, and it’s all thanks to the nurturing wonder of happily dysfunctional community, but is it perfect? C’mon you know better than that; that’ll never happen.
The great joy and strength of Shrinking, and it’s on stellar display in these five final episodes, is that it knows that life deals out hugely shitty hands, and people make horrendous mistakes, and flaws are worn like really trashy hearts of sleeves, but that you can survive, and even thrive in the midst and the aftermath.
It’s a gloriously insightful and measured view of life that doesn’t recoil from the worst of things but knows that the dark times do not preclude witty chats or silly insights or a few steps forward when none appear to be takable, and it fills Shrinking with so much grounded humanity that even in the most surreal of silly conversations, there are real kernels, and often hulking mountains of truth to be found.
That’s the thing – you find yourself laughing a lot at the densely-packed, character-driven humour that packs every inspired scene in this show but then having your heart split open and patched back together before the laughs have even stopped flowing.
Shrinking is that smart a show, able to dish out the guffaws and the giggles but never without losing sight of the heartfelt humanity that anchors the show so deeply and so well.
While episode 11 of Shrinking season 3 would have made a brilliantly good series finale, right up there with the best in TV, this reviewer for one is hugely glad this is not the end for these characters, their world and their cosy of honestly funny community and that more adventures in life remain for people who understand better than most the scarring and yet elevating yin and yang of life.
Shrinking streams on AppleTV.