Here, he may not have a ton of screen time, but every time he's called upon to give life to Derek's loving, good-hearted, but sometimes acerbic take on being a suburban husband and father, he nails it to the wall. Christa Miller is terrific, Maxwell and Tennie (the two actors I knew the least well) are terrific, and can I just say: Bless Ted McGinley, who has been a reliable ingredient in comedies going back to Happy Days. (She's also particularly funny in a few early scenes with Ford that jolted me into cackles using some unexpected music cues, and her surprising friendship with Liz deepens both characters.)Īnd Michael Urie! The divine Michael Urie, yet another person who is good in everything in which I have ever seen him - and another riotous reactor - has just-right best-friend chemistry with Segel, as the two of them explore the way a friendship can be challenged, and not just strengthened, by hard times. It's joined to Segel's past work through his years-long exploration of the humor that underlies melancholy, and it's joined to Ted Lasso through the two things that show is most effectively about (neither of which is sports): pain and decency.īut wait! Jessica Williams as Gaby is also so, so good, as a woman who has very particular relationships with Jimmy, with Paul, with Liz, with Alice - you can see how Gaby is a good therapist, because she intuitively gives each conversation what it needs. But mostly, that's a shorthand that makes this sound a little more high-concept, and a little less rich, than it is.įor the most part, this is an ensemble comedy-drama (leaning more toward comedy) about a bunch of people with problems. A small part of Jimmy's larger sense of crisis and mess is that on top of his own struggles, he has to listen to everybody else's - one of the themes of the show is that even your therapist has stuff. The hook of Shrinking, as it's been described, is that because Jimmy is going through so much, he becomes radically honest with his patients and starts telling them what he really thinks about, for instance, their terrible spouses. ![]() Harrison Ford and Lukita Maxwell as Paul and Alice in Shrinking.
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