Shrinking season two: Under-the-radar series balances funnies and pathos

Despite the swing towards drama-comedies, it’s actually difficult to strike the right balance between what can be two conflicting tones.

There are shows such as The Bear, which is really more of a drama with comedic elements than a true drama-comedy, let alone a comedy. Or there’s Hacks, which leans towards comedy but so expertly weaves in pathos that it gazumps the emotional stakes of most straight-up dramas.

The ones that can do both, you know it when you see it.

Shrinking is one of those rare birds.

The series created by Bill Lawrence, Jason Segel and Brett Goldstein returns for its second season this week and while the highlight is always a brilliantly curmudgeon and warm performance from Harrison Ford, this is a series that works on so many levels.

Given Lawrence and Goldstein both worked on Ted Lasso, it’s what you’d expect.

If you didn’t catch the first season – and, no shade, Shrinking is one of those under-the-radar shows by virtue of the fact it’s on Apple TV+ — the premise is centred on Segel’s character, Jimmy.

He’s a therapist and a dad to a teenager, and he’s overwhelmed by grief from the death of his wife in a car accident.

Jimmy’s inability to “get it together” spans most of that first series, especially when his grief crosses over into how he advises his clients, including Grace (Heidi Gardner) who has an abusive husband, and Sean (Luke Tennie), a young man with anger management issues.

Taking a proactive approach that isn’t just “hmmm, interesting, tell me more”, Jimmy’s interventions in his patients’ lives causes unintended consequences. But it also helps him to reconnect with the world.

The practice he works in has two other doctors: Paul (Ford), a senior therapist who has a fractured relationship with his daughter and despite his prickly exterior, has a gooey centre, and Gaby (Jessica Williams), one of Jimmy’s best friends.

With the care of his colleagues, his neighbours (Christa Miller and Ted McGinley), his bestie Brian (Michael Urie) and his daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell), Jimmy is less of a mess and starts to resemble a semi-functioning adult.

What Shrinking did throughout season one and what it reinforces in this new batch of episodes is it de-centred Jimmy as the story moved along, giving just as much screentime to the ensemble as it did to him.

Jimmy may have been the most obviously distressed, but not surprisingly, everyone else had their share of emotional disasters. Not even therapists, or maybe especially not, are stable.

Shrinking understood it had a strong cast and invested development into each of its characters so that they all feel well-formed. You can follow any of them in their own subplots and find it satisfying. That’s as rare as the right balance of a drama-comedy.

You’d also be an idiot to cast Ford and not deploy him, which Shrinking does.

The second season introduces a couple of new elements into the combustible mix, including the long-awaited onscreen debut of Goldstein, who has, so far, only worked as a writer and producer on the show.

But why waste someone of Goldstein’s talent and profile?

The two-time Emmy-winning Ted Lasso star joins the cast as a special guest. Details of his character is under strict lock and key, but let’s just say that his arrival is emotionally confronting for Jimmy and Alice.

There is so much tenderness in Goldstein’s performance, he fits into the Shrinking world so perfectly. He is a very different presence and energy to what we’re used to from him, but it reflects the show’s deftness at injecting poignancy without being overbearing.

All the while, it still has the rhythms and funnies to be reliably a comedy.

Shrinking is on Apple TV+ from Wednesday, October 16 with new episodes weekly