Shrinking: Will There Be Backlash For Jimmy (Season 1 Recap)

Season 1 of Shrinking on Apple TV+ has introduced us to another hit comedy series in a similar fashion as it did Ted Lasso. Just like Ted Lasso, Shrinking deals with mental health with a playful sense of humor that usually isn’t reserved for such a touchy subject. However, where Lasso deals with a wide spectrum, Shrinking narrows it down to just one, grief.

From IMDb.com

A grieving therapist starts to tell his clients exactly what he thinks. Ignoring his training and ethics, he finds himself making huge changes to people’s lives – including his own.

*all further content may contain spoilers if you’re not caught up through the s1 finale*

As season 1 unfolded, Jimmy finds himself with what the show refers to as “sympathy fatigue” where he’s burned out by the professionalism and manner in which he relates, or cannot relate to his clients problems. Each one tells their own version of their story, but each has the same ending, they feel “stuck”. By the end of their sessions he finally snaps. He doesn’t get to feel “stuck”. He’s has people that rely on him in the form of patients, a daughter, his friends. He hasn’t exactly been given the opportunity to grieve full after his wife passed.

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While Jimmy goes out of his way to try new ways to help all of the people in his therapy sessions, the show would have you focus on two in particular. One, Sean, is a major part of his day to day life. The other, Grace, is sort of in the background but he’s just as invested in. However when you look at the bigger picture, he’s not just helping soccer moms and teens too much angst. Jimmy’s patients are much more troubled.

Take Sean, for instance. He’s forced into Jimmy’s world by court appointed therapy for almost beating a man to death with his bare hands. So much of the show focuses on Sean who we see as just a young man with a troubled past who lashes out from time to time. This is a huge misdirect to the real problem with Jimmy’s unconvential methods, Grace. Grace seems like a normal, troubled lover who is in, at least, a verbally abusive relationship.

As far back as the first episode of Shrinking, Grace was the first person Jimmy snaps out of conventional therapy and into his own brand of help. By the end of the episode he lays out an ultimatum along the lines of “leave him or I’m done being your therapist.” She does and from there on out, we think he has found his coping mechanism in helping other people.

She lied and with such focus on Sean, you might’ve missed it. By the end of the season, she decided to give Donny another chance and Jimmy has helped her find ways to deal with his anger issues. But as I stated before, these aren’t your typical patients. We see at the end of season 1 she would go on to push Donny off a cliff to end the final episode. It was a shocking moment, but not if you payed close enough attention.

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There were a few key moments that told the story of an unhinged Grace. Obviously pushing a lover off a cliff is one, but there were others. When Liz passes her in the hall of Jimmy’s office she says “She doesn’t look crazy.” Then of course there is the scene where she’s seen out on the hiking trail. No, not the one where she quickly runs off with Donny, there’s one before that. In a scene where Jimmy and his best friend, Brian, are out hiking he makes a comment about how Brian knows everyone and people always wave to him. Cut to the moment where Donny is seen giving the pair a middle finger. In the distance we see a tall black man with a bald head, and a woman with a baseball cap on with the same short blonde hair as Grace. She was lying the whole time.

What does this have to do with Jimmy? The signs were there all along. However, he was so laser focused on getting his life back to normal, he didn’t see them. His unconventional wisdom may have planted the seed that lead to Grace pushing Donny off the cliffside. Despite Jimmy finding the bit of comfort, there may some consequences in his future in season 2 of Shrinking.