With so many shows on so many streaming platforms, anything can get cancelled after a single season. To avoid that, surely you have to have a great idea, know exactly why it’s good, and communicate that to viewers from the start? Not always: when Shrinking debuted on Apple TV+ last year, it did none of the above and looked ripe for axing. Yet here it still is, and it is very welcome back.
The first season had a lot of work to do to get past the show’s terrible premise. Jimmy (Jason Segel) is a Los Angeles therapist blindsided by the death of his wife, a catastrophe that causes him to lose patience with his patients. Shrinks are meant to sit impassively, doling out dry observations and probing questions before announcing that the hour is up, at which point you assume they forget you exist until the same time next week. Instead, Jimmy intervenes in his clients’ lives, speaking frankly and offering off-the-cuff advice. Season one started with Jimmy letting Sean (Luke Tennie), a veteran with PTSD, move in with him; season two opens with him visiting Grace (Heidi Gardner) in jail because she has taken his suggestion to push her abusive husband off a cliff literally.
