Review: Shrinking, "Psychological Something-ism" | Season 2, Episode 3

Writing about a show week-to-week is sometimes a bizarre process. Technically speaking, you’re not in conversation with a TV show: it was written and produced months and months ago, meaning that those involved did not “hear” what you said about it. But sometimes, there’s an uncanny feeling that there’s a dialogue happening between the criticism and the show’s plot movements, which is especially true about the first episode after a premiere (in this case a two-episode premiere). I wrote a review effectively anticipating or predicting what I expected from the season, and then this episode responded.1

The first response comes remarkably swiftly: after noting how strange it was that Grace’s story receded from the season’s central conflict, I was lulled into a false sense of security by Brian and Jimmy talking with Grace about sentencing, only for the scene to resolve with the news that they won’t be pressing charges. Does it make sense that the DA doesn’t think they could convict Grace purely because Donnie was such a bad dude? Maybe! Does the resulting story about Grace feeling like she deserves to be punished hit some nice notes, driving home the show’s message about therapy and talking through one’s struggles? It does. But there’s still a real bait-and-switch quality to having a story start as a stress point for Jimmy’s entire philosophy and morph into a thematic parallel with Jimmy’s friendship with Brian by the third episode.