Review: Shrinking, “The Bodyguard of Sadness” | Season 3, Episode 10
Leaving, and getting left behind
With its finale rapidly approaching, season three of Shrinking has a lot of business to attend to. We have Graduation day for Alice, for example, and whether her grandfather will attend. Paul’s move to Connecticut is also on the horizon, with all the emotional goodbyes that entails. Gaby, rocked by Maya’s death but still resilient enough to forge ahead, is inching closer to her trauma center goal. Sean has a fancy new job and guilt over closing the food truck. And there’s all sorts of fresh wreckage piling up around Jimmy, the freshest being the end of his burgeoning romance with Sofi.
Considering all that: Why not toss in a couple of quick-fire, too-easily resolved conflicts stemming from a short term move for Brian and Charlie and the revelation that Liz and Derek are going to be grandparents (and that Derek would rather see the world than be 24/7 on-call grandpa)?
If it sounds like a lot to address in one episode of an emotionally aware hangout comedy, I agree. “The Bodyguard of Sadness” attempts to address this challenge by not so elegantly building itself around a couple of tentpoles: Jimmy confronting Randy, and Jimmy confronting Paul.
