Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for Shrinking season 1 finale.Shrinking's shocking season 1 finale is explained by co-creator Bill Lawrence. In the last episode of the Apple TV+ dramedy, which stars Jason Segel as a therapist dealing with his own grief, Shrinking showed the belated consequences of Segel's character, Jimmy, getting too involved in the lives of his patients. In the final scene, Grace (Heidi Gardner) pushes her abusive boyfriend off a cliff. This could be meant as an indictment of Jimmy's treatment, as he'd missed the earlier signs of Grace being capable of that sort of act.

The surprising finale, and what it means for the already-renewed Shrinking season 2, is addressed in Collider's interview with Lawrence. The co-creator, who developed the show with Segel and Brett Goldstein, said that it was important to not just focus on the positive aspects of Jimmy's unusual approach to therapy. In the quote below, Lawrence also teases what could be on the way for the show's upcoming episodes:

I thought the final moment of the season was an interesting one to end on. How did you decide where to end the season? What made that the right place to leave audiences?

LAWRENCE: We knew what the three years are about. We knew the first year was about grief because we announced it. Harrison Ford’s character says, “Grief is a sneaky little fucker.” We knew what the second year was about, and Harrison will announce it in the first episode of the second year. We knew, going in, that the ending of the first year would lead us into what we wanted to write about in the second season. I don’t wanna do any spoilers, but I don’t think it’s what people will imagine it’s going to be. They’re not gonna be in a courtroom.

That moment made me gasp, it was so unexpected.

LAWRENCE: When you write a show like this, even though it’s a sitcom, we follow people and we knew what we were doing. A thing I can say without spoilers is that, with the character Jimmy, no matter what his journey was, we couldn’t go on this journey and have only positive consequences from how he has behaved. If we did that, we would be making a big mistake and we would get tagged for it.

Shrinking Addressed Its Criticisms With That Shocking Finale

Heidi Gardner in Shrinking

From the very beginning of Shrinking, Jimmy crosses some serious lines. One of his patients, Sean (Luke Tennie) moves in with him. And for the remaining episodes, this blurs the line between the professional and the personal. He gets called out for it by Paul (Harrison Ford), a fellow doctor who is also something of a mentor. But, for the most part, his over-involved approach doesn't seem to do serious damage. If anything, Shrinking suggests that it might actually be helpful.

The finale, and especially that final shot, subverts that expectation and addresses a big criticism of Shrinking, by showing Jimmy to be negligent. In their therapy session, Grace mentions her desire to shove her boyfriend off a cliff. Jimmy cheers her on, likely assuming that she's speaking in a purely rhetorical sense. But if he'd been more impartial, and less of a cheerleader to his patients, he would have been able to see the signs.

Shrinking season 2 will likely dig deeper into that failure. It seems possible that Grace could go on trial, and Jimmy's methods could be seriously called into question. It'll be interesting to see how the show manages to maintain its light touch and overall positive outlook while diving into even darker waters.

Source: Collider