Note: This article contains spoilers for the Season 3 finale of “Shrinking”
“Shrinking” boss Bill Lawrence and series stars Jason Segel and Jessica Williams opened up about that heartfelt Season 3 finale, which Lawrence admits was a smidge “exaggerated.”
Between the birth of Brian’s (Michael Urie) baby girl, Derek’s health scare and Jimmy’s adult slumber party with Paul’s (Harrison Ford) daughter Meg, a lot went down in Season 3. Plus, Jimmy has to bid farewell to three loved ones: his daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell) is heading to college, his former patient Sean (Luke Tennie) is moving out of his backyard, and Paul has relocated to Connecticut to be closer to his daughter and family.
Meanwhile, Gaby takes a big step by proposing to her boyfriend Derrick (Damon Wayans Jr.), and Jimmy finally tries his luck again with love interest Sofi after Paul flies back in to give him fatherly words of encouragement.
Lawrence and the cast chat about it all, including the storylines fans can expect to see more of in Season 4 and where the recurring bench meeting spot in the series came from.
Paul gave his practice to Gaby and moved to Connecticut. Is this you all paving the way for Harrison to leave the show?
Note: This interview took place prior to Ford’s recent remarks about the show and the Season 4 renewal.
Lawrence: I’ve got a thread-the-needle story. What’s so cool about the different periods of my career — when I did “Spin City” or “Scrubs” — is we made like 100 episodes in four years, and both ended up making close to 200 episodes. It was just a lot. And now, when you pitch these streaming shows, they kind of go, “Hey, what’s the beginning, middle and end?” And I pitched them a three-season story of “Shrinking,” and we’re going to stick to it.
It’s important that I had a beginning, middle and end because even if we chose to do a fourth year — if we came back for a fourth year and Jason Segel’s character was like, “I’ve been thinking about it. I’m still super sad about my wife dying,” you guys would be like, “Alright, we’ve heard that.”
The B-side of it is, I’m not a dummy. We’ve only made 36 episodes of this. I would hang out with these people anyway. I love being around all of them. Jason Segel, who’s co-creator, partner in crime, star — if he’s into doing it again, if Harrison is into doing it again — what a cheat sheet to go, I have to come up with a new three-season story with some of the best actors and actresses out there. My wife [Christa Miller, who plays Liz], Jessica Williams, Lukita Maxwell, Luke Tennie — they’re all [acting] assassins.
What makes Paul fly all the way back to California from Connecticut to have this heart-to-heart with Jimmy?
Lawrence: I’m a big believer in found family and I’m a softy. I do s—t like this. You know, I’ve shown up places for friends and people I love, that I can only write about stuff that I know about. Mentorship is huge in my life. Coming through for the people you love, trying to stay hopeful and optimistic, even though it’s sometimes a slog out there. So I know it’s a little exaggerated, but man, how much would we all like Harrison Ford to fly back and say, “You’re going to be OK” when we’re in a tough time?
Will we get to see more of Jeff Daniels’ character Randy?
Lawrence: We’re definitely setting that up. How can you be hand-in-hand with Harrison Ford without having a father figure thing, right? And this show would have been super weird if Jason Segel’s character was like, “Harrison Ford’s [character is] my father figure, but I got a great relationship with my dad.” He’d be like, “Oh, you’re a little f—king weird then.” So we knew even from the start of the show that [Jimmy] was a guy, story-wise, that had kind of been abandoned by his father when he was kind of trying to take care of his daughter and deal with the death of his wife.
I’ve always been curious about the characters’ meetup spot being on a bench. Where did that come from?
Lawrence: We just liked the idea from the start. Without saying too much, I had a kid in my life … that was not receptive to therapy and could use someone to talk to, and a really benevolent kind of therapist connected to us said, “Why don’t we just shoot the s—t? Meet me in the park every once a while, you know?” And it was essentially a sneak therapy. So, we just kind of really liked the metaphor of a therapist like Paul giving somebody help without them feeling the taboo of going in and asking for help. Then it kind of became a metaphor on the show for us of what a cool place to show people getting help from the other people in their life without showing up in an office, paying for it and asking for it.
Gaby’s proposal was very sweet, but do you think it ruined his opportunity? I kind of wanted to see him propose to her.
Williams: It’s her second go-around though, and [that’s] sort of heteronormative. The writers, they wanted it for Gabby in a certain way. Second wedding, you can just have party vibes at their second wedding, I think. I think at that point in the season, we’d have a long season with a lot of starts and stops because of the fires, and that was one of the last things we filmed. And it felt like a party, because everybody was there.
What’s been holding Jimmy back from finding love?
Segel: What if you think you already met the love of your life, and she died? You know what I mean? Like, yeah, you can go out and date some more, but I don’t know, what if the best part happened already? And then what if you do meet somebody who might be a second love of your life, and you realize that you are not ready? What do you do when you’re sitting across from the person and you realize you’re a mess?
My dad was also an emotional mess when I went off to college. Talk to me about this show being a dad show on the backdrop, and this transition for Jimmy.
Segel: Everything I act on the show is in relation to Alice. Like, it’s the pride to me; it’s the primary relationship of the show, at least for me, you know. And all I can tell you is, maybe it’s because I’m tuned to think of her as my daughter, and we’re three years in. But when I had to give this talk to Alice about that, “I’m excited for you to go away to college and don’t be scared. Dad’s going to be OK,” I was crying so disproportionate to what was required of me, acting-wise. I think some real bonds have grown between Lukita and me. I watched her grow into this really remarkable young actor, human being. [Just] really proud of her.
Season 3 of “Shrinking” is now streaming on Apple TV.
