Shrinking Finale Could Mean Serious Consequences for Jimmy Laird in S2

Following a successful first season, it’s no surprise that Apple TV+’s Shrinking has already been renewed for a season 2. After the cliffhanger that the finale left us on, we can already tell that the next season is going to take a slightly dark turn. 

Jason Segel, also a co-creator of the show, plays the main character, a therapist named Jimmy Laird, who is still grieving the death of his wife. When his emotional state starts to take a toll on his work life and his relationship with his 17-year-old daughter, he decides that it is time for a change. 

Jimmy tries a different approach with his clients where he doesn’t hesitate to tell them the truth about themselves. He ends up breaching several ethical barriers in the process, causing big changes in both his and his clients’ lives.

By the end of the season, we see that Jimmy’s questionable method actually proves to be effective and most of his clients seem to have made significant progress. 

But just as we’re starting to think that things might not be so bad after all, the final scene shows us Grace, one of Jimmy’s patients, pushing her abusive husband, Donnie, off a cliff. 

And that’s not the worst part; the blame could potentially be on Jimmy since he unintentionally encouraged her to do it during one of their sessions. 

1. How is Jimmy liable for the death?

Grace (Heidi Gardner) is a patient of Jimmy’s who is dealing with an abusive husband. Initially, Jimmy’s unconventional method helps her and she musters up the courage to leave her husband. But eventually, she goes back to him.

In the season 1 finale, Jimmy jokingly suggests to Grace in one of their sessions that she could just “boop” Donnie off a cliff. Although he probably meant it as a metaphor, Grace takes it literally and this leads to her actually pushing her husband off a cliff. (They really put the “cliff” in cliffhanger with that scene.)

It was definitely unintentional on Jimmy’s part, but we can’t deny that if he hadn’t put the idea in Grace’s head then there would be no death. 

What Jimmy fails to understand in this situation is that by saying the wrong things, he is sending wrong messages to his clients. He can’t always expect them to react the way he would as they are all dealing with different mental health issues. 

2. What consequences could Jimmy face for his actions?

The final episode foreshadows the disastrous ending in the scene where Paul (Harrison Ford) and Jimmy are joking about how Jimmy was lucky that he didn’t “burn the whole practice down”. But not even moments later, we cut to Grace taking her own husband’s life.

Truth be told, we should have seen something like this coming. Jimmy crossed so many boundaries with his patients that there were bound to be repercussions. His unorthodox ways may have worked for some patients, but obviously not all.

Once the case of Donnie’s death is taken to court, Grace will definitely be a suspect and it won’t be too long until word gets out about her conversation with Jimmy. This could lead to further investigation into Jimmy’s life which could mean more of his patients discussing their experiences with him.

As punishment, Jimmy could lose his license and possibly end up in jail. Furthermore, this could have a negative effect on his relationships with his daughter, his friends and his clients, as well as on his mental health, since we know that he still hasn’t fully recovered from his wife’s passing.

3. What has the Creator said about Season 2?

One of the creators of Shrinking, Bill Lawrence, recently commented on season 1’s finale. In an interview will Collider, he said: 

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.

Bill Lawrence

And when asked about the plan for season 2, in the same interview, he said: 

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.

Bill Lawrence

Lawrence’s statements seem to contradict all the predictions we’ve made so far, which is relieving and simultaneously confusing because this doesn’t guarantee that Jimmy won’t have to pay for his actions. 

All we can hope for is that season 2 won’t be too devastating for Jason Segel’s character. 

4. About Shrinking

Shrinking is a comedy television series created by Brett Goldstein, Bill Lawrence, and Jason Segel for Apple TV+.

The plot revolves around a therapist dealing with severe grief who begins to breach ethical barriers by telling his patients what he completely thinks, resulting in massive changes to his and their lives.

The series stars Jason Segel, Harrison Ford, Jessica Williams, and Christa Miller, among others. The series has been renewed for season 2.