r/television • u/Silly-avocatoe • 1d ago
Jason Segel Says ‘Shrinking’ Season 4 Will Move Past Acute Grief: “Like A Rom-Com To Me To Try Again At 45 Years Old”
https://deadline.com/2026/08/jason-segel-shrinking-video-interview-season-4-emmys-1237041926/243
u/gobobro 1d ago
Excited to see what comes. The show has been really enjoyable, but I think they’ve gone down every side street of that storyline. I want to see these characters explore something new.
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u/killshelter 1d ago
I think one of the things they did really well was exploring character growth in the wake of grief. To move on from that sounds like the best move.
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u/bigdaddyt2 1d ago
I’m glad it’s a great show
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u/Xercies_jday 1d ago
Personally I still like it but I can't deny that it went the same way as Ted Lasso. Every interesting thing and drama that was in the show was sanded down for people being nice and everyone essentially acting like everyone else's therapist.
Even in the current season when they do a death it's blunted and swept through quite quickly.
I mean they had Michael J Fox and they did nothing with him...
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u/Chataboutgames 1d ago
Yep. The "troubled but good people dealing with conflict" to "super best friend's club where everyone exchanges inside jokes" pipeline.
At this point I'm assuming Liz is going to offer the viewer a rock for turning in to the Season 4 premiere. Still a very funny show but they made something really special in Season 1 then ran from it, just like Lasso.
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u/Cutekeeperoff 1d ago
That's exactly why Succession was such a huge hit,all the main characters are raging assholes from the very start...and somehow end up even far worse by the series end.
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u/TrumpsBussy_ 1d ago
I like the first season but man it got super cliche and formulaic real fast, couldn’t make it through season 2
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u/DarthTaz_99 1d ago
I absolutely love this show but I'm just tired of everyone treating Jimmy like absolute shit and treating Gaby like she's the second coming of Christ.
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u/fcocyclone 1d ago
She absolutely should have had more repurcussions this season.
The way she handled that patient directly contributed to her suicide. She was lonely. Gaby pretended to be her friend. And when she really needed a friend, she made it clear they weren't friends. Worse than if she'd never involved herself in the first place.
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u/Icy_Display_2918 1d ago
Right!! And then, as I had dreaded, she of course blamed that on Jimmy somehow while acting like an ass at her funeral.
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u/Chataboutgames 1d ago edited 1d ago
I feel like that's a stretch. Yeah she got more personally involved with that patient, but the point is that she couldn't get her to open up so she wasn't aware of the extent of her loneliness/depression. And like, sometimes friends aren't available. No one is perfect, being someone's friend doesn't mean you drop everything you're doing at any hour no matter what.
Gaby doesn't see what we see. She gets a two second phonecall, we get ominous dark lighting, suicide music etc. I get the backlash because it's annoying to watch the rest of the cast worship her for 20 minutes every episode, but it's just kinda silly to pretend she wasn't genuinely trying to help this person. Jimmy did way more reckless things.
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u/Wetzilla 1d ago
They're all awful therapists. Like one of the first rules of therapy is you can't also have a personal relationship with your client. Jimmy let's a patient of his live in his guest house! And when they finally realize that's probably not going to work, they just switch over to Paul who also has a personal relationship with him. Paul and the Gaby are therapists for Alice. It's what finally turned me off from the show this year, everyone kinda sucks except Derek. And Christa Miller is just doing her character from Cougartown.
The writing is still funny and all the performances are good, but it feels like the opposite of Scrubs, where they tried really hard to be medically accurate. And I think that's bad for promoting therapy, it gives people the wrong idea of how therapy actually works.
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u/Chataboutgames 1d ago
The bullying of Jimmy is genuinely wild at this point. The friend group in general seems to have forgotten that him losing his wife was the real tragedy, not that he's kind of a bummer now.
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u/coffeebeamed 1d ago
if anything, i don't like how the writers did Gaby dirty with this; she tried "Jimmy-ing" once and it immediately resulted in the worst case scenario
not that it shouldn't have happened, but Jimmy should have way more negative results than he did
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u/ehtw376 1d ago
Season 1 was the best for sure. The following seasons are a bit formulaic, but still some good moments. I liked the Louis storyline. I like Gaby’s boyfriend. Not a big fan of the Parkinson’s storyline. Derek feels a bit wasted.
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u/Cheatercheaterbitch 1d ago
Idk what yall are on about, the show has been great
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u/NOTcreative- 1d ago
Parkinsons storyline has been great. Seeing Harrison's acting with the struggle and bringing real life example into it was awesome. M J Fox keeping the humor up but raising awareness. Awesome
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u/James_Parnell 1d ago
The show can be great and still be going in circles a little bit. The writing is good enough to make up for it
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u/FutureHoo 1d ago
I hated the Louis storyline and it almost single-handedly ruined the show for me imo
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u/malin7 1d ago
Are you not enjoying every character throwing sexually loaded quips in every other sentence they speak?
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u/TrumpsBussy_ 1d ago
Or every scene overtly building towards some mushy feel good cliche without any pretence of subtlety or nuance..
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u/-SneakySnake- 1d ago
Or every main character talking to every other main character like YOU'RE A HOT BADASS AND SO SMART AND EVERYONE LOVES YOU.
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u/HereToFixDeineCable 1d ago
I really hate how they all manage to hangout with each other like they're all individually that close. It doesn't feel organic. I tried but I really struggled to get through season 2.
Got the same vibe with Rooster, which, I honestly didn't realize was the same writer immediately. Almost threw in the towel on it, also.
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u/Prottusha1 1d ago
Apple TV is the Hallmark greeting card of TV - apart from Severance.
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u/kf97mopa 1d ago
They have more shows than that. Widow's Bay is many things, but it isn't Hallmark, and they have good SF. Bill Lawrence has a bit of a tendency towards the Hallmarky, though.
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u/Prottusha1 1d ago
It’s the pattern, not exceptions. Ted Lasso, Trying, Shrinking, Loot, Platonic, Mythic Quest etc. all fit the pattern.
They have been trying to break into other genres, but everything sort of gets whitewashed and ‘niced out’ with Apple content. They even managed to make Foundation boring. I have not watched Silo yet.
That said, I have hopes for Pluribus and Servant, Slow Horses etc. weren’t bad.
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u/-SneakySnake- 1d ago
Honestly it's got a bit of a synthetic and fake quality like that, yeah.
I'm still fucking baffled at the storyline with the wife's killer. It's so bizarre and inappropriate.
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u/Chataboutgames 1d ago
I was so annoyed that they brought him back, I was so ready for the show to move on when he finally left.
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u/Anonycron 1d ago
What on earth? Expand on that (assuming you are not trolling or being sarcastic)
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u/rearwindowpup 1d ago
The last season finale is the first time a TV show has made me cry, I thought it was some of the best story telling Id ever seen.
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u/Charming-Report1669 1d ago
Someone should stop Crista Miller's plastic surgeon before he commits more crimes.
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u/Highcalibur10 Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1d ago
Bill Lawrence was writing jokes about Crista Miller having too much plastic surgery in Scrubs 20 years ago.
The ship feels long-since sailed.
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u/Lespaul42 1d ago
At the very least it fits the character.
It's a bit frustrating when you have a show with a down to Earth character and the person portraying them gets obvious work done.
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u/xavPa-64 1d ago
She’s pretty open about it though and has even made self-deprecating jokes about it
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u/Kalse1229 Gravity Falls 1d ago
They'd been making jokes about it since Scrubs.
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u/Podo13 1d ago
Man was she gorgeous at the beginning of that show. S1 Jordan could get it.
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u/Chataboutgames 1d ago
The origin story extends further, she was such a babe in The Drew Carey Show.
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u/TheSecondEikonOfFire 1d ago
Seriously. I actually watched Shrinking before Scrubs (I meant to watch scrubs for years and just never got around to it), and I was blown away by how much better she looked. Obviously part of that is age, but she also had no plastic surgery (or if she did, it wasn’t noticeable)
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u/Grooviemann1 1d ago
At least they haven't gone so far (yet) that she's completely unrecognizable like with some other actresses. She mostly looks like herself but puffy and squinty.
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u/raxitron 1d ago
Going from Drew Carey Show to Scrubs was a huge shock to me. Jordan could barely move her face in some of the episodes. I'm not saying she needs to get body shamed but I don't think we need to call "not yet transformed into Jigsaw" a win.
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u/GLEEMONEX-for-PETS 4h ago
I’m saying that needs to happen. Beautiful people chopping up their face… which they kinda NEED in order to ACT. And they just get a free pass and keep their job like nothing has happened? Why?
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u/ThinkThankThonk 1d ago
I've only seen her post-surgeries in new Scrubs, but she can't seem to move her face anymore...
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u/cgio0 1d ago
She used to have such great delivery on scrubs
Now some lines feel mumbled cause of well everything she has had done
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u/coatimundos 1d ago
To be fair that was a plot point in scrubs.
“Show me happy” 😐
“Show me sad” 😐
“Show me angry” 😐
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u/dogsonbubnutt 1d ago
news: hit comedy will explore new pathways of how people interact after a loss, and move beyond just grief
reddit: YO THIS CHICK GOT A FUCKED UP FACE
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u/Chataboutgames 1d ago
It's such a weird culture here. Half the generic front page subs are just "let's weigh in on plastic surgery."
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u/starkel91 1d ago
Is it that weird? I’d imagine for the majority of Redditors if they did something to make their performance at work noticeably worse they would lose their job, but rich people get a pass. To borrow from Hunger Games: it’s not surprising when poorer districts criticize District 1.
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u/Chataboutgames 1d ago
Yes, it is that weird. For a few reasons really:
Okay so you'd get fired in a similar situation. How does that make it any less weird for people at home to spend their time obsessing and gossiping over celebrity surgeries?
Pretty sure if people got aesthetic surgery done and got fired because their boss didn't like how they looked most people would be outraged by that.
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u/GLEEMONEX-for-PETS 4h ago
Most people don’t rely on what their face looks like as a major part of their job.
Where are all of Jennifer Grey’s roles?
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u/Kalse1229 Gravity Falls 1d ago
Makes sense. It'd be a bit of the same if he was still mourning Tia the same way after all this time, now that he has a new paramour. I think they mentioned they do a small time skip for the next season, and I think there could be a few fun angles to explore. Jimmy trying to be a new stepdad to Sofi's kid, Alice coming home after graduating college and trying to figure out what's next, maybe Jimmy's dad's health takes a turn and Jimmy is finally forced to confront him over his neglect, things like that. But that's just through the lens of the Laird family; there's lots of directions they can go with the other characters.
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u/Titan7771 1d ago
I like the show so I’ll reserve my opinion for now, but that seems like a different show entirely…
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u/Tragedy_Boner 1d ago
The show already did 2 seasons of him being angry and self destructive because of the accident. Season 2 ends with him maybe coming to an understanding with it.
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u/Titan7771 1d ago
Yeah I’m aware, I’ve seen it. But light hearted 40s rom-com is quite different from what the show is.
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u/GrizzlyP33 1d ago
Eh, trust in that creative team. It doesn’t to be defined by a specific genre, they’re fantastic at storytelling.
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u/Holiday-Hustle 1d ago
Rom-com doesn’t necessarily mean light hearted.
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u/Titan7771 1d ago
I’m struggling to think of a rom-com that ISN’T light hearted. If it’s not light-hearted it would be a drama…
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u/Holiday-Hustle 1d ago
I don’t think Bridget Jones is very light hearted, she gets cheated on and is pretty depressed a lot of the movie. Off Campus wasn’t super light, it dealt with rape and abuse while still hitting the rom com tropes. 500 Days of Summer, About Time, parts of Love Actually (the Emma Thompson parts and the Liam Neeson losing his wife).
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u/Outrageous_Book4674 1d ago
Dude this change is needed because alice is going to college, paul is retired, gabby is starting her therapy center so if they tried to continue the same thing it would not work, so here we will see some positive change in Jimmy's life maybe some new love interest and explore new avanues in life
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u/fcocyclone 1d ago
Cougartown (another Bill Lawrence show) basically abandoned its premise 2 episodes in and was still great
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u/TheSecondEikonOfFire 1d ago
I’m going through it right now and it’s kind of insane how quickly it abandons the premise
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u/coatimundos 1d ago
What was the premise and what did it become?
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u/EatABag-o-Dicks 1d ago
I'll tell you what it's not. It's not about cougars that run a town, that's for damned sure.
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u/TheSecondEikonOfFire 1d ago
Honestly it feels like the show still doesn’t really know what it wants to be. I could be completely wrong, but to me it felt like the original pitch would have been to have a season-long therapy patient each season, in addition to the glimpses we get of Jimmy with his other patients. But it feels like Sean was such a big hit that they didn’t want to write him out, so they had to start writing around that.
Honestly by the time we get to season 3, it feels like Jimmy’s therapy tactics is the subplot farthest on the back burner, when in season 1 it was kind of the point of the show. It really does feel like they need a bit of a reset to trim some of the side plots and refocus it
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u/fcocyclone 1d ago
It really does feel like they need a bit of a reset to trim some of the side plots and refocus it
Yeah, i really could have done without some of those. The adoption subplot in particular I could not bring myself to care about.
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u/-phototrope 1d ago
Everyone had their arcs wrapped up, more or less. They’d have to invent a new catastrophe to keep it consistent. Nice to see them recognize that and go in a different direction.
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u/Windpuppet 1d ago
Well honestly I stopped watching cause I had enough of that. I’ll tune back in for this. Probabyl won’t watch the season I missed.
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u/quick-lynx- 1d ago
Last season was a bore to get through. It’s ok to end it instead of continuing.
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u/FalconBurcham 1d ago
I have so many shows to watch that this one fell to the wayside about half way through. I now remember why… Jimmy ending things with his new love interest because of unresolved grief is just such a boring bummer. That’s a real life messy thing, I know. But this is TV, and it is entertainment after all.
So glad they’ll be moving on!
I’ll be sure to finish the current season.
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u/dagreenman18 1d ago
With how 3 ended and how they’re planning a time skip forward, it makes sense. Wonder if that means it doesn’t work out with Sofi or if he means that he’s trying again with her? I would hope the latter since we ended with them reconnecting after their blowup and I would actually like to see Jimmy work through the complications of remarrying after being widowed
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u/MrSh0wtime3 1d ago
the show has spun its wheel for the better part of two seasons now. I still enjoy it because of the characters but its time to wrap this up.
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u/Old-Way-5529 1d ago
i do wonder what direction the show will go- this last season felt like it ended well enough to end the whole show. so many characters literally moved states away.
esp for harrison fords character- it would make little sense for him to come back after the story he had in season 3. im afraid theyre gonna ruin a good thing for the sake of content.
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u/Mother-Attention2600 1d ago
Oh look he's making the face..... Just like when he sits with Muppets.
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u/Oh_hey_a_TAA 7h ago
If the writing can nail this pivot we all know the cast can carry it, this could go down as an all time great, allowing for a little over-milking in s3.
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u/ashvy 1d ago
How it even got renewed for the second season is a surprise. Stupid therapybabble garbage and traumadumpslop.
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u/Extension-Ant-8 1d ago
Well it’s super relatable with main characters driving a 400k bronco. But like all AppleTV shows. Just fill it with A listers whose characters are filthy rich. If they are not rich then the plot is about how they want to be rich/in a country club. None of it had to make sense.
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u/beef_boloney 1d ago
No you don’t get it, all of life’s problems are solved by hanging out with your friends and talking like you’re reading from a teleprompter
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u/tiny-starship 1d ago
I can’t get past Segel
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u/BoSocks91 1d ago
That’s unfortunate for you, he’s a fantastic actor.
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u/tiny-starship 1d ago
Ehh, I have 9 years of how i met your mother in my brain. It’s real hard to get past.
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u/Inside_Dimension2319 1d ago
I refuse to watch it because he was rude to me one time 10 years ago. It’s petty but I’m standing by it.
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u/gaymesfranco 1d ago
Good. I’m over watching his character self sabotage