The following article contains SPOILERS for Shrinking Season 2. If you still need to catch up with the series, be sure to check out the six episodes that have aired (with more to come) with an Apple TV+ subscription.
Shrinking Season 2 has been coming out as part of the 2024 TV schedule, and for once, I'm finally caught up in time to keep watching each week – and I'm pretty sure Brett Goldstein's character has broken me... in a good way.
Let me start by saying I'm the biggest proponent of this show. I've been a fan of Shrinking since it first came out and truly love it dearly. When I found out Brett Goldstein, one of the show's co-creators, would be a character in Season 2, I was excited. But never, in my wildest dreams, did I expect it to be who it is.
If you need to catch up on Shrinking, look away! But if you are caught up, keep on reading.
So, Overall, Shrinking Season 2 Is Just As Good As Season 1
I'm always concerned when a great dramedy gets renewed because sometimes the show does begin to lack quality as it goes on. There are plenty I could point to, but honestly, Shrinking Season 2 is just as good as the first season, if not better.
The entire Shrinking cast feels like family now, and they work well together, with genuinely interesting stories and moments that still make me sob one instance and laugh the next. I can't tell you how many times I've cried already during the six episodes that have come out – and I am sure it is only going to increase.
But do you want to know what a significant source of that is? Goldstein's character, whom we'll get into now.
I Didn't Know Who Goldstein's Character Would Be, But I Never Expected Who It Is
I'm sure that if you're aware of Apple TV+, you know Brett Goldstein. He's appeared in several films, but people mainly know him from his time in the Ted Lasso cast and now as a co-creator of Shrinking alongside Bill Lawrence and Jason Segel.
But now, he's also part of the Shrinking cast, and I want you to take a wild guess about who he plays – and you won't get it because I genuinely didn't.
Goldstein plays the man who killed Jimmy's wife and Alice's mother – the drunk driver named Louis. Out of literally anyone he could have played, I never reasonably expected that. I thought he'd just be another one of Jimmy's clients. The gasp I let out could be heard from apartment to apartment.
But that's beside the point. Now we have Goldstein as Louis, but where could they take his story? How could they make the person who killed Jimmy's wife sympathetic? Well, they pull it off.
It's Tragic What He Did, But The Show Makes You Think About The Other Side Of Things In A Great Way
I want to put it out there and say that it's horrible what happened to Tia (Jimmy's wife and Alice's mother). Obviously don't drink and drive, or it can lead to something like this. It's a terrible decision to make, and I'm sure we all feel a certain way towards it.
But I will say that Shrinking really takes you to the other side of what's going on with the people who caused the tragedy. Sometimes, yeah, it is just a horrible, reckless person who makes really terrible decisions and doesn't care about anything else.
However, there are other times, like Louis, when their life is "bleak," as Brian said. We don't know what exactly Louis was going through that led to him drinking and getting in his car. To us, he's just the man that hit Tia, the man that caused so much pain.
It really does make you think, though, about the amount of pain and suffering someone must be going through that leads them to make terrible, horrible decisions, and we don't know about it. And you can tell from the moment you meet Louis that he is going through it. I can't help but feel bad for him, even after what he did.
Furthermore, His Character Shows The Capacity Of Forgiveness In So Many Ways
This is what made me sob, especially in Episode 6—the idea of forgiveness.
Forgiveness, in therapy, is something that (as a person who has done therapy) is hard to come by. Trying to forgive the people who have wronged you the most in your life is a massive test of strength, but something that can really rarely be done. And personally, Louis was right – Alice had every right to never forgive him, even though he was so sorry that he thought about her mother every day, that he was going through something horrible.
But then she says it – "I forgive you." She wants to be the kind of person who does that because it's something her mom would do. CinemaBlend's Riley Utley even spoke to the actress behind Alice, Lukita Maxwell, about the moment and that Alice is trying to learn to be compassionate despite it all:
I mean, she says it at the end of it; it's something that her mom would have done. I think that she's a young woman trying to figure out who she is in this world and who she is on the other side of this great grief that has affected her life at this point and will forever. And she wants to be that kind of person that would forgive somebody and is able to move through life with compassion and understanding.
That is the kind of writing that makes you really pause when you watch it. It makes you sit there on the couch, wondering if there is anyone in your life that you could forgive to help yourself move on. That is what Brett Goldstein's character brought – forgiveness. I literally cannot stop sobbing about it.
It's just so beautiful to go from yelling and screaming at the man in one episode to learning how to forgive and be compassionate—that's a stunning message and one that this world desperately needs.
I'm Not Sure What Will Happen In The Future With Him, But I Sincerely Hope I See Him And Jimmy Talk, Too
I don't know what will happen next with Louis. There's been a lot already in Shrinking that we've seen – that big confrontation in the coffee shop, Jimmy yelling at him and more. Who knows what the next episodes will bring?
But all I can really ask for is to see him and Jimmy talk like Alice and him have. I'm not sure if Jimmy is going to be as emotionally transparent as Alice was and forgive him instantly, or even listen to him that much. However, seeing them have a conversation, even just one where Jimmy isn't yelling, would be good.
Spreading that message of forgiveness is so important, and while I'm sure that this show could have done it in a plethora of ways, Goldstein's character was the absolute best solution they could have chosen. For that, I thank Apple TV+. I don't think I'll ever be the same. That's why this show is one of the best Apple TV+ shows – because by the time you finish watching it, you honestly think differently.
