Spoilers for Shrinking Season 2, Episode 10 – “Changing Patterns” – are in play. If you haven’t watched it yet, you can stream it with an Apple TV+ subscription.
I’m not above a reunion via a cute cameo, in fact, I love it! So, when it was revealed that Cobie Smulders would reunite with Jason Segel in one of Shrinking’s episodes on the 2024 TV schedule, I was thrilled, because I’m a How I Met Your Mother fan. However, this fandom proved to be a problem I couldn’t quite get over, as I watched the Robin and Marshall actors flirt with each other in this Apple TV+ comedy.
Allow me to set the scene for this reunion on Shrinking, Jimmy (Segel) is trying to buy a car for his daughter Alice. He finds a used one, and when he goes to pick it up he meets Sofi (Smulders), the divorcee who is selling the vehicle.
The two immediately hit it off, and they share a sense of humor -- as they both made slightly morbid but admittedly funny jokes about how they lost their partners. For the first time maybe ever, Jimmy is able to talk to someone candidly about how his life changed after his wife died without receiving an over-sympathic reaction in return. I mean, Sofi literally jokingly asks him if it is better to lose your partner to death or divorce.
It’s clearly a nice change of pace for Jimmy, and the two have a nice vibe. Honestly, I hope this relationship goes further than just a car sale, and it seems like it might. And I want this for both of them, I really do. They have great chemistry, and they are so funny together.
However, for me to fully enjoy this new relationship, I have to jump over a How I Met Your Mother-related hurdle that I haven’t been able to overcome yet.
You can stream How I Met Your Mother with a Netflix subscription.
Let’s not forget that while Smulders’ character Robin had long relationships with two of the three men in the How I Met Your Mother cast, and Marshall was not one of them. She famously dated Josh Radnor’s Ted Mosby (and ended up with him in the controversial HIMYMI finale) and she was with Neil Patrick Harris’ Barney Stinson for several seasons. She and Segel never ever in a million years would ever have shared a romantic scene as Robin and Marshall because he was always with Alyson Hannigan’s Lily.
I’ve built up this big wall in my head because of all that, and when I see Smulders and Segel together I think of them as platonic friends first. Therefore, seeing them flirting on Shrinking made me feel weird.
However, that’s not their issue. That’s on me, and I’m going to work really hard to overcome my own preconceived notions. Ultimately, once I kind of forgot that these two members of the Shrinking cast played friends and only friends on How I Met Your Mother for nine seasons, I was charmed by the potential for them to have a romantic relationship on another show. It’s hard to deprogram my brain to think of them as people other than Marshall and Robin when they’re sharing a scene though, so this will take time.
But, I’m willing to put in the work, because Shrinking is one of the best shows on Apple TV+ and I like where things are going with Jimmy and Sofi. You can feel the chemistry Segel and Smulders share from years of work together bursting off the screen, and it’s hilarious and lovely. So, even though it will take me a hot minute to do it, I’m determined to jump over this How I Met Your Mother hurdle!
