From the beginning, Shrinking has always framed Jimmy’s obsession with healing his patients as a sort of drug, a way of distracting himself from the grief and self-loathing gnawing at him in the background. But the appropriately named “The Drugs Don’t Work” is the first episode to really lean into that metaphor, with Paul bringing the point home as Jimmy nears the emotional breakdown that this whole season has been building toward.
Alice hasn’t forgiven Jimmy for sabotaging her strange but genuinely healing friendship with Louis, and the episode does acknowledge that she’s being pretty tough on him. When she visits Louis at the coffee shop, he even suggests she cut her dad some slack, reassuring her that he’s in a good place. (He got invited to his coworker Eddy’s Friendsgiving!) But she can’t seem to take his advice and move on, instead crashing with Gaby for a while to get some distance.
I assume Alice will make up with Jimmy in the finale, and it does feel like her season arc is mostly complete at this point: She may not have everything figured out, based on her lingering resentment, but she overcame something huge by confronting Louis and forgiving him. We’re not seeing her at her most flattering, but she is a more confident, mature person, someone who understands that Louis isn’t a villain; he’s just a man who made a mistake and deserves empathy like the rest of us. As Alice’s opening conversation with Jimmy in this episode shows, she’s not even angry about what he did so much as she’s angry about his refusal to help Louis.
Sure, it’s probably unrealistic to expect your dad to literally treat the man responsible for your mom’s death (besides, it’s not exactly ethical). And Louis has looked far more animated and spirited in his last few appearances, though I’m sure his depression still rears its head now and then. But the idea here is that Jimmy is lagging behind Alice in the grief process by holding onto this resentment toward Louis — and more broadly, he’s lagging behind her in his unwillingness to get help himself.
As Paul points out, he and Jimmy have both endangered their relationships with their daughters, directly or indirectly, by refusing to forgive themselves for fucking up. For some advice on that very subject, Jimmy calls up Grace, who’s doing well but still lies awake sometimes knowing she made her husband suffer.
Instead of learning something from Grace’s progress, Jimmy “relapses” by seeking out the “I did good” buzz identified by Paul, setting out to help out his patients as much as he can. He reaches out to Donny to make Grace feel better, though Donny is still the same asshole he’s always been. Then Jimmy personally walks Wally (his patient with OCD) to her neighbor’s door to return the dog she stole nine days ago, receiving a big, long hug after reminding her of her significant growth.
But it’s only a moment before Jimmy’s gratified smile fades, just like Paul predicted. The drug wore off, and he’s extremely close to a breakdown. Paul warns him that he’s risking returning to the place he was at after Tia died, and that’s a horrifying scenario. We quickly see the truth of those words when Jimmy calls up one of his old sex worker friends, who “doesn’t do that anymore” but could find some girls who do.
Jason Segel does great work in this episode, every expression conveying exactly where Jimmy’s mind is at right now. He looks exhausted and depressed and even kind of strung out near the end, skipping Brian’s celebration to wander around the neighborhood and dissociate in the middle of the street. It’s a relief to see him wind up on the park bench next to Paul late at night, finally admitting he’s not okay and breaking down.
It’s heavy stuff, and that feeling carries over to the other subplots in this penultimate episode. Paul’s story, for example, ends in a relatively dark place: He finds out that he likely only has six months to a year before his medication stops working entirely, and his tremors reach a new level of intrusiveness in his day-to-day life. There are options — he can diet and do physical therapy — but nothing that will put off the symptoms forever. Like with Jimmy, this is a story that has real stakes; Paul could have a particularly tough road ahead in season three, and I’m eager to see how Harrison Ford handles it.
The dissolution of Gaby’s relationship with Derrick is generally sad but less emotionally affecting, especially because it comes a little out of nowhere. While Alice is venting about needing to dump Dylan — she got the ick when he said, “We’ll get through this together” about her dad issues — Gaby admits that she tends to just get noncommittal and distant until her partners end the relationship for her. Points for self-awareness, but it’s a pretty crazy thing to say when she’s doing that very thing with Derrick, leaving him out of her Thanksgiving plans because she’s reluctant to let him all the way in.
I get where Gaby is coming from in theory, but I’m not sure it all totally squares with the version of her we know, especially when she spent some time pining for a relationship with Jimmy. Sure, that was unhealthy all around, but it was framed like Jimmy was the one who wasn’t ready, not Gaby. It’s hard to totally understand her current behavior in the context of what’s been up with her all season — does this relate to her caretaker crisis with Phyllis or her newfound independence and professional success?
It mostly feels like a typical rom-com contrivance to either tear them apart before a finale reunion or break them up for good because Damon Wayans Jr. isn’t prepared to commit to being the endgame love interest. (Shrinking is coming back for another season.) As much as I’ve liked him on this show, his presence has sometimes felt temporary. In a way, I wasn’t surprised to see Derrick find out about the plans Gaby hid from him and call her “fucked up” before leaving. I just want to better understand what it says about Gaby and her journey going forward.
Sean gets the lightest storyline in “The Drugs Don’t Work,” but it’s pretty refreshing, especially because it reaches a satisfying emotional endpoint. He’s tempted to move out of Jimmy’s pool house (though his rent is a whopping $65 a month) and even gets the opportunity to do so when Derek shows him a new property he’s hoping to flip a year from now. He’ll let him live there for $100 a month until then, but Sean ultimately turns him down. He’s just not ready to leave yet, and that’s okay.
Derek uses an anecdote from his high school water polo days to illustrate his point in comforting Sean: He didn’t accept a captain spot when it was first offered to him, but it paid off when he worked hard and took the position the next year. This is a dark episode overall to hopefully set up some catharsis and resolution in next week’s finale, but I appreciate that it also leaves us with that strangely comforting idea: It’s easy to fear missing out on a chance at getting what we want in life, but the universe has a way of “presenting an opportunity” when we’re ready. I have to hope that’s true.
Progress Notes
• Ava calls up Brian to inform him that she’s going with him and Charlie after all, so they’re getting a baby! I’m happy for them, I guess, but I’m not sure what to think of the choice to go back on the refreshingly bittersweet ending from a couple of episodes back. I know Brian returning her pencil topper counted for a lot, but she changed her mind mainly because the straight couple were Disney adults?
• Gaby’s mom still isn’t over her betrayal yet, even if she likes her new nurse Nikki a lot. Nikki also gets a good line: “My mom lives with me because I’m a decent person.”
• Sean is dating Dr. Sykes! A little random, but good for them.
• “You know what the worst thing about kids are? “Yeah, they get all your money when you die.” “I’m not sure why that’s a negative.”
• The best line reading of the episode might be Harrison Ford saying, “That scared me, man.”
• “Look, we’ve had our issues. You beat the shit out of me. I called you fugly. You didn’t know that, but I kinda want you to know.”
