‘Shrinking’ Season 2 Ending Explained: Jason Segel Unpacks That Twisty but Heartwarming Finale

Jimmy tearfully apologizes to Alice for his past dysfunctional behavior

It’s been a long journey for Jimmy, as these past two seasons the earnest and compassionate therapist has been grieving the death of his wife Tia (Lilan Bowden). While he saw some turnaround in Season 2, continuous encounters with the drunk driver Louis (Brett Goldstein), who was involved in Tia’s crash, and his daughter Alice’s (Lukita Maxwell) desire to communicate with Louis threw Jimmy off balance and he fell briefly back into some of his past dysfunctional habits. After ordering Alice — who’s urged her father to find forgiveness — to stop texting Louis, distance between the two widened again.

Luckily, the father and daughter were able to divulge their stresses and frustrations in separate heart-to-hearts with Paul and Sean, both of whom understand and relate to their respective situations, which helped them both find common ground once Jimmy apologized to Alice for his poor behavior. In the end, Alice forgave him and reassured him that he’s still an amazing father.

“Even at your lowest, you still carried me up to my room … Yeah, maybe you were a bad dad for a second, but hey you were also the best f–king dad and I am so lucky that you are mine,” Alice told an emotional Jimmy. The scene viewers saw was the first one the crew filmed that made the cut.

Here’s what Segel told TheWrap about the scene:

“I did not talk to Lukita at all beforehand, [or] talked to her at all that day. I said I didn’t want to rehearse it. I said, ‘Well, we can do the marks, but I’m not going to say the lines out loud, because my ethos about film acting is that the magic is in catching something. You then have to do repeatability and get all the different angles, and all that stuff, but to me, the real magic is when you see it, when you catch something, ‘Oh, there it is.’”

“I know I have to nail that scene for weeks ahead of time, for like, several weeks. ‘I’m like, I have one scene I have to nail. Everything else can be a B+, even I’m gonna shoot for an A+.’ But I’m like, ‘There is one scene coming up in f—king three weeks that needs to be an A+. So, that’s on your mind. And you’re wrestling with that for weeks, and my relationship to it vacillates between fear and ‘I’m gonna f—king kill it.’”

“The take that you saw is the first take and the magic take and everything else that we did after that was just about like any coverage we needed. I find that happens often when you have something that really needs to be honest, because that is the challenge of that scene. There’s lots of different types of scenes. The challenge of that monologue is how honest is Jimmy going to be or his daughter. We’ve been leading up for it for two years, and it’s like not about doing hugely emotive acting. It can’t be about anything but him just saying the truth to Alice; so that, to me, was the challenge of it. Don’t try to impress anybody. Don’t try to make Alice know how hard you feel it. Just be honest.”

Paul tearfully thanks his family and friends during Thanksgiving dinner

There’s a lot of crying that happens in the Season 2 finale of “Shrinking,” so have your tissue box on standby. One of the most heartwarming yet heartbreaking scenes was Paul finally sharing what he’s thankful for. The snarky, sarcastic veteran therapist often keeps his feelings inside, but he let it all out during the friends and family Thanksgiving gathering, detailing how grateful he is of their support, especially in the midst his battle with Parkinson’s disease.

“Sometimes, it’s hard to not feel sorry for myself, you know, ‘Poor me with my frail and fragile body.’ But then, I look around in this room, and I say to myself, ‘Lucky guy, I’m a lucky guy.’ I don’t know how much longer I’m going to have to work with you, hang out with you, laugh with you; road’s going to get tougher and tougher, but I do know that I’ll get through it because of everyone in this room and that’s what I’m thankful for. Because we can get through anything if we have people to lean on.”

Here’s what Segel told TheWrap about that emotional scene:

“There was a few different layers of mood that were happening that day. I would say a big, giant part of it was, like, awe and reverence … God knows I felt lucky. I mean, Jessica and I were both crying, disproportionate to the occasion, because it is the highest form of art, where the line is a little blurred between Paul and Harrison with some of these words that are being said. Like, ‘I don’t know how much longer I’m going to get to do this job, but I look around this room and I think, ‘Lucky guy, lucky guy.” And I get choked up even now just trying to talk about it. When he said, ‘I look around this room and I think ‘Lucky guy,” we like f—king burst into tears. It was so intimate. I just… look, I’m going to have these moments for the rest of my life — that is not lost on me. It’s not lost on Jessica, it’s not lost on anyone in our cast what a privilege it is, you know?”

Derrick returns with Gaby’s mother and sister

This season delved deeper into Gaby’s backstory. Fans learned she has a strained relationship with sister Courtney (Courtney Taylor), who resents Gaby for dipping out on her share of caretaker duties for their mother (Vernée Watson). In addition, just when Gaby thought she’d found love in Derrick #2, her neglectful nature led to her failing to nourish the relationship, ultimately pushing Derrick away.

“I don’t know Gaby, I put myself out there and you left me hanging. And I’ve tried really hard to stop ignoring red flags,” Derrick told Gaby as he broke it off with her. “So, how about this: you work on all that stuff you need to work on, and once you get it in order, you give me a call, OK?”

However, during the Thanksgiving gathering, Derrick returned — with his aunt and Gaby’s mother.

Wayans told TheWrap that Derrick and Gaby have a connection, but she’s got “Gab-age.”

“There’s a little chemistry there, and then [the] relationship kind of starts to pick up pace, but she’s got stuff to deal with. She has ‘Gab-age,’ is what I call it. She’s got some ‘Gab-age’ she’s got to deal with. And I think that she’s used to dealing with fixer-uppers. And I feel like Derrick #2 is the first guy she doesn’t have to fix. And I think that’s kind of intimidating for her, for a lot of people. Like, some people like to fix people and when you don’t have anything to fix, like, ‘What do I do with you?’”

“Ultimately, I think he realizes that, and I feel like he sees the potential in Gaby that he’s willing to give that second chance, to try it again, because he’s like, maybe this is just right person, wrong time. Maybe I’ll stick around to when the time is right, because I feel like Derrick sees white picket fence-marriage with this young lady, potentially.”

Brian and Charlie hire Liz to nanny their baby part-time

Brian (Michael Urie) and his husband Charlie (Devin Kawaoka) have finally reached the end of their journey to becoming parents. Now with just four months before the baby arrives, the two band together with Liz (Christa Miller) in search of a nanny. They finally nab a woman for the job, but learn that she has schedule restrictions on Mondays and Fridays. While sharing their roadblock with Derek (Ted McGinley), he suggests enlisting Liz as a part-time nanny, noting that she’ll likely need full control over the other nanny. Liz, who has been missing her children in the home and yearning for something to keep her mind busy, happily accepts the offer.

Here’s what Urie had to say about the plot:

“I think Liz will be good with the baby, bad with the dads. I think similarly — when push comes to shove, Brian will be good with the baby, but bad with the rest of it. And Charlie is, of course, going to be good with all of it and bring him back down to Earth, as he always does. But I’m also excited to see, because the writers of this show always surprise me.”

Jimmy inadvertently saves Louis from committing suicide and begins his journey to forgiveness

As mentioned in the first highlight, it’s been a long road for Jimmy when it comes to forgiving Louis for his involvement in the tragic death of Jimmy’s wife Tia. In the Season 2 finale, Jimmy finally moved past his anger and reached out to show Louis some compassion. Just as Louis was about to walk out onto the train tracks into an incoming train, Jimmy stopped him. Earlier that day, Louis was disinvited to a Thanksgiving gathering after his boss found out about the car accident, and when he didn’t hear back from Alice — who’d put her phone away in a basket to enjoy time with friends and family — Louis’ painful loneliness and remorse came to a head and prompted him to want to take his own life. Just like Louis would with his ex, and just as Jimmy chats with folks at the park bench, the two conversed and made jokes about people waiting for the train.

Here’s what Segel had to say about the scene:

“For two years, Jimmy has been playing this kind of game of whack-a-mole of not really looking under the bed at the actual Boogeyman. He knows what it is. He knows it’s his own failure deep down, but he keeps looking in every direction, but in the mirror, and that’s what Louis represents.”

“I have to give so much credit to Bill [Lawrence] and to our writing staff, because they pulled off a magic trick which I would not have been able to pull off as a writer, which is, in a lot of ways, Jimmy’s primary arc this season is making peace with Louis — but he only sees him three times: He sees him in Episode 1; he sees him halfway through the season, when I go and tell him not to come back, not to come around my family; and then I see him in that final scene. So we have a total of three scenes together over 12 episodes, and that’s Jimmy’s primary arc.”

“When we shot that final scene, they did something really tender, which is the cameras were set up on the other side of the platform, even for the close-ups, they used long lenses, so all of the stuff that reminded you that you were making a TV show. It was pretty far away and it was a quiet night. We shot down the street from my house. So I walked there, I walked there alone. I went and I put my arm around Brett, and we said some words on film, and I walked home, and it just felt like magic. To whatever degree that translated that that scene felt intimate, that’s how it felt shooting it.”

Plus, Segel concluded by saying he’d love to see Goldstein’s character in Season 3 of “Shrinking.”

“I would love that. Brett and I only got to do three scenes together, so I would love to do something a little lighter with Brett.”