Review: Shrinking, "Apology Tour" | Season 1, Episode 7
Consequences are limited in a hangout show, but there's enough to keep things complicated
One of the biggest challenges about introducing dramatic stakes to a show with hangout aspirations is that the natural rhythms of the show as a whole steer you away from significant consequences. No matter how much Jimmy might have screwed things up at Brian’s surprise engagement party, there’s still a magnetic north of the show’s ensemble gathering in Jimmy’s backyard for a BBQ as Sean searches for his passion in cooking.
If you followed my reviews of Ted Lasso’s second season, I died on this hill when it came to the show’s choice to play fast-and-loose with consequences. But as a show specifically invested in the complexity of human relationships, Shrinking is in a better position to articulate a lack of major fallout as a byproduct of how individual people choose to live their lives. While the idea that a football club could lose a major sponsor and just casually get another one with no impact on their operations was and remains ludicrous (my corpse remains firmly pl…