Review: Shrinking, "Woof" | Season 1, Episode 5
The season shrinks down its conflicts at the halfway point
While my previous Shrinking reviews—written in a vacuum before the series premiered, based on the four episodes Apple sent out to critics before the holidays—have focused on the balance of comedy and drama, “Woof” highlights a number of different balancing acts central to a first-season show instead.
The first is about the dynamics of the ensemble. After a few episodes that really foregrounded Liz and her relationships with both Jimmy and Alice, she recedes to the background here, appearing only briefly to team up with Gaby to harass the men in their orbit. Instead, the episode works to bring Brian’s story more to the forefront, expanding on his relationship with his boyfriend Charlie. While his estrangement from Jimmy is still unexplored territory that may return, “Woof” brings his personal life into the equation—as soon as he tells Gaby and Jimmy he’s going to propose to Charlie, they immediately brush him off as a Boy Who Cried Wolf, convinced he’ll never go through …