Well, the whole first half of this season has been building to this moment: the first real conversation between Alice and the man whose drunk driving killed her mother. It’s refreshing to see her get to this point by the halfway mark, though I suspect it’ll take Jimmy a lot longer to warm to the idea of chatting with Louis.
It’s Brian who facilitates the meeting, of course. He’s been hanging out with Louis a lot lately, apparently in desperate need of an emotional outlet during the stress of the adoption process. I’d like to get more insight into Brian’s perspective here; seeking endless validation from the guy responsible for the death of one of your closest friends is pretty wild, even if you’re empathetic enough to recognize his regret and forgive him. And what does Charlie think of this unconventional friendship, if he’s even aware of it?
Brian breaks the news to Alice after seeing the “sorry” Post-it note Louis left in Alice’s wallet, though it takes a lot of willpower to get the words out. Some of the comedy of the monologue about Louis doesn’t totally land for me, honestly — a little manic Michael Urie goes a long way in this role — but I’ll give him props for his dedication in all the anxious twisting and writhing around throughout this episode. I imagine it’s very funny to some people!
After hearing about Louis’s life supposedly being “Requiem for a Dream bleak,” Alice demands to see him immediately. The conversation at Louis’s apartment is the early emotional climax of the season, though I kind of wish the episode stuck with it as one extended scene instead of hopping over to multiple other character stories. Alice is up front: She doesn’t know what she’s looking for here, exactly. Louis guides her to an answer, mentioning the letter she wrote him. That gets the ball rolling on expressing the feelings she needs to express. Even setting aside the overwhelming grief, this man completely altered her life, changing the way people treat her.
Then Louis surprises Alice by asking to hear a story about her mom. He’s thought about this moment for so long — how he’d try to apologize or explain his actions — but nothing can take back what he did. All he can do is make an effort to understand the people he hurt and try to keep Tia’s memory alive. In a strange way, he has something in common with Alice and Jimmy. They’re all part of this same tragedy — maybe Louis is on the opposite end, but it had just as disastrous an effect on his mental health as anyone else.
Alice shares a story about her mom buying three Goofy hats on a trip to Disneyland, one for cheering up the kid whose ice cream she knocked over earlier that day. She thanks Louis for reminding her of that memory, and with that, he’s forgiven. It’s almost a little unbelievable that Alice could move on this fast, but keep in mind she’s been thinking this through for a while, since she first heard the news from her dad that Louis showed up at the office. It really clicked for me once Alice said, “It’s what my mom would’ve done.” Tia is her biggest inspiration, the person who drives her to be a better person.
The other major story in “In a Lonely Place” is a more traditional comedic plot: Paul giving in and trying therapy Jimmy’s way when it comes to Sean’s dad. Again, this type of story is so much easier to enjoy when you let go of any expectation of realism and just treat Shrinking as a wacky, heightened sitcom about unconventional therapists. In general, I think Paul’s by-the-books approach is very necessary for the show, and I still side-eye the idea that most of Jimmy’s methods are truly useful or ethical. But putting him in a scenario like this one is fun and new.
Sean getting beaten up at the end of the last episode was a dark moment, but Shrinking never lets a story stay serious for very long. When we next see him, he’s stoned and goofy in the hospital, dispensing harsh truths to all of his friends as they visit. (The funniest and meanest is his reaction to Brian’s arrival: “You should not have a baby. You’d be an awful dad.”) But his dad hasn’t been seen since Sean woke up. Jimmy and Paul’s task is to get Tim to understand what’s going on with his son or at least come back to the hospital and face him.
The Jimmying takes place at Lake Balboa, where our odd-couple therapists canoe up to Tim’s usual fishing spot and ambush him with their pro-therapy agenda. However, they only succeed in getting through to Tim by eventually setting aside their therapist identities (which is not difficult, considering the unprofessional behavior) and speaking to him dad-to-dad. Paul opens up about his estrangement from Meg; Jimmy opens up about his absence in the year after Tia’s death; Tim finally admits that he didn’t know how to help Sean when he came back from Afghanistan. His eventual apology to Sean for his defensiveness is a sweet moment, and it feels like the two have finally made some serious progress for the first time.
This episode tidies up a lot of the season’s conflicts, healing multiple complex relationships: Sean and his dad, Gaby and her sister, Alice and her guy-who-killed-my-mom. Of everyone in the cast now, Liz’s problems are the hardest to define, and I don’t mean that as a knock on the show. From the beginning, Liz’s biggest struggle has been finding ways to occupy her time as an empty nester, little hobbies and passion projects to keep her fulfilled. Starting a business with Sean really gave her the purpose she lacked, but now that she isn’t involved anymore, her life feels emptier than ever. At least having Connor moping around the house gave her someone else to take care of, but now he’s back at school, so there’s one fewer distraction. The shelter won’t even let her hang up her dog photos.
Liz has plenty to be grateful for, of course, from her uncommonly supportive extended friend group to her happy family to her money and privilege — but there’s a lot of guilt that comes with feeling unhappy despite having everything you need. “My problems aren’t real,” she tells Gaby. Derek doesn’t seem to get it; they chat briefly on his way to run an errand, but he doesn’t sense that she wants him to stay longer and talk things out. That’s probably why she turns to her ex, Mac, who actually takes the time to look at her dog photos and compliment them. If Derek keeps ignoring that there’s something wrong, who knows how far Liz could take this? She’s running out of ways to fill the void.
Progress Notes
• Gaby was always gonna show up for her mom’s cataract surgery, c’mon. But it’s a big growth moment to see her release Courtney from her obligations and encourage her to find something for herself — as long as it’s three months from now, just to give Gaby enough time to figure out a mom game plan.
• “You Blind Sided me, and then you blindsided me.”
• “Thanks for the long, silent ride.”
• I know Louis didn’t feel the need to explain much about his own past, but I do hope (and assume) we’ll get more of a sense of his life outside the general guilt and depression. We learn that he had a fiancée and they broke up, presumably after the accident.
