‘Shrinking’ Boss Says ‘Forgiveness’ Defines Season 2, Reveals Plan for Season 3

Shrinking Season 2 is all about forgiveness. That’s how co-creator Bill Lawrence pitched it when he was explaining the show’s full narrative arc to Apple TV+ before the show got a series order, and it’s what fans are going to see in more than one plotline in the second season, premiering October 16 on the streamer. But what does forgiveness mean in this context?

“When you pitch a show, half the time you’re dancing with sparklers and you’re not sure if you’re going to do what you said. You’re just trying to get somebody to agree to put it on TV,” Lawrence tells TV Insider. “But we pitched the first season as dealing with grief. And the second season, we pitched to these guys as forgiveness. In your head, you’re like, what does that mean? What does that look like? But I think anybody that’s a fan of the show will realize it’s not just for one person.”

In Season 2, Jason Segel‘s Jimmy continues to mend his relationship with teen daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell), to whom he was an absent father in the wake of the tragic and unexpected death of his wife/Alice’s mother, Tia (Lilan Bowden), who was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver. Jimmy’s radical (ethically questionable but ultimately positive) therapy techniques jolted him out of his depression in Season 1, and in the new episodes he’s reconciling with the results of his new form of guidance — both good and bad.

Jimmy’s also seeking forgiveness from Grace (Heidi Gardner), his client who pushed her abusive husband off a cliff in the Season 1 finale and is revealed in the Season 2 trailer to now be in prison. As Lawrence said, it’s not just Jimmy who is changing his behavior to seek forgiveness from those he failed.

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“You have a father that maybe wasn’t the best dad for a couple years,” Lawrence explains of Season 2. “You have Harrison Ford‘s character [Paul] who’s mending fences with his own family. You have a character, Sean (Luke Tennie), who’s — if people paid attention — still estranged from his father and not living at home. Right now, I like writing about things that are in the zeitgeist a little bit, and whether it’s families or friends or whatever, everybody is dealing with rifts because of the way the world is politically, whatever you got going. And so I think people in a good way, if they have a keen eye can tell what the stories are going to be for almost every character.”

Lawrence has previously said that he pitches all of his Apple TV+ shows (like Ted Lasso and Bad Monkey) as three seasons. A three-season structure is still the plan for Shrinking, he tells TV Insider. Season 1 was about grief. Season 2 is about forgiveness. So, what’s Season 3? “Moving forward,” Lawrence reveals, sharing next how these upcoming 12 episodes set up the potential third and final season. As of the time of publication, the series has not yet been renewed for Season 3, but Lawrence tells us here that they’re “already writing it.”

“You can imagine by just the overarching title of forgiveness that what we’re really going to be watching is whether — and by the way, it’s not always cut and dry. I think we all have people in our life that we can never get over the hump with. And so Shrinking, it’s not necessarily going to be the most hunky dory, soft edges type of ending,” Lawrence explains. “But I think whenever anybody undergoes a true catastrophic stick in the spokes in their life, like the characters in the show did, what you’re really talking about the first two years is what it means to survive and then kind of bury the hatchet and mend fences. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be able to move forward in your life and start over again. I think that’s what people will probably be watching the third year.”

He goes on: “And when you say moving forward, even off the top of my head so it’s not a spoiler, I think people are aware that we’ve intentionally made a young woman who’s a senior in high school. We’ve potentially gotten some people in serious relationships. We’ve intentionally been looking at Harrison Ford’s character and how much longer can he do this with the condition he has. And so I think it’s going to be a rich third year too. I say that because we’re already writing it.”

Shrinking returns on Wednesday, October 16 with its first two episodes, followed by one episode weekly until the Season 2 finale comes out on Christmas.

Shrinking, Season 2 Premiere, Wednesday, October 16, Apple TV+