Anonymous
04/23/2026 23:45
Subject: Shrinking Season 3
Anonymous wrote:I just finished the season and realized something that bothered me about the show, especially the last season.
They portray Tia (Jimmy's dead wife) as perfect. At first it's realistic because of course when you are mourning someone you love, you fixate on what you loved. But I also know that especially with time,you remember more of the negative stuff, or you start thinking about conflicts you had, even if they were small at the time. It's part of the grief process. They were human. Sometimes you argued, sometimes they did stuff you didn't like. At first you feel guilty thinking about that stuff. This is especially true when you have others in your life (like dating someone new, or in Alice's case the "surrogate" parents she has) -- you'll think "wow she's being so much more supportive of this than mom was, this was always the thing mom and I couldn't agree on."
But Tia is only ever perfect, and there's never nuance, and it just makes her unreal to me. That's not what people are like. Even great parents who are happily married. Part of being a great parent is sometimes doing stuff your kid dislikes! That's just life. No one is perfect.
Didn’t they show (maybe in a couple of flashbacks in S1?) that Jimmy and Tia were having problems in their marriage?
Anonymous
04/23/2026 19:29
Subject: Shrinking Season 3
I just finished the season and realized something that bothered me about the show, especially the last season.
They portray Tia (Jimmy's dead wife) as perfect. At first it's realistic because of course when you are mourning someone you love, you fixate on what you loved. But I also know that especially with time,you remember more of the negative stuff, or you start thinking about conflicts you had, even if they were small at the time. It's part of the grief process. They were human. Sometimes you argued, sometimes they did stuff you didn't like. At first you feel guilty thinking about that stuff. This is especially true when you have others in your life (like dating someone new, or in Alice's case the "surrogate" parents she has) -- you'll think "wow she's being so much more supportive of this than mom was, this was always the thing mom and I couldn't agree on."
But Tia is only ever perfect, and there's never nuance, and it just makes her unreal to me. That's not what people are like. Even great parents who are happily married. Part of being a great parent is sometimes doing stuff your kid dislikes! That's just life. No one is perfect.
They portray Tia (Jimmy's dead wife) as perfect. At first it's realistic because of course when you are mourning someone you love, you fixate on what you loved. But I also know that especially with time,you remember more of the negative stuff, or you start thinking about conflicts you had, even if they were small at the time. It's part of the grief process. They were human. Sometimes you argued, sometimes they did stuff you didn't like. At first you feel guilty thinking about that stuff. This is especially true when you have others in your life (like dating someone new, or in Alice's case the "surrogate" parents she has) -- you'll think "wow she's being so much more supportive of this than mom was, this was always the thing mom and I couldn't agree on."
But Tia is only ever perfect, and there's never nuance, and it just makes her unreal to me. That's not what people are like. Even great parents who are happily married. Part of being a great parent is sometimes doing stuff your kid dislikes! That's just life. No one is perfect.
Anonymous
04/12/2026 10:54
Subject: Re:Shrinking Season 3
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I love this show but the millennial humor and slang really surprises me. I’m GenX and realized that outside of work I don’t really hang out out with any millennials. Boomers, GenX and GenZ are pretty much it.
Is this the slang and humor that millennials use? All the odd sex references, the flapping pussy etc seem really weird.
I find it gross ... definitely my least favorite thing about the show.
Yes, I hate it. Also it feels vaguely misogynistic and when Gabby was doing it, aggressively, it made me realize that her character feels vaguely misogynistic. It's very much "Look at me, I'm one of the guys! I too make fun of people by comparing them to female genitalia!"
I think this is often a feature of Bill Lawrence shows (Elliot on Scrubs was always one of the guys, the locker room setting of Ted Lasso encouraged this dynamic also) and it's one of the things I bump on when I watch them. I think part of it is that he often gives stereotypical female qualities to the men (wanting to talk about feelings, more sensitive, homebodies, etc. -- this describes Jimmy, Ted Lasso, and J.D.) but then gives stereotypically male qualities to the women. And since the women are always more secondary characters, this starts to feel reductive.
Anonymous
04/12/2026 10:40
Subject: Re:Shrinking Season 3
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I love this show but the millennial humor and slang really surprises me. I’m GenX and realized that outside of work I don’t really hang out out with any millennials. Boomers, GenX and GenZ are pretty much it.
Is this the slang and humor that millennials use? All the odd sex references, the flapping pussy etc seem really weird.
I find it gross ... definitely my least favorite thing about the show.
Agree. Trying to be edgy and cool. It seems so fake.
Anonymous
04/11/2026 21:24
Subject: Re:Shrinking Season 3
Anonymous wrote:I love this show but the millennial humor and slang really surprises me. I’m GenX and realized that outside of work I don’t really hang out out with any millennials. Boomers, GenX and GenZ are pretty much it.
Is this the slang and humor that millennials use? All the odd sex references, the flapping pussy etc seem really weird.
I find it gross ... definitely my least favorite thing about the show.
Anonymous
04/11/2026 21:22
Subject: Shrinking Season 3
Anonymous wrote:I hated the ending. Sofi had so many red flags. It also seems bonkers to me that Paul knew almost nothing about Jimmy and Sofi’s relationship, yet thought the solution to Jimmy’s depression was putting them back together.
Agreed. I really dislike what we've seen of Sofi so far.
The bonding with Paul was very sweet, though, and the Dereks continue to be great.
Anonymous
04/09/2026 23:29
Subject: Re:Shrinking Season 3
Anonymous wrote:I love this show but the millennial humor and slang really surprises me. I’m GenX and realized that outside of work I don’t really hang out out with any millennials. Boomers, GenX and GenZ are pretty much it.
Is this the slang and humor that millennials use? All the odd sex references, the flapping pussy etc seem really weird.
My DH and I are Gen X and have made that big flapping pussy arm motion for decades - he and his college friends all did that. I’ve never seen anyone else do it.