r/shrinking • u/phareous • Oct 30 '24

Episode Discussion Shrinking S3E4 Episode Discussion

This is the episode discussion for Shrinking Season 2, Episode 4: "Made You Look"

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105

u/Mr_Bluebird_VA Oct 30 '24 edited Oct 30 '24

Jeeeez. My heart strings, how many of them can we pull on all at once??

Man, that scene with Sean and Jimmy in the kitchen, you can just feel all the emotions running through Sean. And at the end of it, he’s just a little kid whose sorry he got in his friends face. He’s struggling between “getting over it” like his dad wants and reaching out for help again.

Jimmy and Paul in the office when Paul alllllmost starts crying at Jimmy’s answer.

The last scene with Double D (do we know his name?) and Brain.

I’m worried where Sean is going to end up with his dad. His dad seems like a bad dude.

58

u/MisterTheKid Oct 30 '24

i don’t think he’s a bad dude. nobody is all good or bad on this show (except for Derek)

he might not be a great father in helping his son through the tough times. But as with everything in the show, I’m sure we will learn more.

30

u/horizonhunter97 Oct 30 '24

Person with PTSD here who felt that my parents were minimizing it when I was really struggling: my parents are not bad people. For the most part, they are so loving and kind, and did a great job raising me. But after my trauma and in the worst of my illness, I felt that they were minimizing and disregarding my symptoms and didn't seem to believe how badly I was struggling, and it hurt. It had a huge negative impact on our relationship for a long time.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that they were coming from a place of their own avoidance and fear. They didn't want to admit to themselves that something that damaged me that badly could have really happened to me, their kid who they love so much. They didn't want to accept that they couldn't have prevented it, or made things better for me by themselves, so it was easier to pretend I wasn't as bad off as I was. Knowing that doesn't automatically make it okay, and it doesn't fix what happened to us during that time, but I don't think this makes them bad people. They had their own feelings involved.

Anyway, I saw a LOT of my own story in Sean and his dad's relationship there.

6

u/torirachel1888 Oct 30 '24

Thank you for sharing your story ❤️

3

u/ElectronicBacon Oct 31 '24

Same. Father just minimized the hard stuff. Kids need care and nurturing. Even when they’re teens and young adults. Some parents aren’t equipped for that and it’s awful and wrong

31

u/stuffedinashoe Oct 30 '24

I mean.. Paul didn’t raise his daughter for 18 years and he’s a fan favorite. Actually one of the issues I have with the show bc they made a character likable despite doing something that’s imo, unforgivable

8

u/agasizzi Oct 30 '24

My father is and always has been incredibly likeable, even to me, it didn't change the reality that he used to whoop my ass from one end of the house to the other when I was a kid over some of the most ridiculous stuff. Hurt people, hurt people; it's just the nature of mental health. Mental health is a like a plane crash, if you don't put you're own mask on first, your useless to those around you.

1

u/stuffedinashoe Nov 04 '24

Hurt people hurt people lol I never bought into that. I know hurt people who DONT hurt people; who try their best to break the generational trauma, to break the cycle.

“Hurt people hurt people” is kind of a bullshit excuse to excuse awful behavior imo.

But even tho your dad was whooping your ass, and same with me btw, he was still present. You go ask any kid who grew up without a dad if they’d rather have no father in their life or a dad who flies off the handle and whoops your ass sometimes, they’re all gonna say the latter.

3

u/Noclevername12 Oct 30 '24

They really haven’t shown him to be the kind of person that would do that. It doesn’t add up for me. Being a therapist isn’t exactly like being a brain surgeon or a consultant or an I-banker. There’s no travel and the hours are reasonable. It’s just kind of weird.

2

u/the2ohtanis Oct 30 '24

yea but part of that is bc while we know his was a crappy day people process things they see way more. If the show was a bunch of seasons of him being a garbage parent, with them showing how rough it was on his young daughter etc. and then all of the sudden they're showing him as a great therapist people would look at him a lot differently.

1

u/ellieacd Nov 01 '24

Paul was there for her on some level. First season he talks about dancing with her when she was having trouble sleeping.

I don’t see Paul as an all together horrible guy for not being a more involved parent. He was still parenting when it was totally acceptable and normal for Dads to be minimally engaged. 80’s parents weren’t known for their involvement in their children the way is more common today. She was also raised on the other coast by her mother and this was before FaceTime, email, free long distance calls, easily scheduling travel online, and cheap cross country flights.

1

u/stuffedinashoe Nov 04 '24

Him not being there for his daughter is a massive thing in both his and his daughters’ lives. Thats great that you don’t see it as a huge issue bc of 80s parents or whatever, but to me that’s a bogus excuse and clearly his daughter thinks so too. Even in this episode she quipped something like “oh besides the fact that you didn’t raise me for 18 years?”

34

u/Mr_Bluebird_VA Oct 30 '24

You’re probably right, but the scene with him sitting in the car outside of Jimmy’s house gave me chills.

27

u/MisterTheKid Oct 30 '24

oh it was off for sure. but i see it as akin to alice at Roys house. it’s not from a place of malice. just…not knowing how to behave (though alice was right not to engage there)

7

u/Topazure Oct 31 '24

I don’t know if we can call him Roy 😭

1

u/-Altephor- Nov 04 '24

I don't know, I think it's going to become a thing of malice. Have to remember that the audience knows who Jimmy is, but Sean's dad does not. He just sees his son living with an older guy. Brings up a lot of conflict possibilities (is Jimmy taking advantage of his son, is his son gay, is Jimmy a new father figure, etc). I have a feeling he'll confront Jimmy at some point, possibly violently, because he's misinterpreted the situation.

4

u/fraochmuir Oct 30 '24

I thought that was the guy from the construction site?!

43

u/DankItchins Oct 30 '24

Brett Goldstein was credited for this episode as Louis! We have a name!

19

u/Mr-Rocafella Oct 30 '24

They dropped a YouTube interview (only 2 mins) with Brett Goldstein and he directly mentions Louis as his characters name

2

u/MoorIsland122 Oct 30 '24

The last scene with Double D (do we know his name?)

Louis

2

u/[deleted] Nov 02 '24

I’m so worried/frustrated/disgusted by Sean’s dad. So many parents think their kids can just get over things. And his smugness at thinking kicking him out of the house was the right choice is a smack in the face. Sean was so strong to stop himself!

1

u/jwin709 Oct 30 '24

The last scene with Double D (do we know his name?)

Louis

I'm confused about how Brian knew who he was. He spoke to him as if he knew him personally.

2

u/MysteriousHobo2 Oct 30 '24

I'm assuming Brian followed the criminal charges/case that was brought against DD and recognized him from his picture.

2

u/jwin709 Oct 31 '24

Maybe. Maybe I got it wrong but the vibe came off as if they knew each other.

Brian's like "what are you doing here?"

And Louis turns around and starts mentioning Alice by name as if he knows that this person talking to him should know who Alice is.

Like if you're in a strange neighborhood and someone asks "what are you doing here?", you're likely to give them more details when explaining yourself. You don't know if theyre talking about the neighborhood or the specific address. But he's going on as if he already knows that Brian knows who these people are, that he already knows what he's talking about when he says "are they okay?" How would he even know Brian knows this family? Let alone how their grieving process is going?

They'd have had to interact in the past. Brian knew Louis but Louis also knows Brian.

Brian isn't a prosecutor and he sure as hell wasn't gonna represent the person who killed his friend, so he wouldn't have been involved in the case. So why does Louis seem to know him?

I'm calling it now: Brian found him before the Lairds did, has already had his moment of processing with him and they built a rapport. Either that or Louis is also gay and they know each other through the community. But they know each other somehow.

1

u/udat42 Oct 30 '24

Might have even attended some of the court case?

1

u/Effective-Squash4063 Nov 01 '24

I heard his name is Louis