Shrinking Doesn’t Work Without Harrison Ford

In a show that threatens to be too much, he’s giving just enough. Photo: Apple TV+

In the second episode of Shrinking season two, Jimmy (Jason Segel) — a therapist who sets so few boundaries between his patients and himself that one even lives with him — accuses his colleague Paul (Harrison Ford) of being too professionally rigid. “You’re like a mental-health robot,” Jimmy says, and starts imitating Paul during a session. “Engage empathy,” he says in an automaton voice while moving his arms like a tin man in need of oil. “Ooh, oh, interesting. Time’s up. Disengage.” Jimmy winds down as though Robot Paul’s battery has run out: “Beep-boop. Beep-boop.”

Paul, infuriated, hisses: “I never say ‘beep-boop.’” He carefully pronounces every word in that sentence — “I. Never. Say. ‘Beep. Boop.’” — as if he wants to make sure a court stenographer captures each one for the record. Rather than add more goofiness to an already intentionally goofy line, Ford plays it seriously, grounding his character in a persona that aligns closely with public perception of himself: pragmatic, allergic to bullshit, and kinda grumpy. His “beep-boop” response is funnier than it might have been because he’s deliberately not trying to make it funny.

His approach is what makes Ford such an essential element of Shrinking, which, like most dramedies created or co-created by Bill Lawrence, toggles between sensitive moments and sitcom-style humor. Getting that tonal balance right so that the absurdity doesn’t undermine the authenticity is tricky. There are times when Shrinking wobbles in that effort; its cast of comedic actors are tasked with playing people who are a little much, which means their acting is often a little much. Segel, a man with resting Muppet face, screams when caught off-guard, does Cookie Monster impressions, and, at one point later in the new season, turns choking on a grape into a brief one-man farce. Jimmy’s best friend, Brian, played by Michael Urie, often chatters awkwardly about how awkward he feels in confrontational situations, just in case his anxiety isn’t obvious enough. “I don’t know how to say what I have to say to you,” he tells Jimmy’s daughter Alice in one scene, adopting a voice that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Pixar movie. At times, both men perform as though they are fully aware they’re starring in a television comedy.

But Ford, more consistently than any of the other actors, knows exactly when and how to bring the enterprise down to earth. In one scene, after Alice tells Paul that he sounds like Batman — not the first time someone on Shrinking makes that observation — Ford smiles and says, “I do that on purpose. It’s called gravitas.” Ford is the gravity that gives Shrinking just enough weight to prevent it from careering too far into schmaltz or self-conscious silliness; he’s the leavening agent that keeps its comedy from rising so high it collapses.

Ford’s default setting in Shrinking is sarcasm. No one understands better that taking the wind out of a phrase is just as funny, and sometimes funnier, than pumping it up with air. When he walks into the break room at work and catches Jimmy and Gaby, who are sleeping together, engaging in a little PDA, he pours himself a cup of coffee and says, “We should add it to our sign out front: Rhodes Cognitive Behavioral Center” — he pauses, puts down the coffee pot, then stares at his co-workers — “Our doctors fuck.” The words fall out of his mouth dry as dirt in a three-month drought. When Jimmy informs Paul that Gen-Zers think mumbling “My bad” is a sincere form of apology, Paul snarls, “I’m glad we ruined the planet for them.” It’s an off-putting comment, but Ford is so aggrieved, and so capable of conveying an underlying sensitivity that ensures he doesn’t mean it, that the comment earns a genuine laugh.

The key to Ford’s performance is that he lets Paul’s gentler side peek out from beneath his crusty shell. The character is in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease, and without overdoing it, Ford reveals his shakiness, both physically — his hands tremble slightly at various moments, a reminder of how his body is starting to betray him — and emotionally. He is at his most vulnerable with his former neurologist and now girlfriend Julie (Wendie Malick), a relationship that is also in its early stages. Malick, such a lovely, elegant foil to his grumbling advice-giver, has terrific chemistry with Ford. When — minor spoiler alert — Paul finally asks her point-blank to move in with him, he says it with such genuine, unadulterated longing that you can actually feel your heart warming by a couple of degrees as he makes the request. This moment is so effective because Ford is so economical with his emotions. When Derek (the delightful Ted McGinley) asks Paul if he is in love with Julie in episode three, Paul flinches. “You have to go there?” he asks, not making eye contact. “Fine. I’m deeply in love.” He sounds angry at the entire concept of romance.

In that line, one can’t help but hear faint echoes of the Harrison Ford of Empire Strikes Back responding to Carrie Fisher’s “I love you” with a restrained, “I know.” No matter how immersed Ford gets into a character, it’s impossible to watch him at this point in his career without being reminded of the fearless, stubborn heroes he represents. This man is Han Solo, and Rick Deckard, and Jack Ryan, and Indiana Jones. We’re used to thinking of him as an icon, someone bigger and better than just a regular man. That legacy works to Ford’s advantage in Shrinking. There’s an underlying, unspoken joy in watching him play an average person with normal concerns who does average, normal-person things. Everyone, no matter who they are, has to confront pain and guilt and uncomfortable feelings, even the guy who once melted Nazis and helped destroy the Death Star. Shrinking simply wouldn’t be as entertaining, or as meaningful, without Ford literally and metaphorically refusing to be a robot every time he’s in the frame.