SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for the finale of Shrinking Season 3, titled “And That’s Our Time.”
Jason Segel’s Jimmy can’t get rid of Harrison Ford’s Paul Rhoades that easily, even if he has officially moved to Connecticut at the end of Season 3 of Apple TV’s Shrinking.
The Season 3 finale ended on several goodbyes for certain characters, but with a Season 4 renewal already served to the comedy show, it seems these will be more like “see you later” moments for the main cast.
“I would be insane not to find a way for Harrison Ford to be in the show in perpetuity. He is not disappearing,” Lawrence told Deadline ahead of Season 3’s conclusion. “We tell another story. We’re gonna jump ahead a couple years and see where everybody’s at, and we have a new story to tell. [Harrison Ford] will be part of it. He’s not leaving.”
The penultimate episode of Season 3 ended with abrupt parting of ways between Jimmy and Harrison Ford’s Paul — set to Zach Bryan’s “I Remember Everything” — that resulted from an argument broached by Jimmy, who projected some of his anger at his father Randy (Jeff Daniels) onto Paul. Following his retirement from therapy work, Paul was already set to move to Connecticut to move in with his daughter Meg (Lily Rabe), but he and Jimmy were supposed to share a goodbye breakfast.
“Part of the fun is, if this three story [arc] ends and he’s gonna go try and be with his family in Connecticut, I’m fascinated, along with the writing staff, of what does that look like a couple of years from now?” Lawrence added. “Did it work? Is it hard? Does he miss people? Is he doing better? Is he doing worse? And the one thing I can tell you, Harrison’s such an inspiring guy as a performer, to watch him play that character. We’re going to make sure that it reads the same way.”
L-R: Michael Urie and Jessica Williams in ‘Shrinking’ Season 3
Apple TV
First consulted via iPad about Gaby’s (Jessica Williams) hesitation to marry Derek, Paul ultimately flies back to Los Angeles to give Jimmy one final nudge in the direction of moving forward by reconnecting him with Sofi (Cobie Smulders).
“I think that push was supposed to feel like Jimmy’s gotten over the mountain, and that no matter what it ends up looking like, the thought of that character being alone for the rest of his life, I think, is super sad. It’s hard to watch that last episode,” Lawrence said. “Whether it’s Cobie Smulders — whether it’s Sofi or not — I’m not gonna lock that up for people, knowing that this is a guy that has — if you’re a TV fan and you’re a TV nerd, you watch TV like I watch TV — then you know that Jimmy’s journey to whether or not he finds the next chapter in his life and who that might be is without a doubt a story we’ll tell.”
As for any perceived memory issues or mental decline, Paul’s age, and not necessarily the Parkinson’s, could be a factor.
“With Parkinson’s you can stay sharp as a tack. He’s getting older, the character, Paul. Independently of Parkinson’s, older people have to deal with that stuff. And there’s something called Lewy bodies with Parkinson’s, it’s a kind of dementia that comes with Parkinson’s, but we aren’t necessarily writing about that. I only know the Lewy bodies thing — and I don’t want to talk about it too much, but my dad has Lewy bodies.”
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