The incredible 'Shrinking' men and women

Plus, a new 'Sopranos' book, a 'Leftovers' anniversary, a terrific 'Penguin' departure episode, and more

This week’s What’s Alan Watching? newsletter coming up just as soon as I’m wearing my sex boxers…

Cliffhanging with Shrinking?

Apple’s Shrinking, you may recall, was one of my favorite news shows from last year, and yet another example of a Bill Lawrence-affiliated series that got better almost immediately upon downplaying its high-concept premise in favor of being a hang-out comedy with a hugely appealing ensemble. You may also recall, however, that I was very troubled by the end of the season finale, whose practically literal cliffhanger ending seemed to suggest a return to the show’s dark and messy earliest days.

Season Two debuted earlier this week with a pair of episodes, and I’ve seen all but this season’s finale already. And it was my great relief to write that the new episodes do not, in fact, fall back into bad old patterns, and instead more or less sticks with the Let Funny People Be Funny Together ethos.

I imagine I’ll be checking in on this season here periodically — maybe even weekly, depending on other obligations — but in the meantime, here are a few spoiler thoughts on the premiere episodes:

• The season doesn’t run away from the idea of what Grace did, but it for the most part doesn’t try to treat Jimmy as an accessory to this crime. Yes, he retreats from the whole ignoring boundaries thing for a while, but nobody is really blaming him for what happened, and he inevitably gets back to “Jimmying.”

• That said, Shrinking should never just be fun and games, and the premiere makes good use of casting co-creator Brett Goldstein as the man who killed Jimmy’s wife Tia in the drunk driving accident. We know from Ted Lasso how good Goldstein can be at drama, and there’s some excellent stuff to come here that we can discuss down the road. (At a panel this week hosted by my pal Linda Holmes, Segel joked that the alternate title for the season should be “How I Killed Your Mother.”)

• The Grace subplot isn’t the only aspect from late last season that the new episodes are treading carefully around, if not actively walking back. Jimmy and Gaby dating seemed like a bad idea — not from a story standpoint, but from an emotional health of both characters standpoint — and the new episodes address this head-on before bringing the relationship to an end for now. The scene at the end of the second episode where Gaby calls Jimmy out for taking advantage of her feelings for him was my favorite moment of either episode. Jessica Williams is kind of the inverse Harrison Ford in the cast: an actor best known for comedy who has turned out to be really good at the serious moments here.

I definitely want to hear more thoughts in the comments from everyone who’s watched so far.

Mob Illustrated

You may have heard that I have a book about Better Call Saul coming out in February, which you can preorder now. You may have also heard that I’m hard at work on a biography about Rod Serling, which is still a few years away from publication. But what you probably have not heard is that I contributed the foreword to The Sopranos: The Complete Visual History, which was published earlier this week and can be purchased wherever books are sold. As you can see from the photo above, it’s a pretty gorgeous-looking tome, complete with inserts like Livia’s wedding photo, Dr. Melfi’s degree from Tufts, and even a newspaper ad for Vesuvio. A fine addition to a coffee table near you, or to place on your bookshelf next to The Sopranos Sessions (which is also still on sale if you somehow don’t already have a copy). Cue Jay Sherman…

Odds and/or ends

• Monday presented a pair of dueling TV-related holidays. In the real world, it was Indigenous People’s Day, aka the former Columbus Day, aka the subject of the mostly-panned Sopranos Season Four episode “Christopher.” And in the fictional world of The Leftovers, it was the 13th anniversary of the Sudden Departure, where an utterly random two percent of the global population vanished without explanation. Just thinking about the date made me want to put all other work aside to do a binge of one of the greatest dramas ever made. Or perhaps I’ll save it til closer to next year’s ATX TV Festival, where Justin Theroux, Carrie Coon, and friends will gather for a reunion panel. (Speaking of Coon, one of my favorite interviews I ever did was with her the day before the series finale aired.)

• If you happen to be going to New York Comic-Con today, I’m moderating the What We Do in the Shadows panel, which will include a screening of the very funny first two episodes of this farewell season. Everyone else will have to wait til next week to see them, and I’m sure I’ll have more on the subject in next week’s newsletter.

• Another opportunity to see me IRL, for any of my New Jersey readers: I’ll be at the Fanwood Memorial Library on Thursday the 24th to talk some more about The Sopranos. Details here.

• Some notable Nobody Wants This news dropped right after I finished writing last week’s newsletter: Girls alums Jenni Konner and Bruce Eric Kaplan are taking over as showrunners. (Creator Erin Foster, who based the show on her own life, will stick around, though.) I like a lot about Nobody Wants This, particularly the chemistry between Kristen Bell and Adam Brody (as well as the excuse to keep plugging that book I wrote in which Brody is a central figure), but it could definitely stand some tweaking. Hopefully, two comedy vets like Konner and Kaplan can do exactly that.

• It’s totally healthy and normal that I haven’t been able to get the lyrics to The Lonely Island’s “Sushi Glory Hole” out of my head since the short debuted on SNL, right? To the point where I see an NCIS ad and the phrase “Sushi Gary Cole” immediately pops into my head? Where you going? Don’t leave!

A character Arkham

Finally, as discussed a few weeks back, I wasn’t crazy about The Penguin, which to me played like warmed-over Mob drama with a one-note main character and a stunt performance by Colin Farrell that misused his greatest strengths as an actor. But online enthusiasm for the show has been quite high, and particularly after this week’s episode, a flashback to explain how Sofia Falcone ended up as the dangerous woman acting in opposition to Oz. Like I said in that review, Cristin Miloti’s performance is by far my favorite part of the series, and she unsurprisingly made a meal out of the whole hour.

(Coincidentally, Agatha All Along also spent this week spotlighting its main supporting player, in what was arguably its best episode, too — or, at least its deepest, since I’ve generally enjoyed it more to this point than Penguin.)

A story where Sofia was the protagonist, and Oz popped up now and then to cause her trouble, would be a lot more exciting from where I sit. But I still wanted to single her, and the episode, out for praise, and to take everyone’s temperature on Penguin so far. And speaking of which…

That’s it for this week! What did everybody else think?