Speaker 1: Welcome to the Parenting Roundabout podcast. I'm Terry Morrow and
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Hileco. As parents and parenting writers, we can't
Speaker 1: help but see everything through a parenting lens. But as
Speaker 1: our kids have become adults, we find ourselves more interested
Speaker 1: in getting caught up on movies and streaming than I'm
Speaker 1: going over the same parenting topics over and over.
Speaker 2: So since we're pretty sure we can find parenting wisdom anywhere,
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about what we're watching, what we
Speaker 2: thought about it, and maybe what we can learn from it,
Speaker 2: if only what not to do. Watch and listen along,
Speaker 2: and let's all make like we're doing something important for
Speaker 2: our families. Each Wednesday we bring you our thoughts on
Speaker 2: a newer entertainment property, and for this week of December
Speaker 2: twenty third, we're discussing the eighth episode of the current
Speaker 2: season of Shrinking. It is called Last Drink. And if
Speaker 2: you listen to our last two episodes this week, you
Speaker 2: may have heard Terry mention this was a very sad,
Speaker 2: sad episode for us. I would say, yeah, Wolf, although
Speaker 2: I would say, you know, we did have some We
Speaker 2: had Sean doing well, yes, and we had Liz and
Speaker 2: Derek making up, Yes.
Speaker 1: But first Lizen Derek both being extremely sad and Derek
Speaker 1: being sad is not natural. And it's that thing where
Speaker 1: this is not my fault. I am the wronged person here,
Speaker 1: and yet I feel terrible right and coming to terms
Speaker 1: with how he maybe did not catch the signals as
Speaker 1: we discussed I think last week we and just having
Speaker 1: the most Derek possible confrontation with Mac. He kissed his wife.
Speaker 1: It's like he wants to go and Dereren, you know,
Speaker 1: be super mad, but the beer's really good and she
Speaker 1: sees less dog pictures on the wall are wonderful, and
Speaker 1: he realizes he didn't give them any attention. And she,
Speaker 1: meanwhile is just feeling lower than low. And you know
Speaker 1: when Alice is trying to help her and she says,
Speaker 1: you can like you have a daughter and braid my
Speaker 1: hair right, Oh so sweet, and all their friends, you know,
Speaker 1: in a very clear eyed way, trying to help both
Speaker 1: of them, you know, not taking sides, but understanding that
Speaker 1: this is this happens sometimes, and this is crappy. So
Speaker 1: I appreciated that. I think this would have been harder
Speaker 1: the way they work their way to a reconciliation would
Speaker 1: have been harder if it was more than a kiss. Right,
Speaker 1: It seems like appropriate amount of soul searching and anger
Speaker 1: and guilt for what actually happened.
Speaker 2: Right, And I also appreciated that when Derek did go
Speaker 2: to confront Mac, it was all very like reasonable, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, because your conditioned right on a sitcom to
Speaker 2: be like him saying I should go talk to him,
Speaker 2: and everyone being like, oh, that's a bad idea. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then he does it anyway. You know, we could
Speaker 2: also refer back to lost. You know, you're going down
Speaker 2: the hatch. No, don't do that, Okay, bye, Yeah, And
Speaker 2: then it turned out to be like a much more
Speaker 2: sort of nuanced conversation that they had.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this whole thing was pretty nuanced the way they
Speaker 1: handled everything. Gabby giving him some advice like this stuff
Speaker 1: doesn't come out of nowhere, and so he has to
Speaker 1: kind of realize that he was maybe not paying attention
Speaker 1: when he should have been. Right and very sweet. That
Speaker 1: is his sort of coming home gift to her is
Speaker 1: that he brings all their sons in right, and none
Speaker 1: of the Connor's older brothers do not believe him about them.
Speaker 1: Pull you made up somebody named summer, and his parents
Speaker 1: could jump in and say no, no, it's true, but
Speaker 1: they don't.
Speaker 2: No, they don't.
Speaker 1: Situation going that seemed very real, yes, but the bigger
Speaker 1: sadness in this land there was also a thing of
Speaker 1: Paul Parkinson's getting worse and now he can't drink anymore,
Speaker 1: and so he has a last drink with Jimmy. But
Speaker 1: from the very beginning, we go from Jimmy seeing Alison
Speaker 1: Brian in the restaurant with Lewis. We flashed back three years.
Speaker 1: It's been three years? Did we know it had been
Speaker 1: three years? And we see Louis so happy with this
Speaker 1: cute girlfriend who we saw in the picture, and you
Speaker 1: just know you're watching this, and you're watching Jimmy and
Speaker 1: Tea being cute together, and you know what's coming, right,
Speaker 1: and it's so awful. And it's not that Louis was
Speaker 1: an alcoholic who irresponsibly was driving. It's just that thing
Speaker 1: where you think I'm okay for life. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think, if we're honest with ourselves, most adults have
Speaker 1: had that and have just been blessed that. Yeah, nothing happened.
Speaker 1: I mean I can think of a couple of times
Speaker 1: where I was way drunker than Louis was in this
Speaker 1: and just somehow the angels escorted me. All.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 1: And that just makes it more tragic because you want
Speaker 1: to hate him, but he's just a guy who had
Speaker 1: dinner with some friends and.
Speaker 2: Just made a mistake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and his whole life fell apart, and he shuts
Speaker 1: out his girlfriend because he can't see her without thinking
Speaker 1: about what he did, and just sinks into depression. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I guess went to jail for some period of time.
Speaker 1: I think she said, like ten months. Yeah, and just
Speaker 1: and then you see Jimmy as we knew somewhat of
Speaker 1: how he fell apart, and but worse now because we
Speaker 1: see it actually when it was at its worst, and
Speaker 1: he just was neglecting Alice like crazy, and how Alice
Speaker 1: just kind of went over to Liz's because she needed
Speaker 1: to be taken care of and there was nobody to
Speaker 1: take care of her. And she even says to him,
Speaker 1: I need you, and he's like I can't.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, man.
Speaker 1: Bad parenting, ye speak of parenting, Yes, parenting, don't do that.
Speaker 1: You don't get to do that. And so now whenever
Speaker 1: Jimmy sees Lewis, that's what he thinks of he remembers
Speaker 1: what a terrible father he was, and so he does
Speaker 1: go to Lewis's and forgive him, but also says, just
Speaker 1: be completely out of my life please.
Speaker 2: So Yeah, I mean I didn't buy that forgiveness at all.
Speaker 2: I mean I think he was just saying the words
Speaker 2: that right everyone wanted him to say, but he didn't
Speaker 2: believe it. Whatsot of it?
Speaker 1: Well, he for sure hasn't forgiven himself. Yeah, so, And
Speaker 1: so again Lewis Is like lost the support he was
Speaker 1: starting to get right from Alice and Brian. And what
Speaker 1: a Brett Goldstein's performance in that, just all the way
Speaker 1: through this person who was trying to deal with this
Speaker 1: tragedy somewhat of his own making but not entirely and
Speaker 1: just man, good job breaking my heart right? And will
Speaker 1: we at some point please get a payoff for the
Speaker 1: miscongeniality thing. Somewhere There's got to be a payoff. The
Speaker 1: season needs to end with them sitting on a couch
Speaker 1: watching Miss Congeniality and explanation for why right, because I
Speaker 1: don't care what his reason is for having it. The
Speaker 1: production had to have a reason for having it. Somebody
Speaker 1: had to have an idea of this is a guy
Speaker 1: who has a giant framed poster from right in his apartment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or no apparent reason. Oh, I hope we see that
Speaker 1: girlfriend again too.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But also you know what a kick in the guts
Speaker 1: for her too, that just shutting down.
Speaker 2: Especially because she did try to stop him, you know,
Speaker 2: she said let's take a lift.
Speaker 1: Yes. So oh man, Just people with nice lives just
Speaker 1: falling apart in that way is heartbreaking to watch, and
Speaker 1: they're still not really back that one. Jimmy asks Paul
Speaker 1: if do you think I'll ever be able to forgive myself?
Speaker 1: And he says it's it's exhausting, like hating himself as much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just being such a such a loser or feeling
Speaker 1: like such a loser.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Man, happy fun show, Love me a good sitcom, Bill Lawrence,
Speaker 1: I'm shaking my fist at you.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: Who had on their list of season two shrinking. I
Speaker 1: would like to see Derek be sad. What does Agla
Speaker 1: guy look like? When he's said, nobody had that on
Speaker 1: their Bengo card, stop it, stop it. Nobody wanted to
Speaker 1: see that. Although he did a tremendous job of just
Speaker 1: still being that guy but dealing with something bigger than Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wish he would ever have to deal with, right,
Speaker 1: So ye, come on, give us a break. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: in the flashbacks, we got to see a lot of
Speaker 1: things that had been alluded to in earlier episodes, you know,
Speaker 1: the She's such a mom, Yeah, and the aftermath of
Speaker 1: math of Brian and Charlie's first date where neither of
Speaker 1: them wanted to continue dating the other, right, but that
Speaker 1: was a sad time to go back to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I guess I guess necessary.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah? Yeah, but they couldn't have had like one
Speaker 1: did they have like one plot thread? This that was
Speaker 1: funny in this one? Isn't that what you're supposed to do?
Speaker 2: You can forgive us something funny.
Speaker 1: Even the music. I've been listening to the music from
Speaker 1: Shrinking quite a lot. They have a soundtrack, a playlist
Speaker 1: on Apple Music now in the second season as well.
Speaker 1: I've listened the heck out of the first season. And boy,
Speaker 1: that song that they played when the restaurant, when Lewis
Speaker 1: and his girlfriend were at the restaurant and they were leaving,
Speaker 1: and you know what's going to happen next, And there's
Speaker 1: the saddest song, so melancholy, and there was like a
Speaker 1: chorus kept saying like for a minute, you were my
Speaker 1: whole girl.
Speaker 2: Okay, we get.
Speaker 1: It, we know what's gonna happen. Leave our arts in
Speaker 1: our chests please. So I'm gonna have to see if
Speaker 1: that's on the playlist now, And every time I listen
Speaker 1: to it, I'm gonna think of that scene and go, no,
Speaker 1: getta left, Lewis gotta left. Walk home if it's close.
Speaker 2: They said it was a mile, like just walk home, Yeah,
Speaker 2: walk home.
Speaker 1: Well it's in La so maybe not, but no, maybe
Speaker 1: in Pasadena they walk. I don't know. Most time I
Speaker 1: spent in Pasadena was at a there was a class
Speaker 1: for racewalking, and I don't know if it was at
Speaker 1: the Rose Bowl or it was at some big arena
Speaker 1: there in Pasadena. And it was like the first time
Speaker 1: I had really been spending any time in Pasadena. I
Speaker 1: learned how to race walk, right, so they could have
Speaker 1: race walked to see it time and all of everything
Speaker 1: about this show would never have been.
Speaker 2: That's why it didn't happen that way.
Speaker 1: They gotta they gotta take it through the team. I guess,
Speaker 1: parenting wise, Alice's face when Brian said he and Charlie
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a baby, was.
Speaker 2: Like, really you too?
Speaker 1: Her eyes got very wide.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying, the girl knows things, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Yes. And also at one point Jimmy said, everybody hopes
Speaker 1: that they're the kind of person who comes through if
Speaker 1: the bleep ever hits the fan, and I wasn't. And
Speaker 1: as a parent, that's I felt that, like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: can handle anything. I know, you know, whatever happens, I'll
Speaker 1: be okay, I'll handle it. And then something happens and
Speaker 1: you go, gosh.
Speaker 2: Handle that.
Speaker 1: Why did that have to happen? Yeah, I've had a
Speaker 1: few of those, so I feel you, Jimmy, But I
Speaker 1: did not actually have hookers at home, so.
Speaker 2: Offering to cook your child a meal.
Speaker 1: They're so sweet, those hookers, they're really nice. They're nice ladies.
Speaker 1: It's fine, they're good friends, that's all. But uh, I
Speaker 1: hope next episode is happy. What does the next episode?
Speaker 1: What is the title of the next episode? And uh
Speaker 1: does it sound like it could be a happy episode?
Speaker 1: We need to be done with the Sads for at
Speaker 1: least a little while.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know, we'll see it sounds a little funny.
Speaker 2: It's the ninth episode is called full Grown Dude Face,
Speaker 2: So I don't know if that has to do with
Speaker 2: the children of Liz. I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Will so many to find out? There are many full
Speaker 1: grown due.
Speaker 2: Next Thursday, following our little holiday week switcheroo.
Speaker 1: Next week as well, we have like a week to
Speaker 1: sort of wallow in the sadness here. Yeah, thank you
Speaker 1: for listening. You can find all our episodes on Spreaker,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find recaps, links and an opportunity to comment
Speaker 1: on our website at parentingroundabout dot com.
Speaker 2: You can also talk to us on our Facebook page,
Speaker 2: on Instagram or on Twitter, where you'll find us at
Speaker 2: roundabout Chat. And please visit our Amazon shop at Amazon
Speaker 2: dot com, slash shop slash mamitude. But you can find
Speaker 2: links to a lot of the things we've talked about
Speaker 2: over the years.