Shrinking's Side Character Who Actually Stole the Show From Main Cast
Yes, he's a comic relief – and it's actually the best part about him. Remember those one-liners?
Apple TV+ 's Shrinking season 1 ended less than a week ago, so it's time for fans to finally decide who their favorite character is.
The show actually introduced us to very deep and complicated ones: each of them seems to be a whole person on their own, and yet they need each other more than they think in order to function and live better.
So on the surface we have Jimmy, the grieving therapist, and his colleagues Gaby and Pole. There is also Alice, Jimmy's daughter.
And Sean, one of Jimmy's patients with whom he lost his boundaries a long time ago. There is also Liz, an overly-caring neighbor who played a major role in Alice's upbringing after her mother died.
But there's a chance that all the good she did for the girl also made Liz feel good about herself. No wonder she was always accused of being a little too much on the show.
But there's one more character who actually turned out to be the "secret star" of the show, and that's Liz's husband Derek, played by Ted McGinley.
Honestly, at first he seemed a little annoying and whiny. He even made the fans believe that he was this ignorant, uncaring and absolutely boring suburban working man with no interest in his family or anyone else's life.
And then there's the magic of Ted's character. He will walk into any scene in the episode with a short comment and he will immediately steal the show whatever he says. And fans are loving it.
"Derek steals every scene he's in, I love his comments about being done raising kids and walking the dog he didn't want.
It's also so refreshing to see a long time married couple being depicted as neither too perfect (acting like they're honeymooners) or too toxic (at each other's throats, bitter, resentful).
They clearly are still a committed unit but very real about the stresses of marriage over time and Derek really sells it," Reddit user Constant-Basket-9491 said.
Basically, Derek is a joke on the show, but the brilliant thing is that he knows that. So he just does his part of the job, including being a polite, easy-going, totally calm husband.
And his personality just does the trick effortlessly.