Shrink tries to get to the heart of the matter, and they think it’s about forgiveness.

The Apple TV+ show, co-created by Bill Lawrence (scrubbing), Brett Goldstein (Ted Lasso), and Jason Segel (Sarah Marshall forgotten), returns October 16 with a lot of unfinished business to wrap up. In Season 1, therapist Jimmy (Segel) wreaked havoc in his life by choosing to speak to his clients with blunt honesty, setting off a series of unexpected events. Drowning in grief over the death of his wife, Jimmy struggled to cope with his teenage daughter, Alice (Lukita Maxwell); an aging mentor, Paul (Harrison Ford); a recently divorced co-worker, Gaby (Jessica Williams); neighbor Liz (Christa Miller); and many of his patients, who took his candor a little too much to heart. After clawing his way back from rock bottom, Jimmy must now face the consequences of his actions.

“When I was pitching the show, we said the first year would be about grief and the second year would be about forgiveness,” Lawrence says. Entertainment week. “Because if you don’t deal with the past, if you keep trying to bury it, it will come back to haunt you. And there are unresolved issues hanging around everywhere.”

“Forgiveness is perhaps one of the hardest things to do and one of the most helpful things you can do for your own health,” Goldstein adds. “Your life will always be better if you can truly forgive. But there are things that some people find impossible to forgive.”

The most pressing issue is the fact that Grace (Heidi Gardner) pushed her abusive partner, Donny (Tilky Jones), off a cliff, acting on Jimmy’s suggestion that he refuse to accept Donny’s abuse, albeit in an extreme way. “We wanted to be honest about the fact that Jimmy took an unorthodox approach to therapy, and that there are consequences to that,” Segel says. “There are reasons why people don’t do this. So he’s going to have to reckon with the good and the bad of that approach and refine how he moves forward.”

Lawrence adds: “He’s certainly dealing with the consequences of his behavior as a doctor, but in ways that will surprise people (in terms of) where the biggest mistakes he made were.”

That takes the proverbial therapist’s couch out from under Jimmy, but that’s not his only problem. “He’s in a much better place in terms of the grieving process,” Segel notes. “And then, very quickly, he’s forced to take on a new challenge. Isn’t that life?”

Then there’s his daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell) and the fragile peace they’ve reached after their very different reactions to the loss of Tia (Lilan Bowden), Jimmy’s wife and Alice’s mother. “We made Alice into someone who’s a senior in high school for a reason,” Lawrence says. “To go through that kind of traumatic stuff and then have to think about what it means to not just move on, but to make it on your own, that’s a big step for a young person.”

“Alice has a very rich storyline where she has to carry the burden of the next phase of our process, which is dealing with Tia’s death,” Segel notes.

While Jimmy and Alice are certainly better off than they were at the beginning of Season 1, Alice will also continue to find advice and a father figure in Paul. “You’ll see them reach a certain stage,” Ford teases, while Goldstein adds, “I’m happy to say they don’t stop hanging out.”

But Paul has his own challenges — in Season 1, we learned he has Parkinson’s disease. Audiences can expect his condition to worsen in Season 2. “You’re going to see his disease become more and more difficult and complications arise,” Ford notes. “He’s going to meet those challenges with what we know he has in him, personality-wise. But it’s a very challenging and difficult disease and we’re not going to sugarcoat it.”

For Lawrence and Goldstein, Paul’s storyline is extremely personal. “Brett’s father has Parkinson’s, as does my grandfather and Michael J. Fox, who I worked with for many years,” Lawrence explains. “We wouldn’t introduce that if we weren’t going to make it part of the story.”

That will present challenges in every aspect of Paul’s life, from his newly rekindled relationship with his daughter, Meg (Lily Rabe), to his romance with his doctor, Julie (Wendie Malick), to his professional connections with his colleagues, Gaby and Jimmy. Jimmy takes on a surprising role when it comes to Paul’s treatment. “It’s a very paternal relationship,” Segel reflects. “Part of what we’re exploring is what all of us go through in life with parental relationships — this slow shift from the person who cared for you and guided you to having to be cared for. Jimmy having to stand on his own two feet and start caring for Paul is a huge part of his growth.”

That apparently also applies to taking Paul to doctor’s appointments, as appears to be the case in this exclusive image of Paul and Jimmy holding hands in what appears to be a doctor’s office. “In Season 1, Jimmy and Paul were more competitive, and in Season 2, they gradually become more together,” Goldstein explains.

Although they won’t say more off-screen, Segel will cherish this moment.
“Like a lot of people, I have a brain that wants to tell me that something must be wrong and that things aren’t the way they should be,” he says. “There’s no version of my life where I’m holding Harrison Ford’s hand and that voice wins. I sit there and think, ‘All is well with the world right now. I’m the luckiest man in the world. It’s all worked out.’”

While the progression of Paul’s illness will provide plenty of emotional moments in Season 2, there will still be a fair amount of silliness from the cast, and Ford in particular. Season 1 saw Ford, so often revered as an action hero on screen and a gruff grumbler off of it, let his goofy side out, whether it was singing Sugar Ray’s “Every Morning” or acting hilariously drunk. “There’s nothing he’s said no to,” marvels Goldstein. “In fact, there’s probably things we’ve said no to that he’s offered and we’ve said, ‘I think that’s going too far.’ He seems up for anything.”

“The coolest thing about Harrison Ford is that he’s just in it,” Lawrence adds. “We didn’t know what a comedic force we were getting, and we absolutely put him through the wringer this year.”

Ford wouldn’t reveal what those things might be, but he did note, “All the wonderful elements are still there. There will be singing.”

And he’s not the only one venturing into broader comedy. Last year, Segel got to bring some of his physical comedy to the series in an episode where Jimmy gets drunk and pukes on a piano. Segel loves the wildly swinging acting challenges Shrink presents. “Some days you come in and bare your soul about sadness, and other days you come in and puke on a piano,” he jokes. “I look for stage directions that can’t be anything and try to see if there’s room for a little comedy. It’s still in me from the old broad comedy days. There are two or three moments this season. It’s what I love most about the stew of this show, that it has everything.”

Beyond the pushes and pulls of his dynamic with Paul, Jimmy is still repairing his relationship with his best friend, Brian (Michael Urie), after all but abandoning him while he wallowed in his grief. Things seem to be looking up with Jimmy’s heartfelt speech at Brian’s wedding in the Season 1 finale, but that’s not all. “One of the things about adult friendships is they’re messy,” says Lawrence, while Segel adds, “Brian really is his best friend in the world. But it’s not just one conversation. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s the beginning of a journey. And there’s more for them to figure out.”

Jimmy would be in danger of losing another friend after sleeping with Gaby, making her realize she might be in love with him. “I don’t know if you’ve ever slept with a friend,” Goldstein jokes. “It’s a challenge.”

“I don’t know how many people would advise you to start a romantic relationship with your dead best friend’s husband,” Lawrence adds dryly.

Segel is more serious about the future of the BFFs’ relationship. “Jimmy is recovering from the fact that he lost the love of his life, made a lot of mistakes in the aftermath and is not really ready for a relationship,” he says. “Gaby is in a different place and that’s going to come to a head.”

While much of Season 2 will revolve around solving ongoing issues, there is also a new aspect in the form of a character played by Goldstein, whose identity and storyline remain completely secret.

“I can tell you it’s not a cameo and it’s going to really surprise people,” Lawrence hints. “It’s not something that people necessarily expect or even immediately recognize in him.”

And while Goldstein won over a football team full of fans by Ted Lasso’s Roy Kent, this will be a departure for him. “It’s incredibly different,” says Goldstein. “There’s almost no overlap, except for the eyebrows. He may look vaguely similar, but these are very, very, very different characters.”

Though he co-created the show, Goldstein didn’t write this mysterious character with himself in mind. Like the role of Roy Kent, it was something the creative team realized later in the casting process. “With Roy Kent, I had a strong feeling that I had to play him,” Goldstein says. “And with this one, Jason had a strong feeling that I had to play him. He was like, ‘Why isn’t Brett doing this? Brett is perfect for this.’ And we were like, ‘Oh.’ And I was like, ‘If Jason Segel tells you to do something, you have to do it.’”

While Goldstein’s character will certainly cause some disruption, one truth will hold true: all of these people will remain far too involved in each other’s lives. “The show definitely explores boundaries,” says Segel. “A lot of the show is about finding appropriate boundaries between all of these characters. One of the hallmarks of Bill Lawrence shows is that all of these characters’ lives slowly intertwine in a really beautiful way. It’s part of what makes Bill a genius, the way all of these storylines become one tapestry.”

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Season 2 may be about forgiveness, but there will also be an undercurrent of sadness and its impact on our lives. “I don’t think sadness ends,” Goldstein reflects. “Even when we say the theme of Season 1 was sadness, it’s not like, ‘That’s sadness over.’ It’s circular. It’s just that the circle gets bigger and the distance between the very sad parts gets longer, but there are always other layers and levels.”

“It’s a big step forward this season,” he concludes. “Bigger. Better. Funnier. Sadder. We’re trying something with this forgiveness experiment — it’s a big, solid thing going on.”

Then the only question that remains, I guess, is: how does that feel for you?