WWith so many shows on so many streaming platforms, anything could be canceled after one season. To avoid that, you have to have a great idea, know exactly why it’s good, and communicate that to viewers from the start, right? Not always: When Shrinking debuted on Apple TV+ last year, it did none of the above and seemed ripe for axing. Yet it is still here, and it is very welcome back.

The first season had a lot of work to do to get past the show’s terrible premise. Jimmy (Jason Segel) is a Los Angeles therapist blinded by the death of his wife, a catastrophe that causes him to lose patience with his patients. Shrinks are supposed to sit impassively, dishing out dry observations and asking probing questions before announcing that the hour is up, at which point you assume they’ll forget you exist until the same time next week. Instead, Jimmy intervenes in the lives of his clients, speaking candidly and offering out-of-the-box advice. Season one began with Jimmy letting Sean (Luke Tennie), a veteran with PTSD, move in with him; season two opens with a visit to Grace (Heidi Gardner) in prison because she took his suggestion to literally push her abusive husband off a cliff.

Jimmy, played by Segel, is a galloping man-child whose co-workers, neighbors and teenage daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell) forgive his constant blunders because he means well, is outspoken and needs their help while living with loss. As season one progressed, the show’s writers realized that this in itself would be a better show than the “therapist goes rogue” idea. Jimmy’s unreliable emotional intelligence makes him an acceptable lead in a witty drama about a group of friends dealing with the death of one of their own, but he has absolutely no credibility as a therapist, in crisis or not. It’s hard to imagine him ever passing the training, and every time his questionable methods have dire consequences, things go wrong.

Fortunately, this has happened less and less, as Shrinking has become something we all need in our roster of streaming shows: an ensemble piece filled with people who are just like us, but a little bit smarter, funnier, and more open-hearted. It’s essential to have an unimportant hangout show that you can call on when you can’t tolerate anything more taxing.

So we get to spend more quality time with Paul (Harrison Ford), Jimmy’s professional mentor whose grumpiness hides a soft heart, and Gaby (Jessica Williams), his recently divorced colleague. We see more of his older neighbors, Liz (Christa Miller) and Derek (Ted McGinley), as the showrunners have responded to positive fan comments and given them more to do. Liz is a terrifying but fragile talker held up by her laid-back joker of a husband, and their relationship is a thing of beauty.

The main new storylines are that Gaby, who was best friends with Jimmy’s late wife, is now sleeping with Jimmy and has realized that her initial assessment of him as ‘safe dick’ – a source of good, casual sex, unfettered by attachment – is in vain. wrong because she falls for him. Meanwhile, the drunk driver responsible for the death of Jimmy’s wife has emerged, wanting to talk to the family and atone. That man is played by Brett Goldstein, the show’s co-creator, aka Ted Lasso’s Roy Kent. The two series share the same trick of compensating for what should be fatal structural problems, with lovable characters and a jaw-dropping set of funny lines.

A few such zingers: Derek responds to Liz getting good news with, “She hasn’t been this excited since she got us separate blankets!”; Jimmy’s bubbly lawyer friend Brian (Michael Urie) goes too far when he tries to boost Grace’s self-esteem during a prison visit (“There she is! Beautiful! There’s something about your skin color and a bright fluorescent light that creates magic… orange is the new snack!”); and Liz deduces that Gaby is sneaking over to Jimmy’s for sex again, after promising not to, because “You said you’d stay home and air fry some tilapia”, an excuse that’s too specific to be true to be.

Gaby and Liz’s friendship, which bridges the generation gap through searing honesty and joyful togetherness – their conversation about the erotic power of pine scents will make you spit out your tea in shocked delight – is essentially shrinking. Here’s a gang of friends who feel comfortable speaking their minds, even if they tell each other they’re crazy, which usually means telling Jimmy. First his wife died and now he’s the least interesting character on his own show, but that’s okay: he has his friends to help him through it.