Warning: this article contains spoilers Shrinking Season 2, Episode 5, ‘Age of Honesty’.
Shrinking Season 2, Episode 5, “Honesty Era” ends with Sean (Luke Tennie) choosing to fight a group of construction workers, but his real problem isn’t with them. At the beginning of Shrinking Season 2, Sean was doing well. He was getting to live his dream by using his culinary talents and running a successful food truck business with Liz (Christa Miller). Sean also started seeing Paul (Harrison Ford) for therapy instead of Jimmy (Jason Segel), which was a much-needed change given how intertwined Sean and Jimmy’s lives had become.
Despite this positive trajectory, Sean began to regress when he started working with his father, Tim (Kenajuan Bentley). Sean is now more nervous due to the many complex and unresolved issues he has with his father and being around Tim all day. The anger issues Sean faced with Jimmy in Shrinking season 1 and with Paul in season 2 have now resurfaced and reached a boiling point at the end of the “Age of Honesty.”
Sean fought construction workers over his father in Shrinking Season 2
Trusting your father didn’t go well
Sean reveals to his father that when he asked for help earlier, he felt like Tim had let him down. Tim doesn’t take this well, as he starts yelling at Sean about all the ways he’s supported him, including emptying his savings account to work with his son at the food truck even though he has a full-time job. That confirms all of Sean’s worst fears about trusting his father and instead of taking his anger out on Tim, Sean takes it out on the construction workers who previously provoked him.
When confronted by antagonistic construction workers in a previous episode, Sean almost fought them and only resisted because Jimmy was there to calm him down. Without Jimmy there, Sean gives in to his worst impulses, following the construction workers later that night and throwing at their feet a bottle of beer that they threw earlier in Jimmy’s yard. Sean knows he has no chance of beating the construction workers in a fight, but he lures them in anyway to channel his unresolved anger at his father and to punish himself for the way he is feeling.
Why Sean’s Father Continues to Be a Problem in Season 2
He’s making Sean regress
Getting beaten up by construction workers doesn’t solve Sean’s problems with Tim. Sean tried to use the advice Jimmy and Paul gave him, but it backfired, with Tim twisting Sean’s words. Tim takes no responsibility and puts all the blame on Sean and their therapists. This toxicity causes Sean to regress significantly and follow a dark path in Shrinking season 2. The situation won’t change unless Tim starts taking responsibility for the way he made Sean feel.
Sean won’t be able to get on the right path again until he and his father can resolve their issues, which will require Tim to face difficult truths while Shrinking continues.
It’s a complex situation, as Sean genuinely loves Timeven mentioning to Jimmy in a previous episode that his father is a good man who sacrificed a lot for him. However, this does not negate the way Tim emotionally neglected his son’s needs, regardless of his intentions. Sean won’t be able to get on the right path again until he and his father can resolve their issues, which will require Tim to face difficult truths while Shrinking continues.