Where season one’s first episode ended with Jimmy chaotically jumping up and down revelling in success, season two’s premiere has a much more shocking, much more game-changing ending. An early flashback to the scene of Tia’s death sets the scene for a trip down memory lane, but the arrival of Brett Goldstein’s Mr Winston – the drunk driver who killed her – is quite the scene-setter for the season to come.
The contrast of two scenes between Jimmy and Alice is stark. Their conversation in his office, in which she begs him to be open with her and explains how happy she is to have her dad back – it risks going out of the window when he unconvincingly lies about his day after screaming at his wife’s killer.
It’s crushingly awkward when he goes with the “Speaking of cars” bit mere seconds after she tells him about her driving test success but across all three scenes, Jason Segel and Lukita Maxwell are electric. The balance of guilt and love painted across Segel’s face in the office pairs so well with Maxwell’s look of desperation. His panicked “Yeah, it was good, it was great” was entirely unconvincing and that was entirely the point. For how broken Segel made Jimmy look at the very beginning of the series – at his lowest so far as we’ve seen him – and in the flashback, his reaction is entirely as it should be.
It leads to a remarkably sweet moment – after Summer’s one and only good idea – as they both write letters to Winston. It speaks to the second episode’s wider theme and Paul’s ‘Reversal of Desire’ strategy: to visualise the worst possible outcome from a situation you fear, and embrace it. “Pain sets me free.”
Except, it doesn’t. The pain of thinking again about her mother’s death traps Alice in a state of not driving and, when she finally does take the keys, it’s to go and watch Winston. They might both be doing okay each day, but confronting a haunting past is very different to any other day. There’s clearly a lack of closure for each of them and the dynamic that Winston’s presence presents is fascinating. How do you deal with the re-emergence of a past this traumatic?
It's a thread that crops up with Sean, too. His work with Jimmy has him in a place where he can live a life each day, but having to confront his army past still terrifies him. So, he doesn’t actually meet with his old friend because he doesn’t want to relive Afghanistan, and he panics about what to do with Liz and the food truck when a food blogger wants an interview.
Seeing Sean tackle a different approach to therapy – after Jimmy lets Paul take him on as a patient – is great, and so is seeing Paul in action. Harrison Ford’s blend of care and cynicism is such a joy, and the sense of calm and smarts that Paul brings to his therapy is in itself therapeutic. Sean’s application of Paul’s suggestion works wonders, both for him and the episode, with his imagination’s impression of a Liz outburst incredibly accurate.
But Paul is becoming more flexible. He may not be a fan of Jimmying, but just as his understudy can learn plenty, so too can the mentor. Ditching patient Raymond (Neil Flynn) for Sean leaves Paul with the same number of patients but one fewer friend. And so, despite telling Jimmy that he’s always right and Jimmy is not, Paul goes to meet Raymond for a drink. The Ford-Flynn dynamic has so much potential but from a character perspective, Paul branching out from just having his patients is heart-warming. So too is his love for Julie (Wendie Malick), a “Shit, I was afraid you were gonna say that” moment but wholesome nonetheless. For how awful Paul’s condition is, and for how alone he was when we first met him, he absolutely deserves the happiness.
So too does Gaby. It’s a rough couple of episodes for her, having to deal with the problems between her mom and her sister, alongside the stress of her house move and her unhealthy fling with Jimmy. Their fight at the end of episode two is brutal and entirely deserved on Jimmy’s part. Paul tells him in the premiere that it isn’t Sean’s job to fix him, and the same can be said for Gaby. They both have trauma from the same source and their situation is to no one’s benefit. Jessica Williams is fantastic in that final scene balancing the anger and the distress, and takes all the sympathy.
But as we open the season with Jimmy’s nightmare about being pushed off a cliff (by Paul, here, just as patient Grace pushed husband Donny, though he survived) and end episode two outside Winston’s house, it’s a reminder of how much the past ties us – and these characters – down. A fascinating, brilliant start to the new season of this wonderful show.
