‘Shrinking’: Luke Tennie on what healing looks like for Sean

Welcome to Screen Gab, the newsletter for everyone who could use a little mental health break.

And we mean that, whether it’s in the form of an actual holiday respite or simply anticipation of the season finale of “Shrinking,” which premieres Christmas Day. Star Luke Tennie drops in for this week’s Guest Spot to discuss his character’s arc and much more. Plus, find streaming recommendations for your weekend and a list of what Angelenos were watching in 2024.

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Turn on

Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times

Rose Matafeo in her stand-up special “On and On and On.”

(Miya Mizuno / Max)

“Rose Matafeo: On and On and On” (Max)

If you’re missing your annual dose of Rose Matafeo’s perfectly judged romantic comedy, “Starstruck,” let me recommend her new stand-up special as a form of replacement therapy. As with her Max series, which veers knowingly between longing for togetherness and repulsion at it, “On and On and On” analyzes the Kiwi comedian’s relationship (and other) travails with almost forensic precision; it is, after all, based on a 16,000-word “unhinged manifesto” written in the Notes app on her phone. In the absence of sexual fireworks with Nikesh Patel, the primary draw here is Matafeo’s canny sense of the way technology shapes human behavior, from what we Google in incognito mode to the performance of Instagram-friendly whimsy to the pitfalls of online relationship coaching. To hear her uproarious, provocative takes on Taylor Swift and Michael Jackson, though, you’ll have to see her live. — Matt Brennan

“Wonder Pets: In The City” on Apple TV+ still strives to make children feel good about themselves.

(Apple TV+)

“Wonder Pets: In the City” (Apple TV+)

Reviving the delightful “Wonder Pets!” (2006-2016), a through-sung semi-operatic photo-and-art-animated series in which a trio of small animals travel the world saving baby animals in distress. Changes have been made — the original guinea pig, duckling and turtle have been replaced by a snake, a bunny and a different guinea pig, and the preschool from which they operate, once the children have gone home, is now located in a little house between two brownstones in New York City. The “Phone Song” (“Answer the phone! The phone is ringing!”) has gone. But much else is the same. The lessons that are dispensed, learned twice each episode, first by the Wonder Pets and then by their juvenile clients — a porcupine whose quills have stuck it between two trees, a mountain lion stuck on a cliffside, a woodpecker with its beak stuck on a tree (there’s a lot of stuckiness) — fall under the specific category of problem-solving and the more general category of making children feel good about themselves. And teamwork still makes the dream work. — Robert Lloyd

Guest spot

A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching

Luke Tennie in “Shrinking.”

(Apple TV+)

When your popular streaming series is concluding its second season just as your new film is launching itself into the Oscar race, the to-do list can get … daunting. Luckily for Luke Tennie, that series is the therapy dramedy “Shrinking” (Apple TV+) so he’s more aware than ever of the “tools” available to those struggling to break bad habits. (Or more serious struggles, as in the case of his character here, Sean, and in “Nickel Boys,” about an abusive Florida reform school.) Tennie stopped by recently to discuss what healing looks like for Sean, what he’s watching and more. — Matt Brennan

READ MORE: Jessica Williams is ready for the unexpected, even on the 405 Freeway

What have you watched recently that you’re recommending to everyone you know?

“Gladiator II,” “Monkey Man” [Prime Video] and “Severance” [Apple TV+]. Narrowing it down to just three hurt, but I’ve enjoyed each of those tremendously.

What’s your go-to “comfort watch,” the film or TV show you return to again and again?

For film, it’s “Chef” [multiple platforms]. For TV, it’s “Abbott Elementary” [ABC, Hulu].

Season 2 delves deeper into Sean’s PTSD, in particular with a much talked-about sequence in which he seems to solicit a brutal beating after a fight with his father. Obviously, therapy is an ongoing process, but what would a “healed” Sean look like to you?

A “healed” Sean is a Sean no longer looking for a fight, a Sean who stops running from his family and friends in fear of hurting them because he has the tools to manage his anger, and a Sean who moves out of his therapist’s house. We all know he is not supposed to be there, but if and hopefully when he does leave, that’ll be a huge sign of his growth.

What’s a bad habit or frustration in your own life that you think Jimmy and Paul would be useful to help you work through, and how do you think they would advise you?

Sometimes I get a “freeze.” When there’s too much to do, I can find myself sitting in silence for a while instead of starting one of the things on my to-do list. They’d probably give me “tools” — a practical thing that I can say or do to move me through the issue and reestablish control of my actions. It’s a guess, but I’ve seen them do it with Sean, so it feels like a good guess!

Break down

Times staffers chew on the pop culture of the moment — love it, hate it or somewhere in between

Teo Yoo and Greta Lee in “Past Lives.”

(A24)

If you’re lucky, the end of the year brings time to binge on titles you may have missed — including titles you may have missed last year. Streaming service Kanopy‘s analysis of the most-watched titles by L.A. Public Library users, provided exclusively to Screen Gab, contains a bunch of worthy ideas, especially if you want to make sure you have the last set of Oscar contenders squared away before you move onto the next one. Below, find the ranked list of 2024’s most popular titles, with our past digital coverage of each film. —Matt Brennan

1. ‘Past Lives’ (2023): “This is at once the loftiest and the most grounded love story I’ve seen in some time, a movie that feels lingering and contemplative in the moment but is over as quickly (too quickly) as a drink with a long-absent friend.” — Justin Chang

2. ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ (2023): “Less a whodunit than a who-spun-it, ‘Anatomy of a Fall,’ which won the Palme d’Or at [the] Cannes Film Festival, spends two-and-a-half hours demolishing the very idea of empirical, observable truth.” — Chang

3. ‘Dial M for Murder’ (1954): “If we believe Alfred Hitchcock, his “Dial M for Murder” is a production-line film he could have “phoned in.” To meet a studio commitment, he took only 36 days to shoot it, all but a half-dozen shots on the same set. “There isn’t very much we can say about that one, is there?” he told interviewer and fellow director François Truffaut. “I just did my job, using cinematic means to narrate a story taken from a stage play.” Right. And wine is just spoiled grape juice. —Steve Emmons

4. ‘Possession’ (1981): If you are a bit of a jealous person like I am, then get ready for your worst nightmare. “The Exorcist” meets “High Fidelity,” “Possession” portrays a husband’s (Sam Neill) descent into madness as he tries to find out why his wife (Isabelle Adjani) suddenly left him. It quickly becomes clear that she’s having a feverish sexual affair with someone … or more precisely: something. Adjani gives one of the most powerful female performances I have ever seen on screen, and has deeply influenced my own horror work forever. —Fede Álvarez

5. ‘Jules’ (2023): Marc Turtletaub’s film follows Milton (Ben Kingsley), the sort of small-town figure who attends city council meetings to kill time, after a UFO and accompanying alien — the titular alien, as it were — crash land in his backyard. With Jane Curtin and Harriet Sansom Harris as the nosy neighbors who bond with Milton (and Jules) while the government closes in. — Matt Brennan

6. ‘Talk to Me’ (2023): “If Regan MacNeil were to go skittering backward down the stairs today, would her onlookers scream in terror or whip out their phones — or both? The question comes to mind more than once during “Talk to Me,” a viscerally effective supernatural freakout in which demonic possession isn’t just an abomination but an addiction, a recreational pastime and sometimes even a viral event.” — Chang

7. ‘She Came to Me’ (2023): It had been six years since writer-director Rebecca Miller’s last feature, an HBO documentary about her famous father, the late playwright Arthur Miller. And another two since her previous fiction film, 2015’s “Maggie’s Plan,” starring a pre-”Lady Bird” Greta Gerwig. So when Miller’s latest, the wistful, delightfully unstable romantic comedy “She Came to Me,” premiered at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival, some in the press described it as her comeback. But that’s not how she perceives things. — Tim Grierson

8. ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ (2002): “‘Love is strange,’ the old rock lyric insists, and it’s never been stranger, more unsettling and more exuberantly unexpected than in the daring high-wire act Paul Thomas Anderson shrewdly calls “Punch-Drunk Love.” — Kenneth Turan

9. ‘Perfect Days’ (2023): “In the pantheon of films about people and their jobs, “Perfect Days” suggests a riff on the iconic “Superman” tagline: You’ll believe a man can enjoy cleaning public toilets.” —Robert Abele

10. ‘Blackberry’ (2023): “It’s a strange sensation, watching “BlackBerry,” to find yourself rooting for morally compromised screamer Jim (Glenn Howerton is simply dazzling in the role) and the iron-fist enforcer he hires as chief operating officer, Charles Purdy (Michael Ironside). … Howerton is also far and away the most charismatic performer onscreen, and you’re unable to rip your eyes away from him.” — Katie Walsh