Shrinking · Season 2 · Episode 12 · 24 December 2024
S2E12 The Last Thanksgiving
THE MOMENT The table scene where the found-family dynamic crystallises into something the characters can finally name.
The season finale uses a shared holiday meal to resolve the season's emotional threads without tidying them away. The ensemble work at the table carries the accumulated weight of twelve episodes and pays it off with genuine warmth and credible stakes.
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Shrinking Season 2 Episode 12 'The Last Thanksgiving' aired December 24, 2024 on Apple TV+ as the finale of the 12-episode second season. Rotten Tomatoes holds Season 2 at 97 percent from 82 critics; IMDb audience scored the show 8.4. RogerEbert.com wrote that 'the humor is sharper this year; the emotion lands harder.' Michael Urie won the Critics' Choice Award for Supporting Actor 2025. The finale uses a shared Thanksgiving meal to draw twelve episodes of emotional development into a single sustained sequence. The ensemble's accumulated dynamic - found family built around grief and impulsive honesty - is not resolved but named: the characters can articulate what they have become to each other in a way the season's opener made impossible. The table scene is where the series' central argument earns its full expression.