SPOILER ALERT: This post spoils plot details of Shrinking Season 3 Episode 4, “The Field.”
Though Harrison Ford’s Paul gets some clarity in the newest episode of Shrinking, Liz and Derek have a tougher time of it.
At the very end of the episode, Liz (Christa Miller) says some choice words about parenting and her son Matthew (Markus Silbiger), who is 25 and has lost his latest job, which led him to first move back in with his parents and then his brother Will (Matt Mitchell). Unfortunately, Matthew came over to Liz and Derek’s house to bring his dad a favorite snack at that exact moment. Derek ate 650 milligrams of Matthew’s weed gummies thinking they were candy.
“As a parent, I have three children. Liz has three children, and you never want to make a mistake. You’re gonna make mistakes. You don’t do perfect things, but that was really bad, and that was a really mean thing to say,” Miller told Deadline about calling Matthew an asshole and saying she is embarrassed by him. “It was horrible. I really felt it 1000% when we were shooting it, and also, he won’t let Liz repair it quickly, and I think that made her feel like she was gonna die. With my kids, if they’re being bratty or bugging me, I’ll be like, ‘You know what, you just cool out for a couple hours.’ I don’t think Liz has that at all with her children. I think she thought she would die, and it was not good for her.”
Before Derek’s unintentional high, when Matthew was still at Liz and Derek’s house, Liz asked Derek to be the one to tell him to move out after they consulted with Paul about what would be best for their son.
“It’s interesting, because at our house, I am the task master, and I grew up in New York City, had a lot of independence. I feel like you can’t control adult children like you want to, and they’ve got to make mistakes. I’m always here. [My kids] always come to me for advice, and I’m always here, and they take it, or they don’t,” Miller, who is married to Shrinking showrunner Bill Lawrence, said. “You can plant a seed, and I feel like they’re comfortable with me because they can tell me all the bratty things that they’re doing that they might not tell Bill. With Liz, she feels that she’s going to be a carnival barker and tell everything, and that they’re going to listen to her like they did when they were kids, and they’re not. We definitely differ in parenting styles in that way.”
Miller also serves as music supervisor on the comedy series, and she gave insight as to how the selection of Vampire Weekend’s “Capricorn” arrived for the moment Derek wanders around high. She and costar Ted McGinley both revealed that this specific plot point was inspired by a true story that happened to someone in the writer’s room.
“[Vampire Weekend] have that hectic vibe of a little anxiety. I thought it worked perfectly there, and I had thought of it when we were shooting because I knew, that scene — I’m not gonna say who it is, but it comes from a real story that happened to someone in our writers room,” she said.
Ted McGinley as Derek in Episode 4 of ‘Shrinking’ Season 3
Apple TV
Lastly, some viewers of the show also see Liz as a fashion icon, and Miller took that a step further in Season 3 by representing Los Angeles and Altadena in her character’s clothing after the wildfires swept through the city at the beginning of 2025.
“We’re really proud that we shoot in LA, and Pasadena and Altadena were really affected by the fires, and we were delayed in shooting there because of it. Our two houses that we use were affected by the fires, and are in Altadena,” she said. “Bill made the decision to wait, and so we didn’t shoot [those scenes] til like three quarters into the season, and we had to shoot days and nights. None of the actors complained.”
RELATED: ‘Shrinking’ Season 3 Production Gets Underway In Fire-Ravaged Altadena & Pasadena
In Episode 4, Liz wears a red sweatshirt with Altadena embroidered in white on the chest. In Episode 1, Alice (Lukita Maxwell) wears an LA Fire Department T-shirt, and Liz wears a pink shirt with ‘I Heart LA’ embroidered on it.
“Instead of catering, we had, we ordered from restaurants all in Pasadena and Altadena for the crew and everyone, and got food trucks in from there,” Miller added. “I wore a lot of clothes that were manufacturers that were made in LA on purpose.”
