The Shrink Next Door is a 2021 Drama series on Apple TV+ starring Paul Rudd, Will Ferrell, and Kathryn Hahn among others. It’s based on the Podcast of the same name by Joe Nocera. It tells the story of how Psychiatrist Isaac Herschkopf (Rudd) spends decades manipulating and taking advantage of his emotionally unstable patient Marty Markowitz (Ferrell).
This series provides examples of:
- Bittersweet Ending: Marty finally frees himself of Dr. Herschkopf’s control and is able to prove to the state licensing board that Dr. Herschkopf took advantage of him for person gain thus costing him his license. Marty also reconnects with his family, reasserts control of his family’s business, and gains a lot of self-esteem. But he lost 27 years with his sister and her kids, will not be able to recover the large amount of money Dr. Herschkopf swindled from him, and given his advanced age at this point Dr. Herschkopf will most likely just retire in relative comfort.
- How We Got Here: The first episode shows Marty destroying a lot of possessions outside a nice house.
- Manipulative Bastard: Dr. Herschkopf preys on emotionally unstable patients and takes over Marty’s life so he can spend his money and use all of his nice things whenever he wants.
- Noodle Incident: We never learn anything about all the poor business decisions Phyllis has allegedly made and why her parents wouldn’t let her control any of the trust.
- This Is Unforgivable!: As the years go by Marty begins to realize that Ike is taking advantage of him but he doesn’t know how to stand up to him. Despite alienating him from his family, taking a lot of his money, controlling his business, taking over his possessions, and not even bothering to come see him as he recovers from surgery, what really sets Marty off is that Ike didn’t give Marty’s beloved Koi Fish his medication, causing him to die.
- Time Skip: Happens several times throughout the series as we see how Ike becomes more and more dominant in Marty’s life.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We never find out what happens to Bonnie or Ike’s daughters.
