Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Shrink Next Door’ On Apple TV+, Where Paul Rudd And Will Ferrell Play A Manipulative Therapist And His Too-Trusting Patient

Joe Nocera’s podcast The Shrink Next Door tells the fascinating story of Marty Markowitz, who was manipulated by his psychiatrist, Dr. Ike Herschkopf, over nearly 3 decades. It was to the point where Markowitz was being treated by Dr. Ike as a servant in his own Hamptons home. In the fictionalized (though not by much) series version of the podcast, Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd have the main roles. Will they make the story as fascinating as the real thing?

THE SHRINK NEXT DOOR: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A man in a beekeeper suit trudges to the hives he keeps in the backyard of beautiful home, right by the pool. He picks up one of the hives and examines it.

The Gist: We flash to 2010. Dr. Isaac “Ike” Herschkopf (Paul Rudd) is hosting a party at that same house, schmoozing as he is wont to do. He sees Lisa Rinna and asks a random curly-haired guy with a beard to take their picture. He then tells that guy to collect the towels as he shows Rinna the collection of painted cow sculptures he bought. Later that night, the same curly-haired guy trashes the backyard, including smashing the glass basketball hoop, and starts to dig a hole.

We go back to 1982, in New York’s Garment District. Marty Markowitz (Will Ferrell) has just taken over his family’s stage curtain-making business from his late father, and he’s nervous. For one, he’s trying to avoid his ex-girlfriend Deborah (Lindsey Kraft), with whom he just broke up after promising a trip to Mexico. But he also has to deal with the fact that he’s not sure he can run his father’s business; his uncle is suing him for that very reason.

In both cases, his sister, Phyllis Shapiro (Kathryn Hahn) comes to his aid; even with her daughter’s scout troop in tow, she has the wherewithal to help calm Marty’s panic attack, which is so stifling that he hides behind a curtain rather than deal with a cranky longtime customer, and also tells Deborah to just fuck right off.

After the panic attack, Phyllis suggests that Marty go see Dr. Herschkopf, of whom she’s heard good things. Marty sits down across from the young shrink but feels he has absolutely nothing to say. So Dr. Herschkopf thinks of something unorthodox: They go for a walk. On the walk, they see a pickup basketball game, and the doc ropes Marty into it; when he asks Marty to pass him the ball, Marty obliges, even though they’re on different teams. That’s a sign of Marty’s lack of confidence in himself.

He then tells Marty to call Deborah to tell her that he won’t be giving her that Mexico trip, but midway through the call, he has another panic attack. At a frame store where the doc is having a pic of himself and Jackie Stallone framed, Marty insists on paying the doc’s fee in cash so the doc has money to take the photos home. Then he insists on paying for the extra hour they’ve bled into. With the extra time, the two then go to Deborah’s apartment, where Dr. Herschkopf acts as Marty’s lawyer and threatens Deborah with legal action.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Although The Shrink Next Door is based on a true story and the podcast that explained that story, we were getting definite Analyze This/Analyze That vibes from the first episode. We’ll explain why below.

Our Take: As we said, The Shrink Next Door is based on a Wondery/Bloomberg podcast of the same name, where reporter Joe Nocera details the real story of how Herschkopf took over Markowitz’s life during their 30-year working relationship, including convincing Markowitz to let the doctor take over his Long Island mansion.

Georgia Pritchett (Succession, Veep) is the showrunner (Michael Showalter, who directed the first episode, is also an executive producer; Jesse Peretz directs the episodes Showalter doesn’t), and she presents the story in a way that makes you think that this is going to be some twisted buddy series about two mismatched guys in New York. And despite the presence of comedy stalwarts like Rudd, Ferrell, Hahn and Casey Wilson (who plays Dr. Herschkopf’s wife Bonnie), the show straddles the line between light drama and dark comedy for most of the first two episodes.

The way it plays out at first, you’re hard-pressed to see Ferrell and Rudd as two New Yawk-accented Jewish guys in the ’80s. Rudd (the only person in the main cast that is Jewish) at times sounds like he’s doing his best Billy Crystal impression as Herschkopf, hence the Analyze This/That reference we made earlier. And we didn’t quite buy Ferrell as the meek and nebbishy Marty, given the fact that he towers over everyone else, puts on an accent that’s even more distracting and has grown out his hair to the point where he looks like he’s doing a biography of Jeff Lynne than a role about a guy who is so susceptible to someone like Herschkopf that he gives his life over to the unscrupulous shrink.

But when you realize the story actually happened, then it becomes fascinating. Our interest really kicked in during the second episode, where not only does Herschkopf encourage Marty to assert himself more with his employees (including Phyllis) and then persuades him to have a second bar mitzvah for his 40th birthday. He tells Marty it’s to make up for the bad experience he had, when he sat in the bathroom with stomach problems and Phyllis, protective even then, had to help him get out to his reception. But then we find out how poorly the doc’s childhood went, and the scene where he belts out haftorah verses as if he’s the center of attention was telling.

As that strange dynamic between doctor and patient continues and mutates into the toxic mix it will become, the show should become more interesting. And it’ll certainly keep us from being distracted from Rudd and Ferrell’s not-so-great stabs at playing New York Jews.

Sex and Skin: Nothing through the first two episodes, though Bonnie tries to get something going with the doc in Episode 2.

Parting Shot: After being charged up about their confrontation with Deborah, Dr. Herschkopf looks in the window of an art gallery and he tells Marty he’ll buy the painted cow statues in that window one day. Back in the dark of 2010, we see that the man trashing the backyard and digging the hole is a greying Marty. What does he put in the hole? One of the cow statues.

Sleeper Star: If Kathryn Hahn isn’t one of the main stars of a show, she’ll always be in the Sleeper category. We loved the scene where Phyllis verbally reams Deborah for harassing Marty about the Mexico thing. “What are you, his guard dog?” Deborah asks. “Worse, I’m his sister,” Phyllis replies. “A guard dog will just bite you, but a sister will rip out your goddamn trachea and play it like a fucking flute.”

Most Pilot-y Line: What else did Dr. Herschkopf get framed? “A letter from The New York Times where I talk about the death penalty.” “Trenchant,” replies Marty. Oy vey is mir.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite the stars’ distracting accents, The Shrink Next Door is setting up to be a fascinating story of a domineering psychiatrist and the patient that gives everything to him in an effort to just feel normal.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream The Shrink Next Door On Apple TV+