A middle-aged therapist, Jimmy is emerging from a period of extended mourning for his wife, who passed away a year ago in a car accident. Jaded and unstable, he decides to simply tell his clients directly what would be most helpful to them instead of helping them arrive at it themselves, sparking the conflicts of the series. However, shrinking turns out to be a little more complicated than this straightforward approach suggests...
Tropes:
- The Atoner: He strives to make up for being an absentee parent, though occasionally lapses into his bad behavior.
- Byronic Hero: While good-natured and compassionate - he's a therapist after all - Jimmy seems to struggle with substance abuse, relationships, and parenting. At series' start, he's been failing to parent his daughter for a full year (their neighbors Liz and Derek essentially taking over for him) and been filling his spare time with substance abuse and prostitutes. During an argument, Alice mentions having had to clean lines of his cocaine out of the framed picture of her grandma.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Beginning in the pilot episode, Jimmy starts being brutally frank with his patients and inserting himself in their lives, in a way that can cross into "Jerkass" territory (such as barging in on a date or yelling at his clients). While this has wildly messy results, he does often make valid observations about his patients' situations, such as Grace's toxic relationship with Donny who is never going to change, regardless of what he might say, or Sean's PTSD and aggression and finding ways to cope with it.
- Nice Guy: As befits a character played by Jason Segel, Jimmy has his flaws but is fundamentally a decent, caring and kind-hearted person.
- Papa Wolf: While he struggles to be there for Alice, it becomes clear that he's very protective of her (such as when he finds out that Connor and Alice had sex).
- Parents as People: Discussed at length. He responded to losing his wife by essentially retreating into selfishness as a way to numb the pain, and the first season is about him emerging into being a parent properly again.
- Rogue Protagonist: He decides in the pilot that he should stop helping people arrive at the right conclusion in their own time and just tell them directly, violating conventional talking therapist procedure. This leads to a number of funny plots that set off the series, but also - as Paul points out - could endanger the practice or seriously get someone harmed if they make the wrong choice with his advice.
The therapist in charge of the practice Jimmy works at, Sean is older, grumpy, and estranged from his daughter, but still ultimately good-natured and altruistic. He serves as a mentor to Jimmy and Alice as they deal with their emotional problems, while also seeking to reconnect with his family. He also receives a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease that requires some soul-searching.
Tropes:
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Paul can be salty, snarky, and even a bit silly at times (singing along to the radio or making buzzing noises to annoy Jimmy), but he's the most experienced of the three main therapists and is genuinely good at reading and talking to people. A big example is when he finally gets Sean to talk about his time in Afghanistan at the end of "Woof." After Paul leaves, Sean and Jimmy both recognize how well he handled that conversation. In a later episode, a longtime patient of Paul's tells him how much Paul has saved his life.
- Cool Old Guy: Being played by Harrison Ford qualifies him as this by default. Paul may be in his later years but has lost none of his skill, wit, charisma, or kindness.
- Deadpan Snarker: It's Harrison Ford so naturally, he's this. Hardly a scene goes by where he isn't spouting bitterly sarcastic remarks, usually towards Jimmy.
- Intergenerational Friendship: He's decades older than everyone he works with but is friends with them all the same. He also strikes up a friendship with Alice, who is easily young enough to be his granddaughter, outside of work.
- Knight in Sour Armor: Perpetually unexcited, but also probably the most stable of the cast when it comes to day-to-day work, and dedicated to helping everyone improve.
- Parents as People: He mentions that he divorced when his daughter was quite young, and to his regret now, he's never really managed to connect with her in all the years since due to his commitment to his work.
- Silver Fox: Even quips that he is this, to Gaby's agreement.
- Sweet Tooth: He loves ice cream, and in "Boop" we find out he's been giving Alice free therapy in exchange for candy.
- Totally Radical: Believes that to "rawdog" someone means not to have sex without a condom, but to suddenly confront someone, and uses it like that for several episodes before someone corrects him.
The teenage daughter of Jimmy and Tia, currently seventeen at the series' start. Snarky, independent, and jaded from her mother's death and her father's subsequent "checking out," Alice is struggling with a number of emotional issues at the series' start.
Tropes:
- Passionate Sports Girl: On her soccer team, and very invested in it.
- Precocious Crush: Crushes on Sean, the patient of her father's currently living in their poolhouse. While their ages are unstated in the show, extra material shows that she's seventeen and he's twenty-two, and although that's not a huge gap, his experiences at war have clearly left him more adult than most that age, and mostly seeing her as like a sister.
- Their First Time: In an early episode, she mentions that she lost it to Liz and Dereks's son Connor before he left for college, since they'd known each other forever and could "get it over with" in a low-stress situation. In the present day, she seems very relaxed about it and she and Connor are still friendly.
A 22-year-old army veteran, Sean is court-ordered to therapy sessions with Jimmy in the pilot after flying off the handle and beating someone up in a bar one time too many. Jimmy first breaches therapy procedure with him by taking him to an MMA gym and encouraging him to get his anger out that way, and then by inviting him to live in his poolhouse when his parents kick him out for defending Jimmy from a client's husband. Over the course of the series, he struggles with his anger issues, lack of direction, and family problems.
Tropes:
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Struggles with this at the series' start, as he finds himself getting into fights all too often.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Played with. He eventually reveals that he wasn't traumatized by violence inflicted on him or his fellow soldiers, but by his own inflicting of violence on people whom he guesses probably weren't going to do anything to him.
- Straight Man: Often playing this to Jimmy or Liz's antics.
A co-worker at Jimmy's office, a close friend, and his wife's former best friend. At the start of the series, she is finally divorcing Nico, her husband of eight years, due to his pill addiction. As a close friend of the Lairds, she both lends her support and struggles with her own feelings about love and relationships.
Tropes:
- Amicable Exes: Her and Nico's divorce is comparatively warm, on some level a mutual agreement that they're not getting what they want out of the relationship. However, she still admits it was taxing on her, and she struggles to maintain appropriate distance in later episodes.
- Birds of a Feather: Gets along very well with Liz, since both are social yet snarky women with connections to the Laird family.
- Genki Girl: Near-perpetually cheerful and energetic.
Jimmy's next-door neighbor Liz has essentially taken over for parenting Alice while Jimmy has grieved his wife. At series start, Jimmy begins stepping up again, and the two collaborate frequently when it comes to the ups and downs of the Lairds' lives.
Tropes:
- Hidden Depths: Her hobby is collecting rocks, tumbling them, and arranging them in her house. While the activity itself is not exactly hidden (she does it in front of her garage and will happily talk about it), Liz does hide how meditative this act is for her, only eventually admitting to it after Gaby pries about it.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She can be judgmental and annoying, but she also cares for Alice like a daughter and is actually a very caring and nurturing person.
- Nosy Neighbor: Cannot help getting involved in other people's defense, which Jimmy calls her out for. However, it's justified in that she felt like she had to step in to help Alice after Tia passed away. Since then, she's undeniably been there when Jimmy hasn't, something he seeks to remedy over the course of the series.
- Knight in Sour Armor: Perpetually grumpy, but also unhesitatingly supportive of Alice, in love with her husband, and content with the work of their three sons.
- Parental Substitute: Has been doing the lion's share of parenting Alice for a year, including even going to her PTA meetings instead of Jimmy. While Jimmy starts taking on some of the load again, she still retains a close role in raising her.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Not a scene goes by where she doesn't drop an F-bomb.
Liz's husband, a snarky, laid-back father a few weeks from retirement.
Tropes:
- Big Man on Campus: Liked by everyone he meets and likes them in return. When mentioning a small retirement party for himself, he says it'll "only" have a hundred or so people attending.
- Knight in Sour Armor: While he throws some barbs in the early episodes that suggest he's angry about having to parent Alice and deal with his wife's new dog, he ultimately turns out to be happy to do so and understanding of the value in them.
- Nice Guy: Friendly, happy in his career, and beloved by his kids
- Out of Focus: Usually only shows up to drop a one-liner and then leave.
- Silver Fox: He's not as old as Paul but he's old enough to have adult kids and to retire from work and he's still in very good shape and quite handsome.
Jimmy's best friend whom he met in college, a gay real estate lawyer with a long-term boyfriend named Charlie. At series start, he and Jimmy finally start reconnecting after Jimmy starts moving on from his wife's passing.
Tropes:
- Camp Gay: Despite his buttoned-up appearance, his mannerisms definitely are this.
- Coming-Out Story: He says he was "the only gay boy in Texas" and didn't come out until college or later.
- The Pollyanna: His catchphrase is "everything always works out for me." However, Jimmy notes that this is what drew them apart, as someone as perpetually cheerful as Brian wasn't willing to just let Jimmy be sad about his wife for as long as he needed to be.
A patient of Jimmy's stuck in a relationship with the emotionally abusive Donny . In the pilot, a rogue Jimmy gives her an ultimatum - break up with Donny or drop Jimmy as a therapist. She agrees to, seemingly proving his unorthodox approach may work. But the case turns out to be more complicated than expected...
Tropes:
- Dumb Blonde: Kind of positioned as one. The only thing she and Donny are seen as having in common is that both are good-looking and like being physically fit, and Jimmy chooses to see her as someone who can't or won't see what's right in front of her.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Her relationship proves to be one of the triggers that gets Jimmy to start breaking therapist procedure in the name of helping people, leading to the series.
The wife of Jimmy and mother of Alice, who was killed in a car accident a year ago.
Her death is the inciting event of the first season, and she makes numerous appearances in discussions and flashbacks to before her death.
Tropes:
- Speak Ill of the Dead: It's revealed in the pilot that she and Jimmy were arguing a lot before she died, and that the relationship maybe wasn't doing great. However, this actually made Jimmy's mourning process worse, as it was now tied up with all sorts of thoughts about whether they were happy or going to stay together or not and how he can now never know what would've happened.
