The Shrink Next Door Trailer: Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd reunite in Apple’s dark comedy series

The show is based on a 2019 podcast of the same name, written and hosted by Joe Nocera

Comic talents Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd are reuniting for the dark comedy series titled The Shrink Next Door. The eight-episode series about the co-dependent relationship between a therapist (Rudd) and his patient (Ferrell) launches on Apple TV+ on November 12.

Inspired by true events and based on the 2019 podcast of the same name written and hosted by Joe Nocera, The Shrink Next Door revolves around a psychiatrist, Dr. Isaac Herschkopf, and his long term patient, Martin Markowitz. What starts as a normal doctor-patient dynamic slowly turns dark as Ike (Rudd) takes over patient Marty’s (Ferrell) life, from moving into Marty’s home to taking over his family business. The show is written by Georgia Pritchett (Succession, Avenue 5) and directed by Michael Showalter (The Big Sick). Showalter and Rudd previously worked together on the cult classic Wet Hot American Summer. Kathryn Hahn also stars as Marty’s sister, while Casey Wilson plays Ike’s wife.

Watch the trailer for The Shrink Next Door here:

“It’s so relatable in a way — obviously it has special meaning for anyone who has done any amount of therapy,” Will Ferrell said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “When we talked to [the real] Marty about this, it was a perfect storm of someone in a vulnerable place who had never really sought this type of counsel before and decided to give it a shot, and got some really effective temporary relief right out of the gate and support in a way that he’d never felt and thought, ‘Let’s keep going. I’m going to double down on this whole thing.’ And then it was the point of no return. So that whole kind of seduction of it at first, and then just the rapid ringing around the toilet bowl before you go down was the part that really jumped out to me.”

Paul Rudd added, “The idea that these characters were real people — it was a real story — but they were also interesting people and an interesting story and a different kind of character for me to play. Also not such a crazy story that you can’t believe it happened. I mean, I just think there are other versions — it made me think of Brian Wilson and Eugene Landy when I heard the podcast.”

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