This Is Easily ‘Shifting Gears’ Best Scene, Hands Down
Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers for ‘Shifting Gears’ Season 1, Episode 4.Often, in sitcoms, their best scenes will be dramatic, not comedic, in my opinion. This is true of Friends, where it is Monica (Courteney Cox) and Chandler’s (Matthew Perry) heartfelt proposal and Ross (David Schwimmer) and Rachel’s (Jennifer Aniston) destructive break-up that are the high points of that series. The same can be said for many more sitcoms, and it is certainly the case when we look at Shifting Gears. This scene came in Episode 4, “Grief,” in which Matt (Tim Allen) broke down while clearing out his dead wife’s closet.
The reason that these scenes tend to be so effective is that it is not what we expect to see. We know we’ll be laughing with these characters, so to cry with them surprises us, and we see their depth. Not only is what they are talking about key, but how they frame it typically shows us how the character reacts to extreme emotions and tells us so much about them. With Matt in this episode, we see how badly affected he is by his wife’s passing, and it marks a monumental shift in how we perceive his more negative traits.
Matt Breaks Down After an Unwanted Therapist Session in ‘Shifting Gears’
The main narrative thrust of Shifting Gears is watching the broken relationship between Matt and his daughter, Riley (Kat Dennings), slowly mend over the course of 10 episodes. With Riley’s mother and Matt’s wife gone, there is no one to mediate the two’s differences, meaning that Riley, rather than respect Matt’s wishes to not go to therapy, or compromise somehow, tricks Matt into a joint session before running out of the room, leaving him alone. Later, Matt comes home angry after the session and is determined to clear out his wife’s old clothes, furious that he was asked “what comes to mind” when he thinks about his late wife.
While Riley tries to sympathize with Matt’s feeling that life isn’t fair, Matt makes a valid point that life isn’t fair. For a character who hasn’t shown much empathy in the season up to this point, Matt’s evidence that it isn’t fair when a drug dealer is alive after selling people fentanyl or a drunk driver is alive after killing someone with their car hits us emotionally. We see that this character understands the world far better than we gave him credit for. The pain of knowing that all Matt thinks about is the things he can’t do with his wife anymore explains why he is so closed off to everyone else because he doesn’t have the energy to move past how he feels about his late wife.
Through Matt’s Anger, We See What His Deeper Flaws Are in ‘Shifting Gears’
As I previously mentioned, these dramatic scenes can give us a clear insight into a character’s core and how they express themselves. During his monologue about how he is “moving fricking on,” Matt tries to frame his anger as him being stupid for keeping his wife’s old closet as it was, since she is “not here for me” or anybody, especially after getting angry at Georgia (Barrett Margolis) for going in there. However, we soon realize that his anguish is coming from his stoicism, which has bottled up his feelings for too long. He speaks about how, to him, grief is “anger” at all the things he can’t change.
The fact he tries to respond to this anger by switching to another extreme, throwing away everything his wife owned after wanting to preserve it all, shows how it is really Matt’s resistance to change that is fueling this breakdown. Throughout the series, we thought he hated the new generation, and while he may disagree with some things young people do, we see that he hates any form of change and can only deal with it in extreme ways. Therefore, what is so fantastic about the scene is that it reveals Matt’s true need in life and his flaws: he needs to accept change yet is too stubborn to do so.
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Matt’s Breakdown Begins a Shift in Our Relationship With Him in ‘Shifting Gears’
Up until this moment in the series, Matt came across as a racist conservative who we had little sympathy for. We were completely on Riley’s side when it came to the arguments they had, and it made their dynamic less enjoyable to watch as it was so one-sided. However, we finally get a moment of sympathy with the character to understand that his ignorant comments are his fear of losing control of what he understands. He is blunt, but his focus on fentanyl and drunk drivers killing totally innocent parties shows his strong grip on right and wrong, which means that the loss of his wife, whom he describes as “perfect,” truly makes no sense in his worldview.
This shift also affects his relationship with Riley and his grandkids, Georgia and Carter (Maxwell Simkins), where he struggles to connect to the new generation. After this scene, while he is still rough around the edges, he is far kinder. At the end of Episode 4, he gifts Georgia his wife’s coat, which he previously got angry at her for wearing, showing his ability to look forward rather than behind. With Carter, he begins to mock his social awkwardness less and be more encouraging, to the point he does marijuana gummies in front of him to show how it isn’t a big deal.
I enjoyed Shifting Gears, but even I must admit the first few episodes weren’t the easiest to watch. However, this scene in Episode 4 is what completely changed that. Afterward, it was far easier to connect with all the characters because we saw Matt do so. He went from this grumpy, rude old man, to someone who is trying to get by every day in mental pain after losing the woman he lost. These dramatic scenes are so key in sitcoms to give variety to the characters, and Tim Allen nailed this one.
Shifting Gears is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.
