Minor spoilers for Shrinking Season 3, Episode 4 are ahead! Read with caution and stream the series with an Apple TV subscription.
Brian and Charlie’s baby was born in Shrinking, and her name is perfect. Perfect, I tell you! In true Brian fashion, and staying true to his word, they named their baby Sutton (yes, after Broadway legend Sutton Foster). So, when I interviewed Michael Urie about the season of the hit comedy airing on the 2026 TV schedule, I asked about this new addition to his character Brian's family and how her namesake reacted to the news.
Considering the monologue Brian gives in Season 2 of Shrinking, as well as Urie’s history on Broadway (more on both later), I was not shocked when the baby was named Sutton. However, I had to know how Foster reacted to this news, so I asked the actor about it, and he said:
She loved it. She loved being the namesake of our sweet baby.
Truly, it’s perfect, and I love how much Foster loves that Brian’s baby is named after her.
Now, we all should love it a lot too, because there really is a lot of meaning packed into this baby's name. First of all, as Urie explained, it's a great callback to Season 2 and one of Brian’s best moments in Shrinking. He told me:
Of course, we teased it in Season 2 that if it was a girl, she'd be Sutton Foster, and if it's a boy, obviously Foster Sutton. So spoiler, it's a girl, and her name is Sutton Foster.
Urie went on to tell me that he absolutely adored this Easter egg, and I have to note with deep enthusiasm that I did too. Obviously, I didn’t forget the speech Brian gave in Season 2, how could I? He gave it more than once, and it single-handedly proves why the actor got a 2025 Emmy nomination for his work. So, to bring it back in Season 3 made me so happy.
However, the Easter eggs don’t stop there. That’s because Michael Urie actually has a major professional connection to Sutton Foster. Between August and November in 2024, the two performers worked together on Broadway in the musical Once Upon a Mattress, where the actress played Princess Winnifred, and the actor portrayed Prince Dauntless. That puts this production during the release of Shrinking's second season and right before production on Season 3 started. So, no, this name choice was not random in the slightest, as the actor told me:
Also, I love her so much. And when we did Season 3, we had just finished, we'd literally just finished doing Once Upon a Mattress together on Broadway. And I missed her, so it was wonderful to get to talk about her and say her name, and I loved holding this little baby so, so much that it was, I guess, made it all the more special that her name was Sutton.
Truly, there are so many reasons to celebrate baby Sutton on Shrinking. And I absolutely adore how her name ties back to both one of Brian’s most memorable scenes and a meaningful moment in Urie’s career.
Now, maybe Sutton Foster could guest star…with a guest cast that already includes Michael J. Fox, Jeff Daniels, Cobie Smulders and more, I don’t think it's out of the realm of possibility. Plus, I do think it's necessary that little Sutton meet her namesake while her dads freak out about it. It only feels right.
That’s just a dream, though. If you want to see Brian, Charlie and Sutton grow as a family, you can catch new episodes of Shrinking every Wednesday on Apple TV.
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