"Shrinking," the Apple TV+ series about a group of therapists with messy personal lives, returns for Season 2 on Oct. 16, and Jessica Williams, known for her work on "2 Dope Queens" and "The Daily Show," is ready to embrace even more chaos. Williams’ character, Gaby, a therapist who works alongside Jimmy (Jason Segel) and Paul (Harrison Ford), brings warmth, humor, and accountability to her patients, but her own life? That’s another story. Gaby’s "situationship" with Jimmy––a casual fling that’s getting complicated fast––is one of the more problematic aspects of her life, especially given that she was friends with Jimmy’s late wife.

Despite Gaby's complications, Williams sees her imperfections as a positive, particularly when it comes to on-screen representation of Black female therapists. Ahead of Season 2, Williams tells BET.com that she worked hard to make Gaby a well-rounded, complex character, pushing back against the common tropes that often define Black women in these roles.

“There’s been a lot of discussion in the last couple years around the Black therapist trope that I love, and that’s really important and valid,” Williams explains. “Black women are portrayed as therapists in a way that’s sort of like a surrogate distant, great granddaughter of the mammy trope, where white people sit down with a Black person and talk about their problems because there's sort of this vague comfort with us.”

While acknowledging the importance of more Black people entering the mental health profession, Williams points out that Black therapists are often depicted as one-dimensional problem solvers who don’t get to express their own emotions. “By putting her in the therapist mode,” Williams says, “she doesn't have to talk and say how she's feeling. So it becomes this one-dimensional character.”

"Shrinking" challenges that, showing Gaby as a fully fleshed-out character. “The way you get around tropes is to attack things with specificity and your choices,” Williams says. “With Gaby, it's like, how specific can I be with her? Because when you do that, then you're out of cliche land, and now we’re creating a character. What's nice about this [role],” she adds, “is that the white guys in charge of the show really do defer to me and the writers. We have a really nice diverse group of writers, and I love that for Gaby.”

In Season 2, viewers will dive deeper into Gaby’s life. Her relationship with her mentor Paul evolves, we’ll see more of her family dynamics, and she’ll even get a new love interest, played by Damon Wayans Jr. And yes, Gaby is still navigating her complicated situation with Jimmy and his so-called "safe dick," which has only gotten more complicated.

Even with her professional expertise, Gaby still makes questionable choices, and Williams believes that’s what makes her character important. “She’s someone who can be messy and still be a therapist too,” she says. “That’s important.”

"Shrinking" Season 2 premieres on Oct. 16 on Apple TV+.