Between last week and this week, This Is Us creators are producing some of the best episodes in the series.
Last week’s episode ended with Rebecca (Mandy Moore) and teenage Kate (Hannah Zeile) getting a call from teenage Kevin (Logan Shroyer) to let them know that he got married to teenage Sophie (Amanda Leighton).
This week’s episode follows two main parallels: Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and a pregnant Rebecca’s first dinner in their new house, and Rebecca and the whole family’s first dinner at their new house, post Jack’s death, as well as Tess’ (Eris Baker) first panic attack, gifted to her through Randall (Sterling K. Brown)’s genetics.
Tess is overwhelmed by school and coming out to her friends, which ultimately results in her first panic attack. Randall feels ashamed that his panic attacks were the trait he passed down to Tess, and Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson) recalls a conversation she had with William (Ron Cephas Jones) about the same feeling of shame.
It was a great idea to bring William back for the episode to create that parallel between anxiety about passing down the panic attacks, but William’s advice to Beth ended up saving the day, as she figured out a way to calm both Randall and Tess down.
Meanwhile, the episode is sectioned off into the stages of the first night in a new house dinner: horderves, salads, entrée, wine and pizza, after the dinner ultimately fails. With the news that teenage Kevin and Sophie got married, Rebecca is spiraling to put together something great for the family.
Teenage Randall (Niles Fitch) brings teenage Beth (Rachel Hilson) to the dinner, of course teenage Kevin brings teenage Sophie, and teenage Kate’s new love interest, Mark (Austin Abrams) shows up to be there for her the whole night.
The two dinners are juxtaposed and both end the same way: with dinner failing and having to order pizza. It’s wonderful to watch the two dinners be paralleled, and watch the family begin to move forward with their lives after Jack’s death had been plaguing them.
At the same time, the two side conflicts are with adult Kevin (Justin Hartley) and adult Kate (Chrissy Metz) as Kevin tries to help Nicky (Griffin Dunne) cope with life and Cassidy (Jennifer Morrison) get her husband back. Otherwise, Kate is waiting for a secret gift from Randall and Kevin.
Kevin confronts Cassidy’s husband about his behavior, and the two have a heated conversation which ultimately ends in the husband telling Kevin to stay away from his wife. Kevin then informs Cassidy that her husband definitely still likes her, and he goes back home to Nicky, who panicked during a hockey game and left.
The audience gets to see Nicky truly be kind and loving toward Kevin for the first time since Kevin put his life on hold to help him. Kevin told him the story about Jack and how he’d always buy a brick of ice cream and they’d eat it like slices of cake, and Nicky proceeded to tell Kevin a story about Jack and Nicky’s father who would do the same.
“He would fold down the sides of the carton so that it looked like a big cake, and then he’d get a knife and he’d just wave it over the ice cream,” Nicky said. “And he’d ask, ‘how good a boy were you today? Were you kind of good, or were you real good?’ And depending on the answer that’s how big of a slice you got. So how good were you today, Kevin?”
Kate receives her gift from her brothers, and it’s their old piano from when they were teenagers. Inside the piano was a plethora of polaroid pictures from the night of the failed dinner, but something about Rebecca and Kate’s reaction to seeing a photo of Mark is a huge indicator that his character might not end up being the great guy he seems to be after all.
Last week and this week’s episodes have been two of the best in the series, and this week’s episode was directed by Milo Ventimiglia, himself.
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This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on NBC.
