With just one more episode left in season four of This Is Us, fans can’t believe next week will be more dramatic than this week’s episode.
Last week’s episode ended with the Big Three going to the family cabin to catch up and escape from their terrible situations brought on by the three-part episode special.
This week shows teenage Kate (Hannah Zeile) and Marc (Austin Abrams) at the family cabin after Marc left Kate out in the cold to fend for herself. Though Rebecca (Mandy Moore), teenage Kevin (Logan Shroyer) and teenage Randall (Niles Fitch) went to save her, they unfortunately were stopped by a huge storm and had to wait until the next morning.
Meanwhile, Kate and Marc get into an argument, and Marc locks her out of the cabin. Kate, freezing, breaks the window to get back in and cuts her hand while doing so.
The next morning, Kate’s mom and brothers show up to see what’s going on, and it doesn’t take long for Randall to notice the broken window and see the cut on Kate’s hand. Once they hear the story of Marc locking her out, Kevin and Randall want to beat him up, but Rebecca stops them and instead forces Marc to leave.
In keeping with the family cabin flashbacks, the show cuts to when the Big Three are little kids, and Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) has made them a time capsule to bury in the yard. Each kid is struggling with what to put in the time capsule, but they end up figuring it out.
While the kids are deciding, Jack is sketching in his architect’s workbook when Rebecca sees him. He tells her about this house he’s always wanted to build her right by the cabin and says he’s going to do it someday.
Still at the cabin, the Big Three adults are trying to get over their respective issues, and Randall (Sterling K. Brown) and Kate (Chrissy Metz) are trying not to tell Kevin (Justin Hartley) about their mom’s potential Alzheimer’s disease.
When the power blows out, the three of them freak out and head to town to get supplies. After successfully lighting up the entire cabin with candles, the truth comes out about Rebecca’s illness. Kevin is offended that he’s the only one who didn’t know, and he storms out.
Randall and Kate pass the time by doing a puzzle of a picture of their family from when they were young. After missing one puzzle piece, Randall decides to dig up the old time capsule as a way to get Kevin in a better mood.
They dig up the time capsule and find the missing puzzle piece that Randall buried, a picture of Sophie (Amanda Leighton) and Kevin that Kevin buried and a piece of paper with the game MASH on it that Kate buried. Then, they see a sketch of a house that Rebecca buried and a cassette tape that Jack buried.
The kids listen to the tape and hear Jack talking about the house he wants to build Rebecca and how much he loves her because she always believes in him.
“Let me just remind you that your mom is the kind of woman who buries a crappy doodle because when it comes to the people that she loves, she does not mess around,” Jack said.
As the Big Three leave the cabin, Kevin starts to stare at the same spot where Jack envisioned the house would be, and suddenly, the house appears in a sketch and then completely built.
We see Kevin drive up to Jack’s dream house, clearly quite aged with gray hair, and look at the house as if it’s his work of art.
When he goes inside, Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson) approaches him in a familiar callback scene from an earlier episode, where everyone is at the house with Rebecca, as she’s lying sick in bed. Kevin goes to Rebecca, and as he walks by, the camera shows the original sketch of the house hanging up for everyone to see.
The episode is definitely one of the most emotionally grueling of the season, with Jack’s tape, teenaged Kate’s relationship abuse and Kevin building the house. It definitely requires tissues and makes audiences wonder how the season finale will top it.
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This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on NBC.
