After the high-paced chaos of last week’s This Is Us episode, this week is bringing more of a calm, dialogue-based episode to give us some breathing room. However, if you don’t stay until the last 30 seconds, you’ll miss a lot.
Last week on This Is Us, Kate (Chrissy Metz) and Toby (Chris Sullivan) welcomed their new adopted baby into the family, and Kevin (Justin Hartley) and Madison (Caitlin Thompson) welcomed their twins. The Pearson family has a new Big Three.
This week, everyone is adapting to their new babies, including the flashbacks of Rebecca (Mandy Moore) and Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) taking the original Big Three home from the hospital the first time, and Randall (Sterling K. Brown) and Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson) taking Annie home from the hospital for the first time.
Believe me, if you have baby fever, you won’t survive the cuteness of this episode. However, the stress of new parenthood might offset it.
As everyone is taking their children home, we see Jack beginning to lose his sanity as he realizes he won’t have the help of doctors as they take the kids home. Someone cuts Jack and Rebecca off and makes the situation unsafe for the babies, and Jack almost loses it on him until Rebecca reigns him in.
Jack heads into the gas station to pay for the gas and get peanuts, but he ends up getting a shot of whiskey and breath mints. Though this is bad because Jack is an alcoholic, at least he has the sense to ask Rebecca to drive.
Finally, they make it home, and the babies fall asleep in the car. They decide to wait it out until they wake up to go inside.
While in the car, they talk about how Rebecca feels like she’s changed since going to the hospital, and Jack tells her she’s still the same, and they’re still together. Rebecca tells him when her mom lost a baby, she was really sad for a long time. She worries she won’t be able to be a great mom because she’ll be sad about losing a baby.
Jack tells her there’s no way that she’d be a bad mom and then opens up about the whiskey at the gas station. He talks about being afraid to be like his father. Rebecca reassures him, and they relax and enjoy their time together.
“You don’t suck the air out of the room,” Rebecca said. “You are the air.”
Meanwhile, Kate and Toby are taking Ellie (Annie Funke) home from the hospital, and Kate is planning all of their visits to keep Ellie involved in Hailey’s life. Ellie panics and tells them she doesn’t think she can be a part of Hailey’s life because it’ll be too hard. Kate tries to negotiate, but it just makes Ellie more angry.
Kate is upset and baffled by the turn of events. She tells Toby she doesn’t want Hailey to have to grow up the way Randall did, wondering about her birth parents instead of just knowing. Toby makes her feel better, telling her Ellie chose them for a reason because they’re going to be great parents, and Kate is going to be the best mother.
He then proceeds to tell Kate that he got laid off from his job. He says they let 40% of the staff go, and he was worried telling Kate would ruin their day. Kate assures him they can just relax and be a family together for the day.
All the while, Randall and Beth are smoking all of the other parents out of the water by being the absolute dream team of parents. Only hitch: Randall misses the Dairy Queen turn to get Beth a blizzard. However, Randall keeps digging in about having a third child, mere days after they had their second one. Beth is frustrated by this, so she goes in to get herself ice cream.
Randall has a moment alone with Annie, where he tells her that he’ll love her no matter what and apologizes for his antiquated gender assumptions and tells her he’d love to throw a ball around with her or watch Felicity, whatever she wants.
He explains his push for a third kid has to do with wanting to have a family who is in his bloodline and have that family tree run deep and be as big as it can because he didn’t have that with his family growing up. Beth buys him a blizzard, and they make up.
As Kevin and Madison are going home, Kevin thinks they’re being followed, probably by the paparazzi. He gets angry and pulls over, running at the man who is following them. Madison worries Kevin will attack him, and rather than let that happen, she handles it by taking his phone number and offering to get him special access to pictures of Kevin jogging.
Kevin has a dream about Jack taking care of his babies. He asks him for fathering advice.
“You kids and your mom, that’s all I ever wanted,” Jack said. “It’s easier to do when you look at it like that.”
Jack tells Kevin to stop worrying about living up to Jack as a father but rather live in the present because he has all the tools he needs to be a great father. Then Jack tells him how beautiful the kids are, and Kevin wakes up in the car.
He comes inside to see Madison with everything under control. In his eyes, you can see the intense love he’s feeling for her in that moment. He tells Madison that he wants her to be his wife, and he wants them to be a family. He proposes to her, for real this time, and she says yes.
The episode ends with an adorable montage of times the original Pearson gang had taken in the car together, then moves into Randall’s family in the car and finally to a future shot.
The future shot connects the episode following a new character, which is Deja Pearson all grown up. She’s working in a hospital and learning about babies, which seems exceedingly boring or tedious to her. Could this mean she’s pregnant herself? We’ll find out. Adult Annie comes to pick her up from work.
Randall’s three girls are all grown up and show up to support Randall as Rebecca lays dying at the family cabin. The episode ends with someone showing up and Randall saying “Look who’s here,” as he hugs Deja.
I can’t wait until the episodes start to include the future scenes more because they seem so exciting to watch. Until then, we’ll be left to wonder what’s going on with dying Rebecca and who is the mysterious person to show up to the house.
This Is Us will return sometime in March on NBC.
