Fans of This Is Us: get ready to meet a surprise friendly face once again.
Last time on This Is Us, everyone was taking their new babies home: Kevin (Justin Hartley) and Madison (Caitlin Thompson) with the twins, Kate (Chrissy Metz) and Toby (Chris Sullivan) with their daughter, Randall (Sterling K. Brown) and Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson) in a flashback bringing their second born daughter home and Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebecca (Mandy Moore) in a flashback with the big three.
This week, everyone is getting used to their new children, while Randall and Beth are trying to adapt to Beth’s mom (Phylicia Rashad) being there.
Beth is trying to impress her mom by making a delicious dinner all on her own, and her mom keeps bringing the attitude.
While everyone is gathering for the family dinner, Malik (Asante Blackk) shows up to ask Randall for some advice. The mother of Malik’s daughter wants to get more involved in her daughter’s life, but Malik isn’t sure what to do. They decide it’d be best for the mother to get to know her daughter, but Malik will proceed with caution.
The family has dinner together, but many bombshells are dropped. Malik tells Deja (Lyric Ross) about his baby’s mother, and Tess (Eris Baker) tells the family she’s dating her friend Alex, whose pronouns Beth continuously messes up. Beth is shocked but even more angered when she finds out her mom knew but she didn’t.
This causes her to blow up at her mom, telling her how judgmental and frustrating she is, and she goes to pack her things.
“You’re my day one,” Deja said. “I’m happy you have a thing with Malik, but you’re supposed to think of me first.”
“Deja, I am your day one,” Randall said. “And I promise you that I’ll always be team Deja, first and foremost.”
Beth goes to talk to her mom and make amends, and her mom says she’s not trying to be really judgmental. She just loves being in their house rather than being alone. Beth decides to extend an indefinite invitation to her mother to stay at the house, and Randall doesn’t know how to feel about it.
Meanwhile, Toby is on the job search while trying to take care of his new daughter. It looks as if he’s the top candidate for a position, and he’s anxiously waiting for the response while he, Kate and the babies go to visit Kevin and his family.
While at Kevin’s house, Toby finds out he didn’t get the position. When Kevin is extending his kindness toward Toby and Kate, Toby thinks it’s because Kate told Kevin about how he lost his job, so he snaps at Kevin. The more Kevin tries to provide solutions to Toby and Kate, the more Toby digs into his anger — even verbally attacking Madison at one point.
Kevin and Kate have a serious conversation about how he wants to take care of her, and she said she’ll make sure that if she needs anything, she’ll let him know. However, before they leave, Kevin and Toby make up.
“This isn’t an epic Pearson battle,” Toby said. “It’s more like an awkward, sushi scrimmage.”
Also, during a flashback, Jack and Rebecca are struggling with the babies. Miguel (Jon Huertas) took Jack out for a night to have dinner with his bosses, and Jack ended up having to pay the bill. Though he definitely couldn’t afford it, he didn’t want to be the only one who didn’t offer to pay. Rebecca was upset, but he assured her everything would be fine, and he would pay off the credit card.
Rebecca decides to take over the finances for the family to help with savings and rid Jack of some of the burden. He’s really grateful for it and her.
When she gets home from Kevin’s, Kate calls Rebecca to thank her for being a great mom and questions how she was able to do it. Rebecca reminds her of all she’s been able to do as a mom and says whenever she feels like she can’t handle something, she should just remember all that she’s already done.
Kate tells Toby she’s proud of him, and she’s going to go work at their son’s school to help with finances.
While that conversation is happening, Kevin has a crisis about drifting apart from his family, wishing desperately they could all just live in a compound together. However, he appreciates Madison and their children and says he’s OK with it just being the four of them for a while.
Just as he says this, the doorbell rings. To all of our surprise, it’s Uncle Nicky (Griffin Dunne). This is setting up for the return of Dunne’s character, and honestly, the audience should be thrilled.
This week’s episode is beginning to pick up and get back into the mood of the normal This Is Us twists and turns rather than the pandemic rut they seemed to be in, and it can only get better from here.
This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on NBC.
