Randall comes to understand how he came to the Pearson family. Rebecca finds herself in a nursery more than once in her life and team Kate-Kevin face some harsh realities together. We learn about the beginning of the romantic relationship of Miguel with Rebecca and guess how it went down? A respectable amount of time has passed, 6 years to be precise and Miguel has found Rebecca again - on Facebook.
Halloween is for everyone
Back in time, we are with the 10-year-old triplets on Halloween. Rebecca is sewing their costumes in the dining room. Kate is Sandy from Grease, Randall is Michael Jackson and Kevin is a cigar smoking homeless guy.
Randall got a spoiler alert at the neighbors surmising how he came to be part of the Pearson family. Rebecca quickly had to set him straight because like all rumors, it may be rooted in truth but it’s also peppered with assumptions and bad intentions.
Kevin pays a boy to hold Kate’s hand at the Halloween block party haunted house and the currency is his entire bag of candy. Kevin already knows how to work his looks and popularity, telling Jack when he busts him, “I can always get more candy, Dad. It’s easy.” Honorable mention of Jack and Rebecca in Sony and Cher garb. We probably should have seen that one coming.
The triplets are fumbling into adulthood
In their 20’s Kevin is making ends meet in the City of Angels by being a shampoo boy making customers swoon - and yawn from his whining.
He confesses to Kate he hasn’t had an audition in a year. After his roommate bursts through the front door announcing he’s landed a pretty cherry acting gig, in a desperate act Kevin tries to steal away his less handsome roommate's role with a very thinly veiled attempt at the director.
The director calls foul and tells Kevin he will never so much as spit shine his shoes, let alone be hired to work in any of his movies.
Kevin comes home later to find himself without a (understandably scorned) roommate via a nasty note. So, of course, Kate moves in. Randall is now married with his first child ready to come into the world at any moment. Not yet successful in his career he is anxious and emotions are running high anticipating the arrival of his daughter.
His Type A personality is being challenged more than ever.
The baby comes early, he’s told by an electrical store clerk that babies are the way they are and you roll with it. Randall doesn’t roll, he takes calculated steps. He even had a neighborhood map for maximizing his Halloween candy haul! He also has no blood ties in his life currently and this baby is part of him. It’s exciting and terrifying to him on a level many parents will never know. Something else he’s done that very few fathers do, he delivered his own child and renews Beth's brief moment of wavering faith in her husband. Rebecca is now a grandmother.
Kate sits in her car eating fast food parked outside of her childhood home. Viewers still have no additional details of how the house burned but the pain of missing Jack continues to be all-consuming to Kate.
This season may provide why it’s impacted her more than her brothers or her mother. Still, we wait and miss Jack along with her.
Kate takes on an admirer she has come to know, barely, from the diner she waits tables at. He sweet talks her and she meets him later in a bar where he’s sitting with his bros. He’s happy to see her and leaves the table but also is quick to get her out of there and away from prying eyes. They end up back at her apartment and we see them post-coitus.
The admirer leaves soon after and Kate's mind puts pieces together calling him out for being married. He didn’t deny it and asked her why she did it if she knew. She said honestly, “I don’t know.” As viewers, we can chalk this up to the dumb things we do in our 20’s or that it sets Kate up for a series of unworthy relationships because of her size.
Likely both because 'This Is Us' is much too layered for anything to be a polarizing issue. Kate is lovable and beautiful, as are her brothers and they all come with their own issues they fight with every day in every way.
Welcome to the world
The moment Rebecca first had in the hospital with baby Randall was the big tearjerker of the night. New grandmother Rebecca welcomed her granddaughter into the world. She remembered the last time she was in a hospital nursery and it was with her father. She came to meet her baby Randall (v.2) and get him used to her voice because Kate and Kevin had been hearing her voice for 9 months already. In a whisper drowning in tears of love, she introduced baby Randall to his siblings a few cribs away as Jack watched on, totally in love with her, from the nursery window. “I’m your mom.”
'This Is Us' airs on NBC Tuesday nights at 9 pm
