If you have not watched the season premiere of This is Us, please for your sanity stop reading this post and watch the episodes. Return to me when you have done so.
You armed with your tissues? Good. Now let's get to the highlights before I can no longer type due to the flood of tears raining down my face.
Episode 1 entitled "A Father's Advice," has us catching the Big Three as they celebrate their 37th. Kevin is in the middle of shooting the Ron Howard film and he learned that Sophie won't be able to join him for his birthday due to her mother's illness. He goes forward with plans for a fancy birthday dinner with Kate and Toby. In the end, Sophie manages to make it to LA to surprise Kevin on his birthday. I wish I had more to say about Kevin's storyline but he played second fiddle to his siblings' in this episode.
Kate is gearing up for a big audition in order to jump-start her singing career. However, when she gets intimidated by the skinny girls and walks out before even getting a chance to sing. However, after breaking up an argument between Toby and Kevin over who should be the one looking out for her. She declares that she doesn't want to be "pushed or coddled" and sweeps away back to the audition and demands to be given a chance to sing. The casting director is reluctant but lets her try anyway. She only gets through a few bars before getting cut off. Kate then demands that she will not be dismissed due to her size to which the casting director orders one of the backup singers to sing the same song that Kate was attempting to sing to which the backup singer was phenomenal. Kate wasn't good enough yet, but she saw this as an opportunity to improve. Hooray, a Kate story that wasn't just about her dress size (by the way, at this point she has dropped two sizes)!
Randall is still pursuing his dream of adopting a baby. However, Beth is reluctant to do so because Randall always pushed for what he wanted, for example: allowing William to stay with them while he was dying and allowing Kevin to crash in their basement for a year. After talking to Rebecca and realizing that Jack was the one who did the pushing in order adopt him, Randall concludes that he doesn't want to be like his parents. He would have to work around Beth's reluctance to adopt. In the hour's finest speech he declares that he and Beth were "Perfectly Unperfect." But Beth has an alternative solution to their disagreement. Rather than adopt a baby, they could adopt an older child that no one else would take in. Beth reasons that if Jack and Rebecca had not adopted him, Randall's life could have been a lot different.
In the past, Pearson Clan gathers to deal with the aftermath of Jack and Rebecca's blowout argument. The couple announced to Big Three that they are taking a few days to "catch their breath" while assuring the kids that they were not divorcing. Not to anyone's surprise, it doesn't go very well, and it doesn't help that when Jack reaches for Rebecca's hand in support only to have her rebuff him.
Jack spends some time at Miguel's as Rebecca cools off from the argument. She takes the Big Three to the movies. It's revealed that in a deeper flashback to the argument that Randall had walked in on them fighting. How that will impact Randall overall as he matures remains to be seen.
Rebecca eventually comes to retrieve Jack telling him that she wants him to come home and they will work on their problems together. However, Jack refuses, revealing that he is drunk and has been drunk all day, every day for a long time and had hidden it from his family. He tells Rebecca that doesn't want to return home until he gets his sobriety under control and closes the door on her. You think that would be the end of the discussion, but Rebecca knocks on the door again and tells Jack to get in the car, that they would deal with his alcoholism together and in a few months everything would be fine. They get in the car together and drive away.
The scene dissolves into Rebecca in the car alone, dressed in a Steeler's jersey, tears rolling down her face. She pulls her car in front the mailbox of her house and looks out at the scene. A few cops are taping around the blackened, burnt out hull of the Pearson house. She lets out a heartbroken sob that will have you reaching for the tissues. Kate and Randall are at Miguel's bawling their eyes out when Kate says that she needs to go find Kevin and have him hear the news from someone in the family. End Episode.
Jeez, I really need to up my stock in tissues, that one really had me reaching for them. There is plenty of information that was gleaned from this episode and more questions added to the list. We now have some concrete clues on how Jack died and we can finally put to bed that he did not die during 9/11. However, we have some more questions. Who was the girl that was sitting Randall while the family grieved over Jack's death? What is in store for Kevin? I'm personally hoping we see more storylines where he is connecting with his family and with Sophie. I cannot wait to see how the rest of this season will play out.
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