BWW Recap: Kevin's Movie, Kate's Hormones, and Randall's Good Intentions Compete in This Week's THIS IS US

"This Is Us" follows up a strong season premiere with a plot-forwarding, emotionally affecting look into the past, present, and future of the Pearson family.

We begin during Randall, Kate, and Kevin's senior year of high school, in the immediate aftershocks of Jack's death and the tragic fire that preceded it. Rebecca is half-present--she's in a deep depression, and seems to be having difficulties keeping track of her kids. There's some good news, though; Randall has just received his acceptance letter to Howard University, the prestigious, predominantly black school he toured with Jack during the last season.

As with all good news in the wake of tragedy, Randall's achievement induces a mixed bag of responses from his family. Rebecca is excited but grief-stricken, hugging Randall and crying, thinking about her exceptional son and thinking about her recently departed husband. The Big Three going away to college will be the first milestone Jack will miss.

Some of the Big Three, anyway. When Kate hears the news about Randall, she's excited, but something seems off. Randall assures her that she'll hear from Berklee College of Music soon--she sort of looks the other way and starts eating a Pop-Tart. Kevin, as we know, will not be going away to college because of his football injury.

It's hard enough to stay calm while house hunting under normal circumstances, so it makes sense that classic Pearson hurt feelings should come to a head in front of the realtor. Rebecca is absent-minded while looking at the new house--she keeps hearing Jack's voice in her head, and it's distracting her from the here and now. The realtor says that the house they're looking at only has three bedrooms, which Rebecca thinks should be fine so long as Randall and Kate, fingers crossed, are both away at college.

Kate chooses this moment to reveal that she never sent in her Berklee callback tape, and will not be attending college in the fall. We know from previous flashbacks that Kate only really decided to apply to college because Jack loved and encouraged her into sharing her voice. With him gone, there doesn't seem to be a point in pursuing what she loves.

Rebecca expertly avoids a confrontation, leaving her children alone in THE KITCHEN of their potential new home to duke it out among themselves. Randall notices that Kevin is drunk and asks him about it. Kevin is evasive, pushing past Randall while antagonizing him about his college aspirations.

Randall goes outside to talk to his mother. Rebecca, pale and wandering-eyed, listens while Randall berates her for not taking care of the three of them in the way she promised she would. Kevin is drunk all the time, he says, and Kate is overeating. Rebecca hasn't been able to hold THE FAMILY together in Jack's absence, and the weight of that has been keeping Randall from speaking his mind.

Randall apologizes later on. Rebecca confides in him-- it is difficult for her to even get out of bed in the morning, because everything reminds her of Jack. The voices she's been hearing in her head are echoes of a day a few months before the fire where Jack and Rebecca had toured an open house, only to decide to stay put in the home they'd made together. She acknowledges that she's been enabling her children, but doesn't know how to grieve another way.

Later that night, Kate tells Rebecca that she's gained 25 pounds. Rebecca sighs, tells Kate not to beat herself up, and eats a cookie with her in silence. It's clear that, while Rebecca has admitted her misdeeds, she isn't quite ready to be there for her children in the capacity they need.

In 2018, THE FAMILY is preparing for the premiere of Kevin's new movie--the Ron Howard film, THE ONE that could potentially skyrocket him into a more serious, stable career.

Kevin asks Zoe to come to the premiere with him and she tells him no. Kevin asks if he can drive Zoe to the airport for her sound-mixing trip to Chicago and she tells him no. She doesn't want them moving too fast--coming out publicly as a couple would force her under media scrutiny, and she's not sure if she's ready to take a step towards a more serious relationship with him. Kevin understands, but seems a little beat up. Zoe also doesn't seem to totally mean what she's saying.

We see Kevin contemplate taking a drink for the first time in a while--a bottle of wine comes in a congratulatory basket, and he flashes back to drinking alone on his HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL field months after his injury and Jack's death. This is a big day for Kevin, and big days bring up old grief--you never quite get over the death of someone that close to you.

Kevin realizes that part of what's getting him so anxious is the reality that Jack never got to see him act. He contends that Jack was the only person to ever take him seriously, and it hurts that he will not be there to see the rest of the world start to see him that way.

He also wanted to be sharing this day with Zoe, who sees a livestream of the event and starts to get FOMO about it. She realizes that furthering her relationship with Kevin is not the worst idea in the world--she texts him and tells him he can pick her up from the airport that weekend if he wants.

Meanwhile, Kate, Toby, Rebecca, and Miguel meet up to drive to Kevin's premiere. Kate and Toby have decided not to tell anybody about going ahead with IVF--partially because they are at high risk of failure, partially because they're afraid of what their family will say.

Naturally, they can't keep the secret for long--Miguel accidentally comes upon Kate's hormone injections, and they're forced to confront the truth (despite Toby's quick explanation--"I'm a heroin addict"-- which nobody buys). The drive to the premiere is tense, with Rebecca anxiously berating Kate about the risky procedure.

They arrive at Kevin's apartment and emotions run high--Kate is on hormones, Toby's off his antidepressants, Rebecca's over informed about the risks of IVF, and Kevin is hours away from the premiere that could change his life. They argue. Kate passionately declares that it's important to her that she has a baby because she is the only one of her siblings who will ever pass on a bit of Jack. Kevin, who's never ruled out having kids, is hurt.

The argument continues until Toby has an outburst that shut everybody up. The decision, he says, is his and Kate's alone, and everybody trying to interfere does not know what it has been like for them to lose a baby and try again and again to no avail. He storms out and says he will meet them at the premiere.

The family attends the premiere, and, for a while, there is no sign of Toby. Kate needs somebody to help administer her hormone shot, and panics when she can't find her husband.

Rebecca steps up. In a touching scene, Rebecca explains to Kate that she would not react so strongly to the IVF if she did not know the risks--and, especially after losing Jack, the idea of losing her daughter is too much for her to handle. In the end, she understands why IVF is important to Kate, and administers the shot.

Toby gets to the premiere right before it starts. Kate asks where he's been--he tells her he lost track of time, and apologizes for his earlier behavior. But Kate is on to him--he's been acting weirdly for a while, and she's never seen him blow up like that. He insists it's nothing, and they sit down for the movie.

Meanwhile, in suburban New Jersey, Randall picks his three (three!!!) daughters up from their first day of school. Tess and Annie have after school activities--Deja (the excellent Lyric Ross, who I neglected to mention by name in my last review despite her consistently moving performance) does not. She says that the school and the activities are too white for her comfort, which makes Randall feel uncomfortable. That will be a recurring theme in this episode.

Randall takes Deja down to Philadelphia--one of the tenants of his building has a daughter she might be able to hang out with, and he's all about making sure the people in his life feel secure and comfortable.

The tenant, ChiChi, was a friend of William's (Ron Cephas Jones is back, following his Emmy win for Best Guest Actor in a Drama Series this summer). It's nice to see William again, older but unriddled by disease, five years sober, helping out the young Nigerian immigrant woman and her baby (Sky, the potential new friend for Deja). Randall meets her at a rundown community center--he's troubled by what he sees, and asks her whether or not the city is doing anything in the way of upkeep or maintenance. She tells him no.

Randall, ever the optimist and self-starter, tracks down the local councilman, a man named Brown, at his barbershop. He gives a patented Randall Pearson impassioned speech about why the councilman should save the community center--the councilman fires back with a story about his own local community center, and how he voted to shut it down a year ago. Brown asks Randall where in the city he's from--Randall tells him that he's not from the city at all, that he's from the suburbs of New Jersey. "Good for you," the councilman says condescendingly.

The councilman promises to send some maintenance people down to the community center--Randall waits around all day, and nobody shows up. At the end of the day, he talks to ChiChi and tells her that he knows the city is ineffectual, but "we" are going to help to solve the problem together.

ChiChi gently tells Randall that he reminds her very much of William, and that it makes her happy to talk to him because she gets a piece of her friend back again. She also tells him there is no "we." Randall is not a member of that community--he can bring Deja down to play, but they get to go back to the affluent suburbs at the end of the night, where there are streetlights and functional buildings. He's a guest in their struggle, and he will never fully grasp it.

Randall Pearson has felt "other" his entire life--he feels too black to fit in with his white family, and too white to fit in with his black friends. He feels left out among his siblings because he is not their natural triplet. He felt as if he belonged at Howard University, but it is revealed to us in this episode that he denied his own admission to stay closer to home for his family.

Randall arrives at the premiere. THE FAMILY embraces each other. He sits down next to Kevin and asks him what he's missed.

Kevin tells him about the IVF, and about that weird comment Kate made about being the "only one to pass on a bit of Dad."

It gets to Randall more than it ever got to Kevin. A man who has worked so hard his whole life to fit in, to please his father (and then another father), to be a part of the family, is still being left out of it.

It's extremely difficult to watch this excellent person be taken down a peg every other day of his life, but it's rewarding to watch him learn, and to learn through him. I'm excited to see where this is going.

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