The latest episode of NBC's newest hit family drama "This Is Us' dealt with "what if" in the three kids lives, as well as that of their father Jack. In this episode, Randall wondered if he was really meant to be a musician while Kate pondered the possibility that she was only hired by her boss as an elaborate scheme to communicate with her overweight teenager daughter.
On the other hand, Kevin felt self-doubts so hard that it has taken a funeral of a stranger and his breakdown to dampen the clanging feeling. Meanwhile, in the past, Jack envisioned a life in which he is out there building homes for his own company instead of being stuck in a cubicle all day.
In the past, when the kids are still growing up, Jack came home from the office job he took to make a little more money and help the family finances. The kids then all yearn for his attention, him being the fun parent. But Rebecca was the one who actually freaked out when she showed Jack Randall’s totally average report card and a note from his school, which wanted a meeting the soonest the two of them are available.
However, it turned out that Randall’s test scores are very exemplary and the discrepancy with his current grades is likely because he was bored. The school administrator suggested that it would be more appropriate for him to be enrolled in a private school where he will be more challenged. But Jack immediately refused the idea out on the grounds that the private school is even whiter than the public one Randall is currently enrolled. Also, at this new place, Randall will not have Kevin and Kate to look out for him.
But Yvette, the mom from the pool episode, who is now a friend of the family, pointed out that Jack is treating Randall differently because he is black. After all, he would not think twice about sending a white kid to the very white private school if that kid were exceptionally bright. So when Jack spent time with Randall and witnessed his son’s mathematical genius firsthand, he then questioned why the boy does not want to own up his intellectual excellence.
Meanwhile, Kate got a job as an event planner and personal assistant for a woman named Marin. However, she soon realized that the woman only hired her because she thought Kate can somehow get through to her overweight daughter. It is like getting a fat woman to understand another fat girl. It does not really work.
But Marin apologized to Kate and decided to stay, although she dumped the personal assistant duties. Once she got the opportunity, Kate talked to Gemma and shared to her the delimma of having a gorgeous and thin mom with whom she has always been compared herself her entire life “and now we barely talk and it sucks.” Urging the child to not replicate her own mistakes and give her mother a break.
Kevin, on the other hand, had a really difficult time at rehearsals. Kevin is really having a hard time mustering up the appropriate amount of sadness for the stage play’s emotional climax. So Olivia tricked Kevin into attending a funeral service of a stranger. Kevin is irked by the treachery, but he eventually found himself sharing a moment with the widow of the dead stranger. Olivia then found him later in a bedroom, still angry about the ruse used by Olivia. But she is in a way happy that he has finally got in touch with some of his well-guarded feelings.
The best moment of the episode, however, is when Randall announced to the family at breakfast, “My dad put on a tie every day because he had to. I put one on every day because I want to.”
