'This Is Us' Episode 13, Season 1 Review

Image from NBC

By Darian Scalamoni

            This week’s episode of This Is Us brought us a birthday celebration in Jack and Rebecca's path, though most of that revolved around their three children. Randall, Kate and Kevin were getting ready to celebrate their 10^th birthday and wanted to have three separate parties for the first time. This came to a surprise to Jack and Rebecca who were under the impression that their kids loved sharing their birthday and having one big party.

            They obliged of course to their young children and it led to a Madonna-themed party for Kate, a Princess Bride-themed party for Kevin and Randall just asking to have a magician. More problems arise as it seems all is going well for Kate and her party until Jack walks in to see that all the girls left her party to go to Kevin’s. After an attempt to make her feel better, she reveals to her father that she just wants to be left alone. We later see after jumping back and forth between storylines that Kevin is in love with Kate’s best friend, Sophie from a very young age and then its revealed in his older storyline that he used to be married to that same Sophie, years later. Also, Randall only has three kids from his school show up, which concerns Jack and Rebecca before he reassures his mother that it’s okay and he has three “really great” friends that he really enjoys hanging with, bringing a tear to his mother’s eye.

            Jumping into Kevin’s modern storyline, in which the episode gets its title from, “Three Sentences”. It certainly was the most engaging of the week featuring a classic This Is Us twist revealing his former marriage with Sophie. After he tries to have small talk with Sloane following his epic mess up a couple of episodes ago, he calls his sister to try and help him. Instead, Kate thrusts Kevin into taking out Toby to have a good time while she’s at “fat camp” as she calls it. This leads to a great scene filled with humor but also realism in which Toby tells Kevin to close his eyes and think of the one person he loves the most and the three sentences he would tell them if he could. As an audience member, I legitimately did think it was Kevin deciding between Sloane and Olivia so the Sophie twist threw me for an unnecessary loop until I saw the relationship he had with her years earlier.

            In terms of Kate’s story line, it continues to struggle week to week with some great moments before being bogged down with a creepy prospect. Kate struggles to understand why she’s at this “fat camp” at first after going in with an expectation to work out until she pukes and lose weight, but it focuses much more on the emotional core of these people. This leads to an emotional breakthrough in her therapeutic workout class in which she begins to have flashbacks to painful points in her life, including her father’s funeral. It leads to Kate screaming out all of her pain in Chrissy Metz’s best scene in the show thus far. Unfortunately, a camp worker who takes care of the horses named Duke, seems to almost sexually harass Kate and uses it as a flirting technique that for some reason works, (WTF NBC?), he insinuates that she and him will engage something sooner rather than later. This is just weeks after her new fiancé Toby has heart surgery and they agreed to tie the knot, I don’t know what is up with the writing of her story line over this half season but thus far it’s been incredibly surreal and it’s taking me out of her story line completely.

            Randall’s story line is thrust into the background in this episode in which he is truly trying to share some of the last months or possibly days with his ailing father. This is incredibly moving though as Randall is dealing with a huge account at work and doesn’t want to be pulled out of his element before William surprises him at work. This leads to his son helping him cross a great day off of his bucket list that includes buying sunglasses, drink the perfect egg cream and drive a cool car while listening to his favorite song. It follows the trend of the charming nature of the NBC drama and showcases the father-son dynamic that is so great on this show. The one thing that the show seems to get right are the relationships in Randall’s story line as well as Jack’s. Both married couples seem to be as authentic and genuine as any on TV and it’s pretty terrific to get that after only 13 episodes.

            Though this episode shies away from the true dramatic fare that we’ve seen in the last couple of episodes and fills it with humor, it turns out to be a quality episode in the freshman season. Though this Kate storyline is beginning to take me out of her character, it’s not enough to stop the watchability and wonder of what is going to happen with the rest of the characters.

7.6/10