'This Is Us' Episode 7, Season 1 Review

Image from International Business Times

By Darian Scalamoni

            Episode seven for This Is Us was the worst of the season. Granted, it was far from a bad episode but it was much more along the lines of nothing really happened. Most of the episode followed the sibling rivalry that we were building up to between Randall and Kevin which goes in a direction that we saw coming.

            This week’s episode was just tonally off, a week after the hectic, world-shattering election, you would think that NBC would want to come out swinging. The episode was titled “The Best Washing Machine in the Whole World” and it opened with Jack and Rebecca playfully fighting over getting a new washer as the kids were getting older and they were now doing more loads than they ever have. We then see how years later, with their three kids in high school, life is very much getting away from them. Their marriage is on a slippery slope, mostly because Jack is distracted by work and is slowly but surely missing out on the important aspects that once made their relationship so special. Even on top of that though, Randall and Kevin are playing each other in a high school football game, the stakes are escalated by the incessant fighting at home between the brothers. So much so, that Kevin moves into the basement just to get away from his adopted brother.

            It’s very formulaic how it jumps from the story of them as high schoolers and then adult life when they’re supposed to grab dinner with their mother before she has to cancel, causing the brothers, now very much into their adult lives to grab dinner together. This doesn’t last long as Kevin discovers that Randall has never watched an episode of his hit TV show, The Manny which causes a storm out of the restaurant they’re in. This leads to a great monologue from Sterling K. Brown on the streets of New York in which he starts clearing the air before an ignorant comment from Kevin ruins all the progress Randall is trying to make. That was all great but the cameo from Seth Meyers out of nowhere (come on NBC, you’re better than that) makes the whole situation laughable and even a line like “he’s my brother” that should have much more weight to it is ruined and doesn’t get its point across until Randall brings it up again later in the episode.

            In addition to that, Kate is thrown the short end of the stick this week again and I’m starting to dislike her as a character. She discovers that Toby is not only losing more weight than her on a week-to-week basis but he’s also cheating the whole time. She then reminds him of her line from episode one that “she can’t date a fat person right now” and thinks to possibly break up with him. I’m sorry but I think this is completely ignorant too. She has a great guy in front of her and she would walk away because behind her back he’s eating crappy food. I would think he’s even being more considerate by not doing it in front of her and making it harder for her. At the end of the episode, she hits a low point and is eating powdered doughnuts in her car.

            The best part of the episode is when Randall’s wife and dad eat pot brownies to help ease the pain of William’s current chemo treatment. In their drug-infused state, Beth quotes a poem from his poetry book before he inadvertently blurts out “the one I gave Rebecca back in the day”. They quickly both come to and realize what he said and Beth turns to an intense state. William tells her that she can’t say anything to her husband or it will destroy his closeness with his adoptive mother, Rebecca. This provides a new predicament for weeks ahead and actually builds on the show.

            All in all, I wasn’t a big fan of the episode in general. There were highlights but the lack of exploration within Jack and Rebecca this week and a poor writing decision on Kate leads me to give this episode the lowest score of the season thus far.

6/10