This Is. Us 5.06: "Birth Mother"

“I didn’t even know I was looking for you. And then I found you and you were gone.”
– Randall

As the episode title suggests, this episode is all about seeing Laurel’s past. And I have to admit, it satisfied my hope that it would be in a similar vein to “Memphis”. Yes, we got one person telling her story while we saw things in flashback, but it felt like a good bookend to Randall’s origin story. And I am so glad that we are done with Randall’s search for his roots because now he can move on to other issues like healing things with the rest of his family.

Laurel grew up in New Orleans in 60s and 70s in one of the most prominent Black families in the city. She was ab it of rebellious girl and was always sneaking off to see her Aunt May, whom her father had told her not to see. We don’t learn until much later why he forbade contact and honestly, it spoke to the times she grew up in as to why. But before we get there, we need to talk about her own brother. She adored him (and I want to say that teen Randall played him but I’m not 100% sure). As is the case with so many people, he went to fight in Vietnam and did not come back. That broke Laurel’s heart and her Aunt May helped her through it by showing her how to let out and let go of her pain and grief. Over time, she’s seeing a nice, respectable man who her father approves of, but she is not really interested in. It’s one of those “rich people arranged relationship” type things and you can absolutely tell that isn’t Laurel’s style. She’s fallen in love with a Vietnamese immigrant fisherman who tried t save her when she was letting go of her pain (screaming in the lake). We see them fall in love over time (and see his English improve) and it is very sweet. But when Laurel’s father tells her that the man she’s been seeing is going to propose and he expects her to say “yes”, she freaks and run. She ends up in Pittsburgh where she met William and fell in love and had Randall.

Now, at this point, Randall is obviously upset about the fact Laurel didn’t try to reach out to William after she recovered from her overdose, but we learn that she spent five years in jail in California for drug possession in the early 1980s. And when she was released, she felt such shame that she returned home to her Aunt May. This is when she shares that she had a child with a married man and lost them both (it’s unclear if he took the child or if the baby died). But it is nice to see that Laurel has this person on whom she can lean. And as time goes on, she reconnects with her Vietnamese boyfriend (although not romantically because he’s married and has children). But they rekindle their friendship and eventually he finds out she’s got cancer and takes care of her for two years before she eventually passes away. She also shared her whole story (including Randall) with him during this time and apparently asked him to keep the house until or if he found her son.

As if all of this new information wasn’t enough for Randall to process, the farmhouse where they meet the current-day version of Laurel’s boyfriend is actually the house Aunt May owned which we are to assume she left to Laurel and Laurel left for Randall. So yeah, he and Beth now own a farmhouse on a lake in New Orleans. Randall can’t sleep that night and ends up going to the lake and stripping down naked and walking into the water (yes you could get a glimpse of all of him from the back). So risqué for the 9pm timeslot. Anyway, while he’s in the water he has what can be described as a spiritual experience where he has this whole interaction and conversation with Laurel. It was touching and beautiful as she finally could tell him (or he realized at least) that she loved him. And that William loved him. He’s spent so long wondering why they didn’t when he finally comes to see that they did in fact love him dearly, but circumstances saw fit to keep them from him for a period of time. As he lets out his own cathartic shout, you can just feel the weight finally lifting off Randall. I have to wonder if this will help relieve some of his general anxiety as well or if he will still have that battle. We know that much of his insecurity and inner turmoil came from not feeling like he fit in and I hope now that he knows his place, he can move forward.

As he and Beth start their drive back to Pittsburg, he wants to put the past behind him and Kevin as well. I know they’ve been slowly working toward this all season so I hope we get to see it and that the family can have a little less angst moving forward as we march toward that future with very old Rebecca on her deathbed. But, when he calls Kevin, it really is not a good time. Madison is in labor and Kevin is still in Vancouver and he’s trying to get back before the babies are born. Yeah, I am pretty sure I was yelling at the screen last week that twins come early, and Madison was kind of being too generous assuming the babies would stay put until after Kevin go back from filming. I have a feeling, given the status of filming right now, that the next episode might be the last one we get for a while. And I’m just hoping it doesn’t end on a huge cliffhanger that leaves us wondering forever!

This Is Us 5.05: "A Long Road Home"

“I let myself fall in love with the idea of our family.”
– Madison

This episode seemed to pick up pretty much where we left off in the last episode for some of the characters, but it also seemed like Madison was farther along in her pregnancy as well. Let’s start with Kevin and Madison. They are getting ready to interview a nanny who has been caregiver to the children of stars like Justin Timberlake. Kevin is all excited and then gets a call from his agent that the filming for his movie for the final two weeks has been moved to Vancouver. He says he’s out of the film then because he can’t leave Madison, but she insists he go because there’s still time before the twins are born when he gets back, even with the necessary quarantine procedure on the front end. I wanted to remind her that twins don’t always come on their due date. They often arrive early. But whatever. At the nanny interview, Kevin makes a big deal about needing someone who could travel with the family for consistency. Madison gets upset by this and says she pushed Kevin to do the movie because the babies aren’t here yet and she had the expectation that he would be staying put afterwards. So, she urges Kevin to consider what he really wants and how he’s going to honor that commitment when he heads off to the airport.

On his way there, he calls Randall looking for advice and admits that he often considers what Randall would do in certain situations that he’s unsure of. While it’s nice, the call is definitely awkward and came at a really bad time on Randall’s end. Earlier in the day, he gets the news that a man reached out to him via the city’s complaint contact form and it turns out it is the fisherman grandpa we saw earlier. He lives in New Orleans and he knew Laurel. They were friends and he was with her until she died of breast cancer in 2015. Randall is obviously thrown by this news as we all know William told him his mother died shortly after giving birth. I will say, I liked getting see a snippet of William again as we see him filling Randall in on the fact that Laurel was clean during her pregnancy but OD’d shortly after. Randall hates the idea that William lied to him. After all, we know Randall has massive issues with people lying to him about his heritage. But after talking with his therapist, he decides to reach out and get some answers. And boy is he glad he does. The man explains that he believes William thought that Laurel was dead, so he didn’t lie to Randall. And Randall and Beth decide they are going to head to New Orleans to meet the mans o he can show them where Laurel lived for 35 years and some of her favorite places. I am kind of hoping when we get to that part of the story that it’s told in a similar fashion to Memphis. I think that would be a very fitting counterpoint. It would also allow the writers to fit in the backstory for Laurel in a more organic way. And now I want to know if Randall has more family in New Orleans!

And then there is Kate and Toby. I was a little worried where the story was going to go when we first caught a glimpse of the pregnancy test with teenage Kate, but I was pleasantly surprised by it. We see her make the decision to get an abortion and she learns she has to wait 24 hours before they can do the procedure. She ends up going to see Marc. He acts all nice and makes her food which is classic abuser behavior. Trying to make her think he’s changed or won’t do it again. He even tries to rationalize his past behavior. I am sure she was going there to tell him about the pregnancy but when he starts acting like his usual self and starts drinking, she bolts, ultimately having the procedure on her own. When Rebeca gets home from her trip to see Kevin (who is going to head off to LA and ultimately cheat on Sophie and ruin their marriage), Kate requests ice cream to cheer her up from a sad movie (or you know, making a huge life choice without sharing that with anyone and then carrying the weight of that abuse and that choice for twenty years. In the present, Toby points out that he would have thought she would have told him about the abortion earlier, especially during the two years they were trying to conceive Jack. I would have assumed her doctor would have asked about past pregnancies and she would have disclosed the one at age 18 but maybe I’m wrong or maybe she did, and Toby just wasn’t around. But he also points out she’s clearly not over what happened to her which leads her down an internet stalking rabbit hole where she finds Marc is living in San Diego. She goes to confront him all these years late and he’s still a total douchebag, but she gets to stand up for herself. I had to cheer a little when she told him off after he said she was broken “in all the right ways”. Yes she was grieving and emotionally vulnerable and he took advantage of that pain and used it against her. She finally gets to take her power back and it was so satisfying. And to see her now in a relationship with someone who values her as a person and loves her makes me love Toby even more. Yes he can be kind of corny and over the top but he at least respects Kate as a person. I have to say I missed this show and I’m happy it’s back (for however long we have due to pandemic-related scheduling).