This Is Us 4.15: “Clouds”

“Sometimes, making people forget about their worries or what’s coming next is the most important thing you can do for someone.”
- Rebecca

We are in the home stretch of “This Is Us” and things are starting to settle down for one of the Big Three, but ready to ramp up to 11 for the other two. First, let’s drop in on Kate and Toby. Kate goes off to brunch with Madison, who is trying to apologize for sleeping with Kevin. There doesn’t appear to be any danger of Madison becoming a Pearson but she does give Kate some good advice about how to approach things with Toby. She shouldn’t resent him for being honest about his feelings. So when she goes home, after he’d tried to show her the music studio he wants to build for her, she realizes that he is being sincere in his attempts to be a good dad to Jack. It seems now that he’s been able to deal with his own emotions and fears, he’s in a better place which means he and Kate are going to be in a better place. He doesn’t want to just build the recording studio for Kate. He wants it to be for Jack, too. And we get a sweet montage of Jack growing up in the little studio, all the way to adult Jack recording in there, too. I hope that Kate and Toby are able to stay in a good place (because we really only saw Kate in the montage with Jack as he grew up).

While Kate and toby are on the mend, Kevin and Randall are on a collision course over Rebecca. They just don’t know it yet. Randall spends most of the episode in therapy and it doesn’t go well. Then again, I can’t imagine anyone is surprised by that. He has such a need for control and he even admits that to the therapist. Eventually, as he gets more and more agitated, he exclaims that he’s the whole reason his family hasn’t fallen apart at this point. I definitely think he’s wrong but I can see how he would think that. He feels like he had to step up and be the man of the house after Jack died and take care of Rebecca while his siblings were off doing their thing. But I also think a lot of it was down to Rebecca stepping up for her kids. So that’s going to be interesting as they continue to explore his feelings about his family. He also got really agitated by the out-of-date magazines, the constantly whistling coffee pot and the weird artwork. I think maybe part of the issue with the coffee pot was a little PTSD about the slow cooker but the rest of it was ridiculous. I can also sort of understand why he was mad the doctor Googled him before meeting him but also, she was probably trying to understand where this man was coming from to help him get to the heart of his issues. He’s ready to quit the whole therapy thing when Beth explains that she needs him to get the help because she’s been dealing with things she hasn’t told him about since the break-in because she doesn’t want to put too much on him and watch him fall apart. It was a small scene in comparison but I think it was very impactful. So, by the end of the episode, we see him go back to the office and ready to try again. I know Randall wants a quick fix but with the stuff he’s dealing with, it’s going to take time to unpack, sort through and find ways to deal with it all. And it’s going to be painful.

Meanwhile, Kevin and Rebecca end up going to an old record store where she listens to some Joanie Mitchell, prompting a search for her old house. She says she and Jack tried to find it on their first trip to LA but couldn’t. They didn’t have Siri back then and Kevin finds the house. Rebecca even decides to sneak in (the gate was open). They don’t go in the house but it’s clear Rebecca is loving this fun little mother-son trip. She even says she wants to go his New York premiere with him (which given what we see for the next episode, probably happens). Rebecca doesn’t want to go get her MRI results (which is part of what prompted the trip to find Joanie’s house) but Kevin, for once, is responsible and gets her there (a circumstance Randall rails about in therapy, saying he’ll likely get a text from Kevin saying he lost track of time and missed the appointment). I’m glad Kevin stepped up and was the adult here. It’s showing that he’s starting to really mature. At the end of the episode, he ends up going to buy the same baseball card he and Rebecca hunted for that day long ago to keep in his wallet to remind him to still be fun because that’s what his mother needs him to be right now.

We also see in flashbacks where he got into running. Jack is trying to help Randall manage his worry and anxiety by letting it out through exercise because preteen Randall is stressing over an A-. Kevin managed two As (in PE and Art) and he still gets $10 as promised. He insists that Rebecca take him to the baseball card shop so he can complete his 1991 collection. So while Randall and Jack are off running (and really it can only be a coping mechanism for so long), Kevin and Rebecca end up having fun at the shop trying to find the one card Kevin still needs to complete his collection. And Jack gets to have a really sweet moment with Jack about her breakup with her first boyfriend. He equates first boyfriends to first waffles. You got to go through several before you find the right one. It was so Jack. But it was kind of sweet all the same.

This Is Us 4.14: “The Cabin”

\“It was a fun, silly time capsule, bro. And I choked. I’ve been anxious for so long and I don’t get better. Not really. The truth is, as soon as I tackled that mugger, I had him. I didn’t have to hit him. I wanted to.”
– Randall

This was a really strong episode of “This Is Us”. The Big Three all finally know about Rebecca’s diagnosis and we get a glimpse into the future that answers a few questions. And we are finally done with Marc. When the Big Three are thirteen or so, Jack and Rebecca decide to do a time capsule at the cabin, with the intent of digging it up when the Big Three are eighteen. That obviously never happened so it’s still buried in the back yard. As everyone tries to figure out what to put in it, we see Randall struggle with what he wants to put in while Kevin and Kate seem to already know. It appears Jack is also struggling. Rebecca catches him sketching a design for a big house and he says he wants to build it on the hill above where the cabin is. This all becomes very important to the later storylines. But before we get there, we need to deal with the problem named Marc.

He and Kate arrive at the cabin and he continues to be a manipulative, abusive jackass by first making sure she still loves him and then when she makes coffee and asks him to use a different mug (the one he grabbed was Jack’s and no one but he drank from it), he purposely breaks it and upsets Kate. Then, she goes to get firewood and he takes a dig at her weight before locking her out in the freezing snow for what appears to be quite a while. Meanwhile, Rebecca and the boys are on their way up because Rebecca is worried about Kate given that phone call at the pay phone. They can’t get to the cabin that night because of a road closure due to a tree. When they arrive the next morning, Rebecca insists that Randall and Kevin tell Kate they came up because of the snow. Things quickly devolve though when Kevin remarks on how cold it is in the cabin and then Randall notices a broken window. Then it’s revealed that Kate is wearing gloves to cover up a nasty cut she got on her hand when she broke the window to get back into the house. Marc tries to play it off but Rebecca stands up to him and tells him to get out of her house. And just like that, he’s gone. I will admit, I kind of wished Kevin had gotten to hit Marc because that would have been very satisfying.

Now to the present where the Big Three head to the cabin to try and bond or commiserate or whatever. We briefly get to see Toby taking care of Jack, complete with a choking scare. But baby Jack is okay and then Toby (finally) shares his love of Star Wars with his little boy by making sound effects as he shows him the figurines he has. It was very sweet and I’ve been waiting for Toby to realize he can share things with his son. Back at the cabin, the power goes out and both Randall and Kate start to panic because Randall can’t see the camera feed on the security system and Kate can’t FaceTime Toby and Jack. Kevin is just trying to keep the fact he slept with Madison a secret. But that cat gets out of the bag when Madison leaves Kate a series of voicemails about it while they are at a convenience store stocking up on supplies. When they get back to the cabin, Kate and Kevin note that Randall is not okay given how much he panicked about not being able to reach Beth for a few hours. Randall gets defensive, claiming he’s just exhausted from everything going on, including his trip to LA. And just like that, the cat is out of the bag about Rebecca’s diagnosis. Kevin flips out, assuming (rightly so) that Rebecca was worried about his sobriety. I mean, I can understand him being upset that she didn’t tell him and he was the last to know but also, we saw how easily Kevin feel back into things when life threw curveballs at him. This prompts Kevin to go sit outside for a while, leaving Randall and Kate to work on a puzzle that Jack had created from a family photo. Jack’s eye is missing when they finish up and this prompts Randall to declare it is time to dig up the time capsule. It turns out that Randall couldn’t choose and Kevin told him to take the puzzle piece because when they dig it up, people will be happy they found it. We also discover that Rebecca put Jack’s drawing of the house in and Jack put in a recording explaining about the house and watching the kids try to decide what to put in it. I’m a little surprised they weren’t more emotional hearing his voice for likely the first time in twenty years.

By the end, Kate is heading home and Randall is finally able to admit that he’s not getting better with his anxiety and he needs help. He’s going to consider a therapist but I have my doubts that it’s going to go as expected. And in a glimpse of the future, we see that Kevin built the house that Jack designed on the hill and that’s where everyone has gathered with old Rebecca. Gotta admit, Kevin looks pretty good with the grey in his hair and beard. Not bad. I like that we got that piece of the puzzle (no pun intended) filled in while still leaving lots of questions still to answer. We only have a few more episodes until the end of the season and I’ll be sad when they are over ad we have to wait six months for more. But hey, at least we know the writers get to tell the whole story they intended to tell!

This Is Us 4.13: “A Hell of a Week Part 3”

“I’m strong. You made me strong.”
- Kate

We have reached Kate’s part of this mini trilogy and I have to admit I was a little disappointed. While we got some insight into her relationship with both Toby and Marc, it appears we won’t get the rest of the full story with Marc until next episode. In the way past, we see Jack convince little Kate to tell him a bedtime story since Rebecca is sleeping. It’s a sweet time between father and daughter where he sort of prompts her for information Mad Lib style but it’s all very sweet and we get a story about a princess in a magical forest who meets a prince and they go on an adventure to find her mom. It’s all to be juxtaposed against post high school Kate’s relationship with Rebecca.

In that time period, we see Kate is still dating Marc and working at the record store. He buys her a Patti Smith book and she insists he didn’t have to do it but he says he wanted to because he wants to make her happy. But the minute a customer asks about an album and Kate knows information about it that Marc doesn’t, or at least he perceives she’s trying to show her up, his entire demeanor changes. He then stops talking to Kate until that night when she finally gets him on the phone. He says he was just embarrassed but he’ll see her at her mom’s birthday dinner. But things don’t go like she’s planned. Rebecca, probably sensing that there’s something off about Marc after hearing Kate argue with him on the phone, asks Kate to have coffee with the three of them so she can get to know Marc. Marc is late and he’s kind of a jerk before saying he’s quit his job at the music store because he was getting bored and his boss was on him about taking too many smoke breaks. He also says that he and Kate are going to record songs together and suggests the family cabin. The Pearsons hadn’t even opened the cabin yet but Kate says that she and Marc can do it. But when Rebecca tells her she doesn’t think it’s a good idea, Kate storms off with marc to the cabin that night. Not surprisingly, things get tense in the car when Marc tells Kate she should quit her job, too. When she says he can’t because she needs the money, he gets really upset and starts driving erratically. When he finally stops, he kicks Kate out of the car, leaving her on the side of the road. She manages to call Rebecca in tears but then Marc shows up at the gas station with a blanket and ushers her back into the car. This prompts the scene we’ve seen a few times now with Rebecca and the boys heading out to go get her because it’s clear she’s in trouble. From what I’ve glimpsed from the preview for the next episode, Marc’s behavior escalates and I suspect we will find out what happened to split them up.

In the present, we are still the night after Toby’s birthday party. He’s obsessing on the fact Jack could see a little light and shadow and he’s researching a girl who underwent gene therapy and got some vision back. I have to say, Toby’s perspective really annoys me. It’s probably because he’s seeing his son as all the things he can’t do, rather than what he can. As a blind person, that just rubs me the wrong way. I know there are plenty of people out there who feel the same way as Toby but it just makes me sad that he is still wallowing. The next day, Kate ends up going to the retreat with Jack and Rebecca because Toby says he can’t cancel a bunch of meetings at work. I did like seeing Gregory again and the fact that he seems to be a shoulder that Kate can lean on. She’s kind of overwhelmed by all of the discussion and people at the retreat but she’s also energized by it. She sees all the possibilities for her son from learning music with Braille to riding a bike with a bit of echo location assistance. Kate does express real worries about what’s happening in her marriage but Rebecca assures her that she’s capable of handling whatever comes and raising jack if that’s what it comes down to. She also convinces Kate to have a late night pool heart to heart. I like that we get to see Kate finally finding her mom again like little Kate wanted in her story. Rebecca ends up sharing her diagnosis with Kate. She explains that it feels liberating because sure she knows there will come a time when things get bad but for now, she’s going to live and enjoy life as much as possible. It’s made her free. So now two of the three kids know the truth about Rebecca’s condition. So I don’t feel like this is what is going to set Randall and Kevin on the path to not speaking in nine months. When Kate and Rebecca get home, Kate flat out asks Toby if he’s able to be the man she needs him to be as a husband and father and he says he wants to be. After the Big (Sad) Three call, she tells him he needs to just do it. She’s going to take Jack to the cabin for the weekend with Kevin and Randall but Toby insists that he take care of Jack for the weekend. It appears from the preview that Kate has concerns about it but fi Toby is really serious about wanting to step up and move past his own issues, then I think taking care of Jack by himself is a good way to do it. Plus it gives him some time to really bond with his son which he sorely needs.

As always, I appreciate this show for tackling real issues that have real consequences. They don’t shy away from topics that are uncomfortable and they aren’t afraid to show perspectives that may be unpopular. The writers are respectful of the story lines they are telling and I am glad that they continue to do that as the show progresses. I also like that they are starting to focus on more of the present and future rather than the past, even though I adore Jack (with all of his flaws). Most of his story has been told by this point. I don’t think he’ll be gone from the show because he’s such a part of the characters’ collective story and memory but they acknowledge it’s time to focus on other characters.

This Is Us 4.12: “A Hell of a Week: Part Two”

“At the funeral today, I was about the lose it. But I found you and I locked in on you.”
- Sophie

This episode could have gone a ton of ways. I’m kind of glad it went the direction it did, even if it means we aren’t really any closer to solving the Kevin’s baby-mama drama. And much last the Big Three-centric episodes of the past, we continue with the storyline in past and present from Kevin’s point of view. We get see flashback to the night Jack died as well as to the night of Rebecca’s birthday when the Big Three are college-age. And we also see Jack having to console little Kevin who wants his sheep mobile from his crib but it turns out Rebecca donated it. I think Jack has done less damage (or at least not in the same way as with Randall) by telling Kevin that sometimes things we love go away and we have to find new things to love. I hope Kevin is doing that with Sophie but that’s still kind of up in the air.

The night Jack dies, we get to see that Kevin gets a warm reception from his future mother-in-law, Claire. We also see Kevin and Sophie head to the movies from the lame party, then head back to the campsite because the movie projector has problems. They vow never to see the end of Good Will Hunting (because they think the endings they can come up with are way better). They don’t explain this right away so when Kevin gives Sophie a scenario when she calls to tell him her mother died, it’s a little out of left field. But we do get the sense that it’s something that’s been a long-standing thing between them. We then jump to the past of Rebecca’s birthday when Kevin and Sophie show up a day early and go to hang out with Claire again. Apparently things between her and Sophie are a bit volatile because Sophie thinks her mother is irresponsible with money and instead of fixing an issue with the house, Claire bought tickets for she and Sophie to go see the Aurora Borealis. Kevin then takes the chance to tell Claire he’d like Sophie’s grandmother’s ring to give to Sophie, since they basically eloped. Claire tells Kevin he hasn’t earned it. And as we know, he never does because of the way he screws up with her so frequently. And then we get a tiny hint about past Kate’s storyline. Kevin shows up with flowers for Rebecca and she says that dinner is cancelled because she and Kate got into a fight, Kate went off with Marc and then Kate called Rebecca crying.

But things take an interesting turn in the present. Kevin goes to the funeral but doesn’t approach Sophie. I did like how we got to see her give the eulogy for her mother and nearly breaking down before she found Kevin amongst the crowd and it centered her. They really so wrapped up in each other’s stories. Later, at the reception, Kevin shows up with donuts and Sophie asks him to get her out of there. They drive around for a while until he takes her back to the campsite where he learned that Jack died. He tells Sophie that he never thought he could go back there (she’d explained in her eulogy that she couldn’t go back to her and her mother’s favorite coffee shop because that’s where she found out about her mother’s death) but Kevin points out that with time and space, he was able to come back. It still makes him sad, obviously, but it doesn’t hurt the same way. They also decide to watch the ending of Good Will Hunting and agree the real ending was way better than any they came up with. They exchange longing looks before Sophie tells Kevin it’s time for her to go home. I don’t think Sophie quite knows what to make of Kevin popping up into her life again. He’s definitely in a better place than he ever was when they were together. In fact, Kevin points that out when he goes to visit Claire’s grave alone. He tells her that she was right about him becoming a star and she was probably right and knew he’d screw up with Sophie. He’s got a line about how he wishes he could have another shot with her but it’s too late. But we also get the sense that Sophie isn’t entirely thrilled with her fiancé, either.

I suspect we’ll have to wait a little while for that story to pick up again. As this week’s episode wraps up, we get back to Randall and Kevin’s phone call. We see Kevin in bed with a blond who turns out to be Kate’s friend Madison. She was dog-sitting while Kate is at a retreat and Sophie is at work. Madison is wallowing a bit after being broken up with and Kevin realizes the next morning what a huge mistake he made. He seems to have a thing for hooking up with Kate’s friends. Anyway, he proposes to Randall that they make a trip to the cabin to get away from everything that’s been going on. They conference call in Kate who agrees it’s needed, especially because ominously she says her marriage is on the verge of imploding. I want to know what’s going on with Kate’s story. It’s too bad we have to wait a couple weeks to get the resolution to this mini-arc of story. I have to hand it to the writers and producers of this show. They are very good at seamlessly fitting scenes from other episodes together. I have to believe all three of these episodes were shot together so that scenes where we were going to get coverage from both sides are consistent. I can’t wait to see how this wraps up and where we go after this part of story.

This Is Us 4.11: “A Hell of a Week: Part One”

“Look bro, I get it. Us men of a certain shade aren’t used to talking. But that’s therapy, right? Talking.”
- Darnell

This week kicks off the yearly Big Three-centric episodes and we begin with Randall. As we know, he has struggled with panic attacks and anxiety from a very young age. As it turns out, it probably started in his very early childhood when he and his siblings moved to big kid beds and he was convinced there were monsters under the bed. Jack slept on the floor for a while but when he tries to sneak out, Jack tells him that he needs Randall to be strong and brave for him because his siblings are kind of high maintenance. I don’t usually disagree with Jack’s parenting but here I think he set Randall up for a rough time.

The majority of the episode splits between the present and when the Big Three were just out of high school. In the past, Randall is dealing with crazy stress-filled dreams about Jack. He keeps seeing various scenarios where he can’t interact with his family and he’s left standing there yelling at them and nothing happens. Beth tries to support Randall and suggests he see a counselor to deal with the trauma of losing his dad and the stress. He brushes it off. He does, however, agree to go with her to Grief party 9which sounds like a really weird idea but I’m intrigued and kind of sad we won’t get to see it). The reason: the family is gathering to rally around Kate. She’s still seeing Marc (the slime ball abusive boyfriend) and something has happened which puts a damper on celebrating Rebecca’s birthday. If these episodes are like the ones where we saw Jack’s last day from each of their perspectives, I suspect we will finally get to see what happened to Kate.

I’m thinking Randall probably should have gotten therapy a long time ago because he’s not coping well with a lot of things going on in his life right now. He is clearly stressed and anxious about Rebeca’s condition and keeping it from his siblings. I do think it is really unfair of Rebecca to make Randall that information from Kevin and Kate. At the close of the previous episode, Randall went into the kitchen to get some water and was confronted by a figure. At first I thought it was going to be a figment of his imagination like a smoke and soot covered Jack or something but it’s some kid wielding a knife and he’s very real. Randall offers his credit card, tells him the police are on the way and kid takes off.

Now, Randall was totally lying about having a security system or that the police were on the way. The officer who responded to his later call explains that sometimes burglars come back the next night because often families don’t feel safe and they stay in a hotel. Randall isn’t going to leave his home undefended so he sends Beth and the girls to a hotel for the night and he installs a very high-tech security system which ends up consuming a lot of his focus. He’s hyper aware and he isn’t sleeping. He’s got every notification possible on the app for the security system running so he knows when a leaf blows across a sensor. He also freaks out when he comes home and the alarms are going off. Annie opened a window and set off the alarm and Beth couldn’t remember the override code.

The lack of handling his anxiety becomes obvious when he holds a Town Hall with his district to talk about the new housing bill he’s backing that could impact a lot of small business owners. One in particular is Malik’s dad. He shows up when Randall is about to go for a run (to try and manage his anxiety) and points out that the new condos could hike up his rent to a point he couldn’t continue to operate his shop. He also tells Randall that talking helps deal with anxiety and he ended up going to therapy after confiding in a minister for a while (until the minister got tired of giving out free therapy). It is obvious that Randall isn’t into the suggestion, even though I think he really needs it. I understand there is a huge stigma around mental health in the African American community, especially with men, but Randall is going to fall to pieces again and it’s going to be ugly and he needs to get help. It doesn’t help that as he’s out for his run, he sees a woman being mugged and he jumps in and starts being up the attacker (breaking a few bones in his hand in the process).

As Beth and Randall try to get back to normal after the break-in, they realize that the burglar actually was in their bedroom and took a pair of Beth’s earrings and a pair of Randall’s cufflinks. This sends Randall spiraling into bad dream territory again as he imagines worst case scenarios of the burglar hurting Beth. Ultimately, he calls Kevin (who he’d talked to briefly before to let him know what happened). We also learn that Sophie’s call in the last episode was to let Kevin know her mother died so he’s now in Pittsburgh for the funeral. Yeah, that’s not going to end well (or hey, if she’s the baby mama then maybe it is). As Randall breaks down in the bathroom. I guess he’s willing to talk to his brother (sort of) about what’s happening and he asks Kevin just to talk to him, which Kevin says he’s good at doing.

As much as I love Randall, him not being willing to accept help when multiple people suggested he do so is really irritating. Perhaps this whole situation will convince him to go talk to someone who isn’t a member of his family or spouse. Someone who doesn’t already know the Pearson baggage. I have a feeling this show isn’t shy about addressing lots of topical issues and mental health in general is a big one. So here’s hoping they continue with the storyline. I think it was good to see how even though we like to think Randall has it all together, he really doesn’t and he’s fallible, too. Annoyance aside, this does make him human and I love that about this show. It just shows people living their lives and follows you through the good and the bad.

This Is Us 4.10: “Light and Shadow”

“That’s what I am. A part-time mechanic. That not who you belong with.”
– Jack

The first episode of 2020 was a bit of an emotional roller coaster for the Pearsons (then again, when isn’t it?). Kevin is determined to find his future spouse (and procreate) in the next nine months and to do that, he’s decided the best move is the hire a matchmaker. But he quickly realizes it’s a load of crap when he goes on a date with a racist woman. Not long after that, he ends up meeting the woman he thinks is “it” in a coffee shop. They go on this really fun date (where he rents out the Hollywood Bowl and gets John Legend to sing for her) but then she admits that he’s’ her hall pass (as in the one celebrity she could sleep with and it wouldn’t count as cheating). But she can’t actually go through with it. This leaves Kevin quite dejected but he’s’ got other things to focus on, like reshoots for his big movie. And just as he heads to set, he gets a call from Sophie. He doesn’t see it though and it just makes me wonder if he’s going to go back down that road again. Is she really going to be his big love story? They really aren’t’ good together and Kevin just keeps breaking the poor woman’s’ heart. But I guess we will have to wait and see.

Randall is still dealing with the possibility of Rebecca having some cognitive issues. He’s doing it alone because she’s asked that he not involve his siblings. So he flies out to California to go with her for some neurological testing. Miguel isn’t exactly happy that Randall is butting in. But when the tests reveal Rebecca is having some memory issues, he starts to feel guilty about missing or ignoring the signs. He admits he noticed things but he just wanted to attribute it to getting older. I can understand it has to be terrifying to see someone you love fade away like that and I know we are going to have to see that with Rebecca on screen, too, which is going to be really rough. I did like hearing Rebecca tell Randall that she would sneak into the nursery when he was a baby because he would wake up early and they would sit and she’d rock him and listen to music and they would watch the sunrise through the closed curtains.

In the flashbacks, we see the aftermath of the golf club incident where Jack got drunk and had that confrontation with Rebecca’s dad. Jack breaks up with Rebecca, claiming he’s not good enough for her and then not long after, Rebecca’s mom drops the news on her daughter that her dad basically scared Jack off. Rebecca isn’t having any of this possessive, aggressive nonsense and she tracks Jack down at the garage where he works part-time 9blowing off her dad’s big birthday party) and tells him that he is worthy of her and they’re going to have an epic love story. I think this flashback serves two purposes. We see where Kevin thinks he gets the notion of this epic love story for himself (then again, he only saw pieces and not all the rough patches along the way) and also to serve as Rebecca trying to hang on these memories of her husband.

And then there was Kate and Toby. As you might recall, Kate saw a text from one of Toby’s cross fit friends basically trash talking Kate at Thanksgiving time. When they get home from the holiday, Kate confronts Toby about it and he says that there’s nothing going on with this woman and they are just friends and sometimes he vents to his friends but he’s not lying to her and would never do so. Fast forward to the New Year and she is getting ready to throw Toby a Jimmy Buffet-themed birthday party (hence where Kevin meets Mrs. Hall Pass). Kate is trying to keep an open mind about the whole thing and says she’s happy to meet Toby’s cross fit friends so maybe she can stop being so stressed about the woman he’d been texting with. At the party, however, the woman isn’t there and Kate learns form one of his other friends that Toby hasn’t been the gym in several weeks (despite the fact that Kate has been giving him protein shakes and he’s been heading off or so she thinks that whole time). After the party, they have yet another confrontation. Toby admits that the woman tried to kiss him but he rebuffed it and he made the decision to switch gyms so that he wouldn’t have to deal with her and he didn’t want to tell Kate because he thought she’d be suspicious (which she is). I think we are seeing the lingering trauma of Kate’s relationship after high school.

Then we get into the bigger discussion of why Toby seems to avoid being at home. He confirms that Kate does feel him pulling away but it’s not due to an affair or anything like that. He’s been avoiding being around baby Jack because it just makes him so sad. He feels like his son is going to miss out on so much of life and Toby doesn’t want to ruin the pure joy that Kate has when she looks at Jack. This was kind of a tough storyline for me. Being the blind (or visually impaired) person, I know that life can be fulfilling and that one’s disability shouldn’t hold you back. And we’ve seen that clearly Jack succeeds in life. One of the things Toby said about not being able to watch Star Wars with his son hit me. Blind people can watch movies, too. It’s just a different experience. Kate tells Toby that she got him a getaway at a retreat for families with blind children but now she’s not really looking forward to it. Until she realizes that baby Jack has some light perception. As lovely as that is, I don’t really think they should be getting that excited over it. But hey, if it puts them in a more positive space, then good for them. Next week starts a trio of Big Three centric episodes where we find out more about Randall’s anxiety and how he handles (or fails to handle) it.

Thanksgiving "Classic" Recap: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: "Kimmy Finds Her Mom!"

“I’ll bring you back a real Florida souvenir. Like a python. Or a gun!”
-Kimmy

I think Thanksgiving is the most difficult holiday to find TV episodes to recap, but this was a pretty good one. The second season finale of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” was all about avoiding, then confronting, hard truths. It also had some Thanksgiving trappings to frame everything out. This episode also really reminded me that the earlier seasons of “Kimmy Schmidt” were the product of a much simpler time, when there was room to deal with issues like the Washington football team’s offensive name or the pros and cons of gentrification. These days, there are daily embarrassments emanating from the federal government that don’t really leave room to get into much else.

Let’s start by talking a bit about the uncomfortable truths Titus must confront. He has gotten a job on a cruise ship, so he and Kimmy are on their way to Florida (more about Kimmy’s quest in the Sunshine State in a bit). He’s supposed to join the ship in Miami. After Titus and Kimmy go their separate ways, however, Titus gets cold feet. He asks for a sign that he’s supposed to go on the cruise ship, and instead, he sees a bus pull up that says “Titusville.” This takes him, of course, to the home of the Kennedy Space Center. Titus isn’t quite sure what to make of the place and its casual racism. When he has a chance to enter a drawing to have lunch with a real, live astronaut, though, he takes it. Since he and this town share a name, he is determined to make the best of it. He wins the raffle, though, and the astronaut he gets to meet changes his perspective. The astronaut explains that he never got to go to space because the manned spaceflight program ended (which is sort of true…a few American generally go to the International Space Station using Russian Soyuz rockets each year). Titus finds this rather pathetic and surprising, and he uses it as fuel to go back to chasing his real dreams, which are on that cruise ship in Miami.

Kimmy was in Florida hoping to find her mother. She knows her mother is a huge coasterhead, and there is a particular coaster at Universal that she and her friends were going to be riding. Kimmy has a lot of unresolved issues with her mother (namely, wondering why her mother wasn’t able to rescue her from the Reverend and why she hasn’t contacted her since she was found), and she’s ready to say it all out loud. When Kimmy does find her mother at the amusement park, however, her plans get thrown for a bit of a loop. Kimmy’s mom, played by the always funny Lisa Kudrow, immediately owns up to being a less than ideal mother, and she apologizes, which is not something Kimmy expected. Kimmy hadn’t really thought about how her kidnapping would be tough on her mom, too (she had to leave Indiana because everyone expected her to be sad all the time), so she goes along with her mom’s glossing everything over for a while.

There’s an especially poignant moment when Kimmy’s mom yells at her to get out of the ball pit because it’s almost time for them to ride the big roller coaster, and Kimmy gets held up because the Velcro on her shoe comes undone. Kimmy’s mom never taught her how to tie her shoes, and on another occasion when she had to stop walking to fix her Velcro, Kimmy got kidnapped. Anyway, Kimmy and her mom end up screaming out all their issues to each other while on the coaster, which is really kind of perfect. Kimmy doesn’t really end up seeing her mom’s side of things (Kimmy was genuinely hurt by her mom’s actions growing up), but she does decide not to let it define her. She tells her mom they’re cool, and Lori-Ann Schmidt leaves happy. Before she leaves, she does offer one interesting tidbit: she likes rollercoasters so much because you can scream your head off and nobody looks at you funny. I thought that was profound (and sad) in a way.

The story of Lillian’s fight against gentrification also comes to a climax in this episode. She is feeling very lonely with Kimmy and Titus off to Florida and Jaqueline spending time with Russ. She notices just how much the neighborhood has changed, with mom’s running along with their strollers down the sidewalk with abandon. She decides to put the house up for sale as “3 BR 0 LGL BA” because of course. I thought that was such a funny little detail. Instead of a buyer, though, a political operative knocks on the door wanting Lillian to run for office. I don’t remember where this plot thread goes in the next season, but part of me wants to rewatch season three to remember.

Finally, Jaqueline is spending Thanksgiving with Russ and his family. She is all set to impress him with her apartment that she can’t really afford. At first, she really gets along with Russ’s brother, Duke, played by the always snobbishly charming Josh Charles. She also gets to see first hand how horribly Russ is treated by his family – he is constantly the subject of their crude jokes. Everything changes, though, when Jaqueline realizes that Russ’ family are the owners of Washington’s football team. Being Native American herself, Jaqueline is quite offended by this. The Snyders won’t hear of changing the name, though, even when Jaqueline explains exactly why she finds it offensive. She’s about to tell Russ she needs to break up with him, but he explains that he actually agrees with her and fully supports her quest to take down Washington’s football team.

The episode ends with a little Friendsgiving scene between Kimmy, Jaqueline, Lillian, and Titus (who appears via video chat), which ties a nice little bow on everything. Then Kimmy gets a call from none other than the Reverend himself. He says he’s getting married, so he needs to get a divorce from Kimmy first. This is quite the twist and makes for some interesting storytelling in the next season. Until next time, I hope you all ate too much on Thursday and enjoyed time with family. Happy Thanksgiving!