In all the flashbacks, Kate is overweight. I don’t think it’s just guilt about her dad’s death.
I also caught Miguel’s message and thought it was foreshadowing. I assumed his dad’s abusiveness was in part because of alcohol so could be a family problem.
Hi Toledo, good to see you. 
I think this is a emotional reaction from Randall Rebecca said last night that when she was pregnant 8 years ago he refused to let her lift a finger - and all the pressure of trying to do everything at work and home drove him to a mental breakdown. She said she found him in the bathroom corner saying that he couldn’t see with his eyes. So I felt confident last night that what we were seeing was emotional.
I didn’t watch the “after” show from last nights episode yet.
Regarding the issue of realism. The initial premise of the show, that any social service agency would allow a brand new mother of twins to take home an abandoned infant, is so insanely unrealistic that any viewer of This Is Us should have known from the start that realism wasn’t going to be the show’s hallmark. What bothered me most about Kevin’s actions wasn’t the lack of realism, but the fact that the character was so oblivious to the tremendous damage he was doing to others. (Or he was aware and just didn’t care.) Forget the effect on his own career–that’s his choice–but the playwright, the rest of the people who made the show possible, the attendees, etc., were all treated horribly so Kevin could be the white knight. People who get their jollies out of “saving” others usually have a mess of psychological junk going on, and I’m sure that’s the case with Kevin, but the sheer selfishness of his actions left the biggest impression on me. (I was hollering at the TV, “Call 911 and get out on the stage you idiot!”) I wasn’t terribly fond of Kevin as a character to begin with, but now he’s by far my least favorite. (And given my feelings about Toby, that’s saying a lot.)
Exactly. The adoption of Randall was sort of the McGuffin that got the story going – and employed some Black actors! – so I didn’t mind it so much. Also, it was much more believable in 1980, if still somewhat over the edge. But the complete craziness of Kevin’s actions both betrayed the show’s implicit promise to look at the struggles of real people with whom we might identify and showed that the writers/producers have never had a handle on what they want to do with Kevin’s character (besides looking cute and hooking up with a series of very attractive guest stars), and basically have him bouncing around randomly like a superball in a small room. Except, of course, like pretty much all of the characters except sometimes young Rebecca, sometimes young Jack, and always Randall’s wife, he is completely self-centered.
Randall: Both emotional and physical, I think. The tremor in his hand plus the challenges at work – not to mention finding and being about to lose his father, on top of all the normal family stuff – clearly have him freaked out, but I don’t think the tremor is supposed to be psychological, and I wondered whether he had had a small stroke at the end of the show. (Someone might figure that out if Kevin bothered to call 911 when he finds Randall nonresponsive on his office floor . . . but, noooooo. It’s time to hug it out!)
So if you get a call at work just as you’re about to give a big presentation to a client that your college student or husband/wife is perhaps in big emotional or physical trouble you’re just going to just call 911, consider it done for now and go ace that presentation???
Oh, incidentally ^^^that is exactly what happened with Randall - he left his meeting to go aid his sick father. No one here is disputing that?
That perhaps is another character trait they are bringing out - the SAMENESS of Randall and Kevin in making this difficult decision. Perhaps, both based on their dad.
The scene with Kevin leaving the theatre on opening night was ridiculous. Anyone who knows anything about theatre knows that that would never happen. Never. I know actors who have gone on a few hours after an immediate family member has passed away, and all variety of other serious matters. This is the type of sloppy writing that ruins an otherwise good episode. It reminded me a lot of several episodes of Parenthood that had the same problem.
Jack’s drinking problem was shown in a very early episode.
Parenthood was perfect. 
I don’t know that much about theater but even I know that was ridiculous! I do know something about foster care, adoption and got an MSW about the timeframe of this adoption of Randall. And I agree that this aspect of things is also problematic- you are just not going to go home with an extra kid just because you lost a baby and think you needed to go home with three kids instead of two! And the whole pros and cons of transracial adoption were being bandied about then. Big time. It is more common these days , and celebrities have been key in that. As has been the whole movement with more adoption in general of kids from China, Guatemala, etc. by families. Adoption by gay couples,etc. But, in 1980, these things, in general, were just not happening at the levels they are now.
Man, do you all look for all these holes and misrepresentations of real life in every TELEVISION SHOW that you watch? It’s not a documentary, it’s entertainment!
I love the show as it is. I love the emotion whether it has holes or slight inconsistencies. It’s 45 minutes of so of family drama, it’s not 24/7 real life, real family.
Only a few more weeks and it will be over until fall.
In general, I do just watch for entertainment. But some of this really has been unusually strange, if they are really trying to depict a real slice of life. The things that are clearly meant to be pure entertainment seem different. We’re watching The Walking Dead right now. As far as I know, I don’t have any zombies in my neighborhood so can suspend belief. But maybe I need to be more vigilant and should check!
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Kevin was not a stage actor. Kevin had cold feet and ,in addition, was afraid of failure. He was looking for any excuse not to be up on that stage. Kate wasn’t there when he needed her either. Now he can use Randall once again as his excuse for his own shortcomings.
Without the self awareness of course.
I’ll buy into that.
For the most part, I’m with you, @abasket. I have little problem with the willing suspension of disbelief when watching television. I mean, I’m a huge sci-fi fan; need I say more?
Having said that, what Ken Olin et al. were after in that scene was pathos. The problem is that pathos is much more easily achieved when the audience identifies with the characters, and it is hard to identify with Kevin for many of us.
The choice he made? Well I guess I can see myself rushing to help a loved one in very serious trouble. But his execution of the decision? His leaving so many other people in the lurch? That’s much harder to identify with.
I kind of sensed they were just teasing us with the “Jack death story” during the scene with Kate and Toby. I, for one, am enjoying the suspense and am in no hurry to find out what happened. After all this buildup, though, I hope it lives up to the hype.
I sure hope they don’t just “tell” us what happened to Jack over a piece of pie. We deserve more than that–they better “show” us after all this build up.
I can’t even imagine what it might be like for doctors, nurses, lawyers, etc. watching shows that depict their profession. Most of the shows seem to have consultants that try to keep things real but I’m sure there are still things that get through. We like Chicago Fire and my engineer husband has a couple of times started to comment about things- that is not going to hold, that’s going to topple, load bearing stuff, tension, they need to act fast, etc. Luckily, the firefighters usually seem to figure it out and know what they’re doing and save people!
@redpoodles , I hope so too. I still remember the death of the dad on Dawson’s Creek, just going out to buy some milk. We need to see it and the aftermath of his death.
This week was much better than last, and I’m willing to suspend belief (I’m binge watching 24) but Kevin leaving was a three-sigma problem.
@sevmon, I also have watched Chicago Fire and having it follow This is Us makes for a busy Tuesday night. The firefighters are amazing, and I love the characters and story lines.
My son is a firefighter and a paramedic, and we have had many discussions about scenes in Chicago Fire that are not true to realty. But it’s a drama, and I still enjoy the show!
If you want reality you have to stick with CSPAN. ;))
I liked this weeks show much more. I’m finding that I think young Kate’s character is my least favorite to watch. I like her and all, she’s just not as interesting to me as the others. I do enjoy mature Kate and the interactions with the kids…more interesting story. I can suspend reality for entertainment. However, I have to admit when they showed the girl standing on the stage alone, I thought “oh, come on”. I think that was a bit of lazy, easy writing. Keven is impulsive, and I could see him leaving her high and dry, but why not a brief interaction between the two before he takes off. That wouldn’t have suspended belief so much.
I feel like I ought to point out that when Randall left the meeting to deal with his father there was no one else who could deal with it. His wife was off helping her mother who had just broken her hip, and his father had locked his hospice aide out of the house. And leaving the meeting was a hit to his career and reputation, but did not harm his firm or any client – there was ample coverage for the client (which of course upset Randall a lot). And . . . he apologized to everyone and explained himself before he left.
That was perfectly realistic. Stuff like that happens in real life all the time, sometimes just like that. I’ve had it happen to me a few times, especially when my wife was working a high-pressure job in a distant city and her mother had Alzheimer’s-related problems. The people around you – co-workers, clients, adversaries – generally give you space to deal with problems like that as long as you are polite and don’t abuse them.
That’s not what Kevin did at all. Randall’s mother, super-sensitive stepfather, and triplet-sister were 30 feet from Kevin when he took off. None of them had anything to do for the next couple of hours besides sit there and watch Kevin. Thinking that he, personally, had to go check up on Randall was unbelievably egotistical, and doing it without a word to anyone was nuts.
None of the actors, writers, producers on the show would have done anything like that. They didn’t need engineering experts or professional consultants to tell them how real-life actor-producers behave.