This Is Us just finished premiering on NBC, and boy did it live up to the hype. Check out our review of the show’s premiere episode.
It’s here! It’s finally here. When I saw this episode back in July, I had to keep tight-lipped and adamant that I would not spoil the gift that is This Is Us for the friends and family who I kept encouraging to watch and add this to their fall TV list. Now I’m so happy to be able to share my love for this show with what I hope to be millions of others.
The series opens up brilliantly with a look at each of the characters that we’re going to get familiarized with each and every week, and within the first few minutes I found myself already in love with every single one of them.
I’ll start (continue) my praise with my favorite character, Kate. Kate is a girl that we’re already all too familiar with — the girl who is kind, genuine and full of heart but suffers from insecurities that she can’t shake despite the supportive people in her life. She’s sick of overeating and I feel like she represents all of us who have our own self-doubts about body image. She fell while weighing herself in the bathroom and that’s when she convinces herself (with a little help from her brother) that she needs to get out and take a stand against her insecurities, to work hard toward a healthier lifestyle. It’s something that I think we’ve all attempted to do at least one point in our lives, right?
That’s when she meets Toby, who’s the best partner in a weight-loss support group I think any of us could ever have. While the rest of the attendants growl at their partners and themselves about their eating habits, Toby is the only one who’s able and willing to laugh at not only himself but the others around him. This could have come across as rude, but his connection with Kate from across the room and his openness about the ridiculous admissions their peers are making make both Kate and I smile. As they talk to each other and open up, you realize that they both want the same thing, but they’re not about to be self-deprecating in the process.
Next in my line of favorites is Kevin, who plays an admittedly stereotypical role of an actor who wants to be taken more seriously in Hollywood instead of being cast for the eye candy that he appears to be. While the plot is stereotypical, his character is anything but as he causes a scene on his own sitcom and quits in front of a live audience. He’s done being their eye candy, and I whooped with happiness as he walked out.
Kevin was first introduced to us in a bedroom scene with two other ladies, but instead of reveling in his fame and ability to get laid, he was reflecting on the fact that his life, while great, has not taken him where he wants to be at the age of 36. This is where we start to see that he’s more complex of a character than a famous actor who uses his name and appearance to get sex and money, and throughout the episode, his complexity deepens as he supports his sister and goes to her for support when he quits his job.
Meanwhile, we’re introduced to another amazingly complex character. Randall has been searching for the man who dropped him off at a fire station 36 years ago, and in this episode he finally finds him. His confrontation with his father, William, is everything I imagine saying to the people I, myself, have beef with. With determination and bravery, he lays on his father everything he’s been wanting to say to him for the past 36 years… and then the moment breaks. That’s when reality sets in and the fabric is pulled back to reveal the man behind the curtain of bravery we saw just seconds ago.
Randall invites his father to his home to meet his family, and he’s no longer portrayed as this badass dude who confronts people with no emotional ties, but a guy who had all these things to say and yet also wants to find a connection with the father he never got to know. I’m not adopted, so I can’t speak for how it feels to meet your biological father, but this arc embodied everything I imagine it be — wanting to yell and scream but also wanting to fight for a connection you never got. Yet as the episode continues and I get to know William, I find myself torn. Do I trust the guy who left his kid at a fire station and has sobriety issues but now claims is clean, or do I stay wary of the heartbreak he might cause Randall and his family?
Last, but not least, there’s the couple that started it all. Jack and Rebecca open the show with romance and comedy and a lot of heart as they try to be intimate on his birthday but then get stopped by Rebecca’s water breaking, a sign that their triplets are ready to come out…six weeks early.
As Rebecca and Jack struggle through the birth and realize that their own doctor is in surgery and they have to deal with someone entirely new, it turns out this new doctor is the light they need at the end of the tunnel when they end up losing the third child.
Through this loss we’re given a miraculous speech from Doctor K as he tells Jack that even though life has given him the sourest lemon of all, he could still take something away from this and turn it into something resembling lemonade. God, that line made me ball.
Suddenly, this is when it hits us. While looking at his two new beautiful babies, a fireman stands next to Jack and points out the baby he just brought in, a child who was left at his firehouse that very same day. The camera pans and we realize that, unlike Kate, Randall and Kevin, Jack and Rebecca are in the ’70s. The babies we see in the window are Kate, Randall and Kevin.
Suddenly I’m finding myself on the floor crying in a ball of emotion, waiting for next week’s episode so I can find out how this beautiful family will tell us their brilliant story.
We want to hear your thoughts on this topic!
Write a comment below or submit an article to Hypable.