This is Us aired its mid-season finale tonight, and although it’s titled “Last Christmas” the person whose last Christmas it was completely surprised us.

‘Grandpa’s gay, or at least bi’

I’ve got to start with this because, honestly, this plot made me so proud. Tonight we found out that William actually had a boyfriend/partner, Jessie, that he walked out on when he realized he was dying, and the way they did this was absolutely brilliant.

When I first saw William talking about the night he decided to stay sober I thought nothing of it. I thought that was his normal support group. Turns out that it wasn’t his support group but rather Jessie’s, and he went there to find him and apologize.

William’s partner, now happy that he has William back in his life, wants to spend as much time with William as possible, so he comes along to Christmas Eve at Randall’s.

This is the part that makes me so proud. When William introduces Jessie to his family it’s as a friend, but as they spent time together Randall noticed how close they were, and was wondering if William ever brought him up. It’s then that Tess straight up says, “Grandpa’s gay, dad. Or at least bi,” and walks away. ???

This is how you normalize gay characters. You don’t have to make his sexuality a huge deal, you don’t have to have characters be weirded out at this new fact, you just introduce it and you move on. Bravo, This is Us. Bravo.

The show must go on

We’ve time jumped a full month since the last episode, when Kevin called out Olivia on her crap and apparently since then no one has heard from her. She stopped showing up to rehearsal and it got to a point where Kevin’s play was canceled. Talk about unprofessional! I’d be surprised if her career isn’t destroyed by just walking out on a production.

Kevin was on his way home when Sloane, the writer of the play, made him go with her to celebrate Hanukah with her family, since he’s basically the reason Olivia disappeared and her play got cancelled. Fair trade.

It’s at that celebration that Kevin comes up with the idea to put on the play on his own, and that he and Sloane will work together to make it happen. This should be interesting since, as the characters pointed out, putting on a production costs a lot of money. I’m betting that he’s going to end up asking Randall for help because we all know Kevin probably doesn’t have enough money to do it by himself.

He bought a boat

Randall and Beth had to attend some boring work function on Christmas Eve but it quickly turned out to be not so boring when Randall’s co-worker threatens to jump off the building. Having just bought a boat from that guy, Randall went to return it when he found him outside with a suicide note and all.

This part was a little jarring because it dealt with depression and suicide so heavily, and I’m not entirely sure what the point of it was. Randall was able to talk the guy out of it in the end, but it didn’t feel like Randall got any huge revelation from all of that.

If anything it was the guy who was about to jump that learned the major life lesson about not giving up and not leaving his daughter. It was the stereotypical anti-suicide, it gets better plot and while it was touching to see Randall save the guy’s life I’m wondering what character development came from it.

Also, the actor who played the suicidal co-worker also plays William on Westworld, so I had trouble getting out of that mindset for this whole scene.

Something bad happened on Christmas eve

“Nothing bad happens on Christmas Eve,” they said. It’ll be fine, they said. Well. Tell that to Toby.

As soon as Rebecca told Kate that as a kid I knew that something was going to happen to jinx it. I was waiting for William to pass out during their party with the mid-season finale being his death, surrounded by his family and the love of his live.

I was also waiting for their doctor to not make it back from the operating table. Boy, was I wrong! This show is absolutely amazing and horrifyingly heartbreaking.

To see Toby fly across the country just to tell Kate that he needs her in his life and then hours later suffer from a heart attack is just plain cruel! It was so great seeing them get back together again and it was hysterical when he and Kate returned from having sex upstairs and they ended up getting caught by Beth. Hah!

It’s not entirely unsurprising that Toby would have a heart attack but we should have known something was up when he was so winded and tired after hooking up with Kate. Yeah, sex is great, but normally you wouldn’t be that out of breath unless you rushed to get back downstairs which I doubt because Kate isn’t breathing heavy at all.

Combine all of that with the fact that this is the mid-season finale and we won’t get to find out what happens after this for at least a couple weeks is just cruel.