While dealing with fallout from Rebecca’s big secret, Randall, Kevin, and Kate take a trip together on This Is Us season 1, episode 9, “The Trip.”
‘This Is Us’ season 1, episode 9 recap:
‘This Is Us’ past:
A grocery store trip has Rebecca and Jack realizing that Randall is so obsessed with finding his biological family that he’s started questioning every black family he meets. After learning that the trait of rolling your tongue is genetic, he wants to find others that can do it too in the hopes he can find his birth parents.
Jack is worried that they should talk to Randall about it, and that he’ll forever be looking for his biological family to fill a hole in his life. Rebecca is adamant that they’re his family and that they give him everything he wants, she can even roll her tongue like Randall.
Yvette comes over to pick up her boys from a play date with Randall and Jack brings up the tongue issues. She brings more news that Randall has been talking about who his father might be, usually it’s describing jobs that he’s seen black men working in like their mailman. Her suggestion is they try to find him some black male role models, and she has an idea of where they can go.
Trying out Yvette’s suggestion, Jack takes Randall to sign up for karate. The teacher and the rest of the boys are black. But Jack worries that it’s not enough and wants to try and track down Randall’s family with a private investigator.
When Jack asks why Rebecca is so against finding his parents, a flashback reveals that she went to see William recently. She learned that William had been clean for a few years and was working at a music shop. When she brings up Randall wanting to meet his father, William is so excited that it gets her panicked and she leaves.
Since their adoption wasn’t exactly typical, Rebecca is worried that William could take Randall away if he knew who he was. They need to be enough for Randall, Rebecca convinces Jack. She also secretly writes William and lets him know her decision.
At the karate class initiation, Jack proves that he can carry his son through life by doing push ups while Randall lays on him. He even goes the extra mile and does more than the teacher asks. Then the rest of the fathers do the same.
‘This Is Us’ present:
After the big reveal that Rebecca knew who his biological father was, Randall spent hours compiling a list of reasons why he’s upset with her. When William and Beth check up on him, Randall is already up to 22 reasons. They’re not off the hook either, both kept the secret from him too, but Rebecca is the one he feels the most betrayed by.
Kate is shocked to learn about the secret that their mother kept, after all she walked in after Randall’s blow up. Kevin is more worried about Kate’s decision to get surgery because of the risks. Even though Kate says it’s not a big deal, Kevin thinks it may have to do with her breakup.
On top of everything else going on, Kevin learned that Rebecca plans to sell their family cabin. To escape all of their worries, the three of them go to the cabin. While Randall wants to clear out all of his stuff, Kate and Kevin want to relive the memories.
Always there to fix everyone else’s problems, Kate tries to cheer Randall up and convince him that their family is real even with Rebecca’s lies. She wants to spend the day having fun together and they can’t do that if Randall is angry the whole time. Another barrier in the way is Olivia showing up with the playwright Sloane and Asher.
They play board games to pass the time, and Kate is not impressed with Olivia’s attitude. Especially when they learn she brought an ex to the cabin with her, as Asher admits they dated. Even more shocking, they learn that Randall unknowingly ate some mushrooms and is now tripping. The hallucinations he experience has him talking with Jack who can’t believe the secret Rebecca kept.
Wanting to protect Kevin, Kate confronts Olivia about the game she’s playing with Kevin. But Olivia turns it back around on Kate and says she’s holding her brother back because she’s jealous of him. Kate stands her ground until Olivia says Kate is worried nothing will change even if she does lose all her weight.
When Kate retells what Olivia said to Kevin, he seems to take her side. He’s still worried about the surgery and says Olivia has a point. But Kate thinks that he’s just trying to impress his new theatre friends.
Randall continues to have his hallucination and Jack tells him that they gave him everything that they could. But Randall says he couldn’t feel grateful when he was their replacement baby. It was never a choice, Jack says, Randall was his son from the moment he saw him. Still, Randall says it would have made all the difference in the world if he had known earlier that he father wanted him.
Wondering what the deal is with Asher and Olivia, Kevin asks Sloane. What he learns is that Sloane actually hates Olivia for making her come. Her rental car was supposed to be used to go visit her newborn niece, but instead Olivia asked her to bring them to the cabin. Since Sloane needs to keep Olivia happy, as one of the stars of the play, she had to say yes.
With Kevin seemingly on Olivia’s side, Kate calls Toby. He listens as she describes her awful day but he says that if they’re still broken up then he can’t be that person for her anymore. It just makes Kate feel worse.
Meanwhile, Kevin snaps at Olivia and Asher as the cuddle and make fun of home videos of Kate. He unloads a truth bomb on Olivia wondering if she’s incapable of doing anything that isn’t a calculated move. Without responding, Olivia and Asher leave but don’t tell Sloane.
Kevin finds Kate moping out in the woods and apologizes for everything that happened today and admits she was right about Olivia. Kate says that Olivia was right about her too, she’s worried about what will happen after the surgery. But she’s more worried about what will happen if she doesn’t do the surgery. On top of it all she’s missing Toby and needs her brothers now more than ever. He tries to convince her to move closer to them, but before she can respond they find their names carved into a tree from their youth.
Randall continues his hallucination by yelling at Rebecca as she plays a board game with his younger self. He lets loose all of the hurt but she doesn’t see him. So Jack tells Randall to look at things from another perspective and he see’s how Rebecca tried desperately to keep the kids safe from all the harm outside the world, and it nearly tore her apart.
The next morning, Kate catches Kevin in bed with Sloane after hearing a noise outside. It turns out that Randall is fixing up the cabin a bit before they leave and says he’s doing it for their dad.
On the way home, they stop by Rebecca’s house and Randall realizes how lonely she must have been keeping the secret to herself. After breaking down crying, Rebecca tries to hug him but Randall isn’t ready for that just yet. The list Randall worked so long on stay with him when he leaves.