Spoiler alert! The following contains spoilers from Season 3, Episode 2 of “This Is Us,” “A Philadelphia Story.”
Things are tense for the Pearsons.
They were tense in the past and they’re tense in the present. Things are not tense, however, for William (special and always welcome guest star Ron Cephas Jones). William is a big, beautiful ball of light in the dark hours of “This Is Us.”
Tuesday’s episode of the family drama focused mostly on the darkest period in the Pearsons’ lives, the aftermath of Jack’s (Milo Ventimiglia) death in the ’90s, and the challenges of the present, with a little bit of vintage William mixed in for fun.
The flashbacks served mostly to show how much the issues of the Big Three and Rebecca (Mandy Moore) stem directly from Jack’s death, from Kevin’s (Justin Hartley) substance abuse to Kate’s (Chrissy Metz) weight to Randall’s (Sterling K. Brown) rash decision-making to Rebecca’s bad relationship with Kate and Kevin.
The family is living in temporary housing while they look for a new place, and everyone is having a tough time. Rebecca is a shell of her former self, hearing Jack as she goes through her day and unable to engage with her kids. Kevin is taking out his grief for his father and the football career he lost by binge-drinking, and he shows up completely wasted to meet with a Realtor. Kate is binge-eating, and self-sabotages her admission to Berklee College of Music.
Randall, of course, thinks it’s his responsibility to keep the family together. Even though he got into Howard University, his dream school, he can’t help but lecture his mom and siblings rather than celebrate himself. And when it comes down to it, he can’t extricate himself from their lives. He turns down the spot at Howard to stay closer to home, which in retrospect feels like such an adult-Randall move that I can’t believe I was shocked.
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