- Director
- Kay Oyegun
- Writer
- Jon Dorsey
- Rating
- TV-14
- Running Time
- 43 minutes
- Airs
- Tuesdays 9pm
- Channel
- NBC, CTV
Overall Score
Rating Summary
For our review of the last episode of This Is Us, click here.
Synopsis: Kevin visits Randall in Philadelphia. (IMDB)
I (along with every other This Is Us fan) have been waiting for this episode for a very long time, and it finally happened! After their major fallout, Randall and Kevin finally address the elephant in the room–race and racism. A lot of harsh words were exchanged between the two brothers, and with Kevin’s wedding coming up, he wanted to make sure they talked through everything–especially if Randall is going to be his best man.
Their original argument came about when they were trying to figure out how to best take care of Rebecca. When Randall went ahead with his plan without consulting Kate or Kevin, it pissed Kevin off beyond belief. Their entire life had been leading up to this moment, and in that moment Randall ridiculed Kevin’s acting and said that Jack died ashamed of him and Kevin said that the worst day in his life was the day their parents brought Randall home.
For a while, it seemed like there was no coming back from this, and even during this week’s episode, It didn’t look like they’d be able to find a middle ground. The biggest issue at hand is the fact that Randall struggled tremendously growing up Black in a white family. It wasn’t easy always being singled out for being and looking different, and it was always something that stuck with him from the moment he could understand the world’s perception of him with a white family.
The episode gave us Randall’s point-of-view from two different flashbacks–5-year-old Randall and college Randall. We start the episode off with a Black couple we’ve never seen before, but soon learn that they are just two Black people Randall had seen (one was the local weatherman and one the librarian), and had inserted them into a fantasy world that they were his parents.
Snapping back to reality, while Rebecca and Kate are out having a girl’s weekend, Jack is home with the boys and takes them to a live-taping of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. While they’re there, Randall experiences what might have been one of the first times he realized how different he is from his family. When the studio worker was handing out their lanyards, he skips over Randall, making the assumption that he was with the Black family standing next to him. Jack takes notice of this and tries to accommodate young Randall so he doesn’t feel singled out. Of course, over time this type of special treatment made Kevin resentful towards his young adopted brother.
Fast-forwarding to the college years, Randall goes to visit Kevin in Los Angeles while he’s in town for a UN competition. It becomes clear that Kevin’s drinking problem started at a very early age and as he begins pounding down the drinks, Randall eventually joins him for a night out. But the night doesn’t end as well as it started and it’s mainly due to the comments Kevin makes throughout. From calling Randall “The Fresh Prince” to giving him a fake ID with a Black person’s picture on it that looked nothing like Randall, to getting aggressive with the Black cab driver, it was a hot mess all around.
The brothers get into a fight as the cab driver kicks them out, and it results in just another thing that causes a rift between the two brothers. Back at Kevin’s apartment, Kevin apologizes for his behavior and comes clean about how he’s struggling in LA. Meanwhile, things have been going well for Randall with school and with Beth in his life. Kevin doesn’t think Randall has any reason to struggle, while Randall’s experience has always been a difficult thing for him to come to terms with.
In the present, Kevin arrives at Randall’s and wastes no time in getting into the thick of the conversation. It starts off a bit rough as Kevin says he knows Randall struggled and apologizes for the moments he recalls he should have done something to protect Randall, like when Randall’s prom date’s father was visibly racist towards him. But this apology isn’t what Randall is looking for because all of Kevin’s statements are filled with “if”, and accepting no actual responsibility.
Randall points out the times Kevin was quite aggressive towards him and the fact that he’s Black, and I think with the flashbacks to prove his point, I’m on Randall’s side here. Randall tries to help Kevin see his side by saying that just because Kevin thought things were great for Randall, they weren’t necessarily. He didn’t know his birth parents, he grew up in a home where no one looked like him, and he was always forced to be grateful for the life he had.
The back and forth between the brothers continues until finally, they hug it out and sort of solve their problems. But it isn’t until Kevin actually addresses that he did resent Randall’s Blackness because to young Kevin it went along with Randall getting special treatment. And because those things went together, he resented his brother. But as an adult who has learned to be better, and is still learning, he gets it. And just like that, the brothers finally understand one another, and it’s one of the most beautiful moments we’ve gotten from this show!
Seriously, I’m so happy to see them have worked things out, and while it’s still a process, it’s good to see them on the path to being better humans for themselves and each other.
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