This Is Us – Flip a Coin

By: Maddie Ruby

A teenage Kate (Hannah Zeile) is sitting on the couch eating while watching television. Rebecca (Mandy Moore) is going to visit Randall (Niles Finch) at college for parents weekend, meaning this is after Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) has passed. She wants Kate to come, but Kate doesn’t want to go. Rebecca encourages her to leave the house today and gives her some money for new records.

Kevin (Justin Hartley) is with Nicky (Griffin Dunne) when he finds out “The Manny,” who replaced him after he left, was cancelled. He reflects on his day filming the first pilot. Kate (Chrissy Metz) tagged along. As he and Nicky go to an AA meeting, they approach Cassidy (Jennifer Morrison) who is angered because the meeting time differs from what it says it is online. Her husband wants a divorce and she needs to keep from drinking, but there is five hours until the meeting. Kevin says they’re going to go on a road trip, just the three of them.

Cassidy, Nicky and Kevin go to find Nicky a new R.V. He seems to get recognized by everyone. Cassidy talks about how he shouldn’t try and relate to her, but Kevin argues how everyone gets to have their bad days and it is hard for him to think about the show ending and not to think about the beginning. Kevin remembers how the pilot wasn’t going well because no one was laughing and the baby was crying so loud.

It is the opening night of Beth’s (Susan Kelechi Watson) dance studio. Her mother Carol, who they refer to as Mama C (Phylicia Rashad), is in town. She can make quite the remarks it seems, so Randall (Sterling K. Brown) is a little worried for her to come. Deja (Lyric Ross) wants to go to a group hang out at the movies with Malik (Asante Blackk), who her parents still haven’t met. When they get to the studio, there is an awful smell in the air.

There is thirty minutes before people start showing up to the studio and the smell is a dead rat…or possibly a family of dead rats. Malik comes to meet Randall. Randall plays the usual dad card but seems to like and respect him…until Malik starts talking about his daughter. Beth and Randall decide that Deja is too young, at age fourteen, to date and so she cannot see him. The smell isn’t going to go away and Beth’s mom says she should cancel and reschedule. Randall speaks up and says this is not what is going to happen because this is Beth’s night. He sets everything up outside and it goes smoothly.

Kate gets out of the house and goes to find some records. While Rebecca visits Randall he can’t stop staring at Beth (Rachel Hilson) in the cafeteria. She goes over there and introduces herself to Beth and her mother. They stay to sit and chat while Beth and Randall head to class. Rebecca finds out how Carol also lost her husband and asks her how she looks so together.

College Beth tells her mom she doesn’t think her and Randall are going to work out. She says this is good because Randall and his family are broken from the death of Jack and Beth doesn’t need that right now. Carol tells her that Beth needs someone who will really see her. They both don’t realize that Randall is that guy.

Kate and Toby (Chris Sullivan) take baby Jack to a music class, but he cries loudly the whole time because he is startled and not adjusted. This causes Kate and Toby to fight in the car, realizing they need to stop pretending like Jack isn’t blind and take baby steps. They go to the beach and have Jack listen to all the noises there.

At the record shop Kate asks for a copy of the Nirvana album Nevermind. The associate (Austin Abrams) who is about her age says anyone who wants it by now would have one. They make small talk about the records she has already chosen. Marc, the employee, notices she has Neil Diamond. Kate explains that he was a favorite of her father’s and he died recently. The two talk and clearly they have chemistry. Marc offers Kate a job at the store.

Nicky reveals he had a girlfriend before he got drafted and that his R.V. was met for her. They wrote letters through the war, but he stopped. He was so broken after losing Jack and his family. They were supposed to go across the country together, so Nicky bought the R.V. and drove it to her house. She wasn’t home and he didn’t wait because he said it was one of those moments that you just knew. Kevin flashes back again to shooting the pilot where he tells Kate he doesn’t want the pilot to go because he might not even like acting. He just did it after Jack died.

In the present Kevin tells Cassidy about how it wasn’t going well until the final scene where he made the baby calm down by being sweet instead of funny. As he talks about how this one decision changed his life, it shows Beth going to Randall’s dorm and kissing him. Kevin decides to move next door to Nicky in his own trailer.

The episode ends in the past with Kate telling Rebecca she got a job at the record store and they dance to a Carole King song, like Jack and Rebecca used to do. They decide to move out of the condo and start a new chapter. They have a voicemail from Kevin (Logan Shroyer), who’s away at college in New York. He thanks Rebecca for some brownies…and then casually reveals he married Sophie (Amanda Leighton). Then, he asks for some money.