This Is Us – Storybook Love

By: Maddie Ruby

The episode is cut into phases in a dinner party and we start with “Hors d’oeuvres.” In the past Rebecca (Mandy Moore) wants to have a perfect family dinner in their new house, before the kids are born, and has Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) find their nice tablecloth, then the table and everything else because they are still unpacking. She gives him hot sauce and a cheese stick to hold him over while she is cooking.

Fast forward to after Jack has died and Rebecca wants to have a nice dinner in their new condo, signaling a fresh start. Randall (Niles Fitch) is bringing Beth (Rachel Hilson) and Miguel (Jon Huertas) is bringing a nice bottle of wine. Kate (Hannah Zeile) says he should bring his sleeping bag too because he is over so much. She goes off to her job at the record store where she is kissing her coworker, Marc (Austin Abrams), who she met in the last episode. Beth has brought a housewarming “gift” and pulls out some hot sauce, which Rebecca gets weird about at first because Jack loved it so much. Beth, whose father also passed away, reveals she brought it because he used to love hot sauce as well, so much that he always brought it as a gift to dinner parties so there would always be some.

The next phase is “Salad.” Jack searches for the table legs and takes a bite out of a stalk of celery for another snack. In the post Jack dinner party world, Sophie (Amanda Leighton) and Kevin (Logan Shroyer) arrive. They talk about why they got married and how Kevin saw a sign. He walked past a theater and The Princess Bride was playing, their favorite. Then, behind him church bells rang and a vendor was selling bracelets. In that moment, he knew he wanted to be with her forever. Marc arrives, telling the party he is Kate’s boyfriend. They go to the kitchen to wash dishes and Kate wants to know what they think of her surprise boyfriend. The boys seem to not like him with Kevin saying he is too old for her. Kate is annoyed that Beth is totally perfect, Kevin got married without saying anything and that everyone acts like Rebecca is at home by herself when Kate is with her and they were the ones who went off to college.

“Entrée” is when things start to get worse and go downhill. The kids continue their fighting when Rebecca comes in to stop them and get out the lasagna…which is burnt. In the next room Marc asks Miguel who he is again, which gives us some comic relief. They all eat the burnt lasagna silently at the table, which brings us to Jack and Rebecca’s solo dinner. It seems this is where Rebecca has burnt the lasagna as well, but Jack won’t let it ruin their special dinner.

“Wine” is where Jack keeps insisting the lasagna will still be perfect and holds Rebecca. In the future Miguel comforts Rebecca who is afraid Jack might be too big of a loss to move on from. He compares this to wine, saying the makers have to be patient and believe there is better coming – and so that’s what they need to do. Rebecca sits down at the table and says she just wants everyone to be happy. She then finishes the story of her and Jack’s dinner party. The burnt smell had forced them to open a window, causing a bird to fly in. Jack was deathly afraid of birds, so he grabbed a racket and pillowcase to try and catch it. He ended up knocking over the lasagna in the process.

“Pizza” is the final stage. Both parties decide to order pizza and laugh over the day’s events. Beth takes Polaroids of the group and Rebecca plays and sings a song on the piano from The Princess Bride for Kevin and Sophie.

Besides the salvaged dinner parties, the big three had each their own stories in the present. Kevin (Justin Hartley) and Nicky (Griffin Dunne) are together and Kev is recalling how Jack used to take a giant square box of ice cream and cut it like cake for them when they were small. They then get ready to go to a hockey game where Cassidy (Jennifer Morrison) is being honored during “Heroes of the Game” for her time as a Sergeant. She is nervous because her estranged husband, Ryan (Nick Wechsler), is coming. He makes a comment to Kevin about how he is finally meeting the grown adult man who his young son calls his best friend. While Cassidy is being honored, Ryan doesn’t even look up from his phone and then he tells Kevin he has to leave early. Nicky has some PTSD during the game and also has to leave, promising Kevin he won’t drink.

Kevin drives Cassidy and her son home and decides to confront Ryan. He says the reason he had looked away was because it was too hard to watch his favorite person get honored for the thing that broke her. He still likes Cassidy, for sure, but is just struggling with what the war transformed her into.

When Kevin gets back to Nicky’s, he takes out a square block of ice cream and tells Kevin how his father and grandfather weren’t good men, but sometimes did nice things for them…like the ice cream as cake tradition. He cuts Kev a piece, asking him if he was a good boy or a very good boy, which would determine the piece size.

Meanwhile, Randall (Sterling K. Brown) gets a call when he is about to meeting with the councilmen saying that Tess (Eris Baker) had a panic attack at school. He has already ditched this meeting once, but family is most important to the Pearsons. Tess was obviously stressed in the morning about school and it got to her. Randall tries to comfort her saying he knows how she feels, but she doesn’t want to be anything like him.

Randall is upset because he says he was so excited to share traits with his kids, but all he seems to have given Tess is his anxiety. That is the thing he hates most about himself. When thinking about this, Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson) flashes back to a scene between her and William (Ron Cephas Jones) talked and he revealed he had the same issues. He said his mother would open a can of seltzer and have him watch until the bubbles fizzled to help calm him down. Beth brings Randall and Tess downstairs to talk about this. She shows them William’s method and tells them that her three favorite people all struggle with this, but they can get through it instead of talking bad about this part of themselves.

Later, Beth says she found a therapist for Tess. Randall thinks it is a great idea, but when she suggests one for him he insists he doesn’t need one causing a rift between them.

In Kate’s (Chrissy Metz) storyline she is waiting all day (a/k/a all episode) for Randall’s baby gift. Rebecca comes over and keeps her company. When it arrives, it is revealed to be a piano…the same exact piano Rebecca played at that dinner party years ago. Everything is still in it, including the Polaroid of her and Marc, which Rebecca looks at and says she was trying so hard to hold it together that she didn’t even see what was going on. And neither did Kate.