What I’m Watching: This Is Us

This Is Us: Season 3, Episode 7 “Sometimes” (B-)

This episode was full of flashes between multiple time periods, tracking Jack at war trying in vain to help his brother, when he first drove across the country with Rebecca, and then returning home racked with guilt about what happened over there. Of course, in typical fashion, instead of Jack saying goodbye to Nicky when he was first told that he couldn’t be enlisted in the same unit as his brother, now we’re going to get to know him as a character, someone who hates Jack because of what the war has done to him, before he’s inevitably killed in some tragic fashion. Finally letting his guard down and crying when Rebecca sang to him in the car was sweet, and it was just the sign of encouragement that she needed after cruelly being told that was “Pittsburgh good” after giving it her best shot. Kevin is trying so hard to get to know his father, but as usual, he’s really not in tune with his surroundings at all, unsurprised that Zoe might be vomiting after excitedly eating bat and not for a moment suspecting that there was a real reason that she didn’t want to engage in a relationship with her father. He’s confused enough about what he wants, chasing after a necklace which apparently is so commonplace that it means nothing, though I guess we’ll find that out now that one of the many Jacks we're seeing is coming face-to-face with the woman he saw in the picture. And maybe we’ll even check in with some of the other characters who aren’t stuck in the past in the next episode.