What I’m Watching: This Is Us

This Is Us: Season 3, Episode 11 “Songbird Road: Part One” (B-)

I’m having trouble believing that Jack wouldn’t want anything to do with his brother and that he would lie to his wife for years about how he was actually alive. The accident on the boat was certainly traumatic, but it still doesn’t seem like it would have had that effect on Jack. We got into flashback-within-a-flashback territory here with the Big Three tracking down Nicky as Jack went to meet with him and then thought back to walking around talking about brotherly aspirations as young kids. The notion of the Big Three getting together to go on a road trip to find their own remaining relative who might be able to tell them more about their father was nice, especially with Randall bringing far too many healthy snacks and Kate insisting on having to stop to pee frequently due to her being pregnant. I thought that Michael Angarano, who is only a few years younger than Mandy Moore, might be portraying the seventy-year-old Nicky, but instead, we got the sixty-three-year-old Griffin Dunne, who I remember best as the Rainmaker on “House of Lies.” Jack may not have been willing to open up to Rebecca other than confessing that he went to see a war buddy but didn’t want to talk to anyone about it, but Kevin, hardly the first Pearson child anyone would have expected to stick by someone through a tough ordeal, wasn’t willing to leave Nicky behind, determined to right the wrongs he believes were committed by his father. I can only imagine that he’ll soon meet Rebecca, an event that’s going to be very difficult for both of them given the memories of Jack it will bring to the surface.