What I’m Watching: This Is Us

This Is Us: Season 4, Episode 6 “The Club” (B)

This season has really been framing all of its episodes with a certain pivotal event or place, and in this case, that was golf, which I didn’t find to be quite as relevant or stirring as other recent devices. It was most interesting to see how Jack responded to Randall expressing such closeness to Mr. Lawrence, with whom he apparently bonded after getting written up on day one, concerned more about the fact that his teacher wasn’t communicating what he was going through to his parents. Jack’s own time on the golf course as a younger man with his father-in-law was a puzzling display of boldness, since he got far drunker than he should in a questionable effort to show Dave that he wasn’t going to go away and abandon a future with his daughter. Randall’s performance was exceedingly poor despite that initial training with his father, though it appears that, after all of it, he managed to achieve his original aim, which was to rectify an important relationship he might have damaged by being pulled in too many different directions. The opening montage of Kate and Toby’s relationship was very sweet, and it was really great to see that problematic fight resolved with Kate cutting up the wrong pair of Toby’s pants to demonstrate her acceptance of what he had been through and his desire not to go back. It’s about time Cassidy realized that she was attracted to Kevin, and they’ve definitely reached a new level that’s going to make whatever eventual breakup might happen especially painful.