What I’m Watching: This Is Us

This Is Us: Season 4, Episode 14 “The Cabin” (B+)

Even for this show, this was a pretty wrenching episode. Watching baby Jack nearly choke as Toby panicked was rough, though he fortunately did exactly what he should have, taking him to the doctor afterwards to make sure that he was fine, and then getting excited about introducing him to sounds of Star Wars through action figures. The worst and most unbearable part was seeing how horrible Marc was to Kate, irresponsibly and disrespectfully playing with Jack’s mug before breaking it, demeaning Kate about her weight, and then locking her out when she went to get the firewood. That he felt like he could tell the truth about what he did to Rebecca, Randall, and Kevin without feeling any shame showed what an awful person he was, and it was reassuring to see Rebecca swoop in to dismiss him from her daughter’s life right away. The present-day trip to the cabin went considerably better, with Kevin reacting poorly to Randall’s slip-up about his visit to LA, but the digging up of the time capsule serving as a positive bonding activity. Listening to the tape with the message Jack recorded on it was extremely emotional, and served as another great motivator for coexistence. We still don’t know what happens to make Kevin and Kate stop talking to Randall, but we flashed much further forward to a gray-haired Kevin entering his very fancy version of Jack’s dream house, with more questions to be answered, an intriguing and not quite as maddening as usual tease.