This Is Us 2×01 Review: “A Father’s Advice”

It’s that time of the year again where you have to make those weekly trips to Target for that bottle of wine and a ton of tissue boxes because the emotional show on NBC, This Is Us, is back for its second season.

The season two premiere brings us right back to where season one left off. As William reads a beautiful and emotional poem that speaks about his relationship and dynamic with Randall, time swiftly moves between the past and the present. The past has us looking into a rocky point of Jack and Rebecca’s marriage while Randall and Beth are shown having challenges of their own.

Randall and Beth

Randall has baby fever and is at an all-time high being that it’s his birthday. While everything may seem grand to him, his wife is at the opposite end of the spectrum, feeling excluded and lost. The relationship between Randall and Beth take center stage.

Though the couple has, what seems to be, the perfect American dream with a fancy traditional home, beautiful daughters and a healthy marriage, cracks are hiding in the surface that soon spill out.

In episodes in season one, Beth had taken more of a backseat while Randall made a lot of the big decisions. But this time around, given that Randall wants to adopt, she wants to be a part of this decision-making process, too. As the cliche goes, it takes two to tango and the same goes with any marriage. As Randall says later in the episode, he and Beth are perfectly imperfect and that’s the best way to describe any marriage. If you strive for a perfect marriage, you’ll only feel disappointed and hurt, but having strong communication and working together will help direct the marriage towards a relationship and dynamic that works for both of you.

Kate and Toby

Yet another couple that has a few challenges of their own. While moving in with your significant other seems dandy on paper, Kate and Toby soon find out that it isn’t always perfect. By living with your significant other, you expect there to be more privacy and less outside disruptions. But the constant presence of Kate’s brother and the need for intimacy and affection that Toby has leaves Kate in a tough spot.

There’s still an adjustment period that’s upon us and Toby and Kevin have to find a way to peacefully coexist in Kate’s life while still getting what they need in the relationship. Toby craves intimacy and affection from Kate, while Kevin continues to look towards his sister to be that strong moral support system he needs.

It will be interesting to watch, as the season unfolds, what happens between Kate and Toby. As a fan of the show, it’s become no surprise that the writers like to take their fans on an emotional roller coaster, so it’ll be interesting to see how this relationship plays out.

Kevin and Sophie

There isn’t much to be said about these two. The season two premiere didn’t show much of their relationship progressing. They’re doing long distance at the moment while Kevin pursues his dreams and Sophie stays home to take care of her mom. But these two didn’t have as much camera time, so perhaps we’ll get to dive more into their relationship in later episodes.

Rebecca and Jack

It’s only fitting that we end with the couple that left our jaws hanging by the end of the episode. Since season one, I’ve completely adored these two. The relationship between Rebecca and Jack is a perfect representation of a relationship and marriage that is perfectly imperfect (not to quote the show or anything). These two always worked things out, but seem to find their biggest challenge yet: learning how to deal with Jack’s addiction to alcohol.

As we learned in this episode, to make a marriage work and surpass any challenges you may have, the couple has to work together. But did Jack’s addiction to alcohol lead him to his death? Is this the sole reason why? As we all know, the show’s writers like to make viewers work for the answers and it can’t be this simple.

Cut to the last scene where we see Rebecca drive, with Jack’s belongings in a plastic bag in the passenger seat, to their home that’s completely burned down. How do we get from the rockiest point of Jack and Rebecca’s marriage to a burned house? I’m not sure, but it’s the biggest clue yet as to what caused Jack’s death.

Where are the waterworks?

Overall, the season premiere didn’t leave me crying (sorry, tissues). However, the ending was jaw-dropping and dramatic that I now have so many questions as to what happened to Jack and what caused his death. Let’s all stay tuned to the rest of season two of This Is Us.