THE CRYING GAME CONTINUES
This Is Us gives its fans a bunch of new characters to worry about
Note: Contains spoilers for the season 4 première of This Is Us.
ELAHE IZADI
If you had difficulty so far keeping tracking of the Pearson family on This Is Us, it’s time to make that flow chart: the NBC weep-fest began its fourth season Tuesday night by introducing several new characters and storylines.
NBC renewed This Is Us for two additional seasons, and the show is expected to wrap at season 6. Let’s break down what we learned in the season première.
BIG THREE CHECK-IN, PLEASE
Just as the previous season premières, this one also falls on the Big Three’s birthday, but we see very little of them in this episode. Randall (Sterling K. Brown) and Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson) are unpacking in their new Philadelphia home. Kate (Chrissy Metz) and Toby (Chris Sullivan) have moved into a house, probably in Los Angeles, where Rebecca (Mandy Moore), and Miguel (Jon Huertas) are also helping. Kevin (Justin Hartley) is also in Los Angeles.
Instead, most of the episode focuses on the new people and, according to creator Dan Fogelman, feels in “some ways almost like a version of season 1 in the middle of our series,” in which we didn’t learn how all of the characters were connected until the very end.
MIGUEL
We are in dire need of more Miguel backstory (specifically, how did he and Rebecca go from friends to spouses?). But now we know when he first met Jack: by helping him woo Rebecca. Jack goes to a men’s clothing store to get a suit jacket for his first meeting with Rebecca’s parents, and Miguel is the salesman. Jack can’t afford the jacket, so Miguel, moved by this love story, tells him to just take it and return it in a week.
MALIK
Malik (Asante Blackk) is a rising junior in high school, has a summer job and he’s the single father to a baby girl he adores. Malik lives with his parents, Kelly (Marsha Stephanie Blake) and Darnell (Omar Epps), who are exhibiting Jack-Rebecca/Randall-Beth levels of affection and he makes Déjà smile like we’ve never seen.
At a cookout before the first day of school in Philadelphia, Déjà tells Malik she’s heard he makes a great burger. He then busts out the same line his dad used on his mom the day before: “For you, I’ll give it everything I got.”
It’s clear how Malik would easily become a part of the central story, but we still have many questions: Where is his baby’s mother, and what’s that backstory? Will Malik stay on the straight and narrow or get mixed up with the criminal elements around him? And how will Randall and Beth receive him when Déjà brings him home for the first time?
CASSIDY
We meet Cassidy (Jennifer Morrison) as a soldier stationed in the Middle East. Once she returns to Pennsylvania, Cassidy has trouble finding work, drinks and is closed off from her husband. Then, to her own horror, she hits her young son.
Cassidy ends up separated and seeks help. The Pearsons enter the scene during what appears to be either a group counselling or Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at a Veterans Affairs centre: As Cassidy tells a heart-wrenching story, Nicky Pearson throws a chair through the window and gets arrested.
Questions: How, exactly, will Cassidy get roped into the Pearson world going forward? Kevin is called to post bail; will he and Cassidy connect?
JACK DAMON
We don’t know this guy’s name until the end of the episode: He is little Jack, offspring of Kate and Toby, and he grows up to have a great life.
He has Toby’s sense of humour. He is blind (the actor who plays him, Blake Stadnik, is visually impaired). He has a dismal music career, yet, somehow maintains a nice apartment.
After spending a night wallowing when he fails to write a good song, he wakes up hungover. So he makes breakfast, which his puppy promptly knocks out of his hand, shattering the plate. He goes to a diner and meets a waitress. Inspired, he writes a song about strangers; they date, get married. He goes on to play the stranger song in arenas.
The Washington Post