“Birth Mother” ends with one of the most beautifully original sequences in This Is Us history. Having finally learned the full story of his biological mother, Laurel, Randall wades into the lake that served as her place of baptism and renewal during her long and complicated life. There he sees a vision of his birth mom that helps him finally let go of the pain he’s been carrying since he was a child. “I didn’t even know I was looking for you,” Randall explains, heartbroken and yet in many ways more at peace than we’ve ever seen him. Then Laurel finally gets the chance to tell her son that she loves him—first in her old age and then as the young woman who gave birth to him.
It’s the most overtly spiritual moment This Is Us has ever delivered, yet one that still fits seamlessly with a show that often operates best on feel and tone rather than plot. “Birth Mother” doesn’t overexplain the emotional arc Randall experiences after finally learning the last missing piece of his family history. But it’s right there in Sterling K. Brown’s breathtaking performance. So much of Randall’s lifelong anxiety and need for control stem from the sense of abandonment he’s carried ever since he was left at that fire station forty years ago. No amount of love from his parents, his siblings, his wife, or even his kids could quite fill that void. But in finally learning his full birth story—and learning how much he was loved by his birth parents—Randall finds a sense of peace he maybe didn’t even think was possible.
It’s such a stellar final sequence that it retroactively elevates the more uneven episode that came before it. The rest of “Birth Mother” struggles to find that same sort of impressionistic magic. Like the William-centric episode “Memphis” or the Deja-centric “This Big, Amazing, Beautiful Life,” “Birth Mother” aims to flesh out the life of one of This Is Us’ supporting players. But while those previous episodes filled in the stories of characters we already knew and loved, “Birth Mother” has the trickier task of re-introducing a deceased character who never interacted with our main cast. By its very nature, “Birth Mother” feels more like a standalone short story than an episode of This Is Us—and a rushed one at that.
Though it’s clear that writers Kay Oyegun and Eboni Freeman have created a lovingly detailed backstory for Laurel’s entire life, cramming that much story into just one hour leaves the episode feeling like a melodramatic movie on fast-forward. Hai may claim that Laurel’s life was nothing like The Notebook, but dramatic class divisions, reunited lovers, cancer, jail, and a Southern setting are classic Nicholas Sparks staples (if Nicholas Sparks wrote about people of color, that is). And like many a Sparks project, the story stumbles by prioritizing breadth over depth.
Hai’s narration methodically lays out Laurel’s life as the free-spirited daughter of a wealthy, well-respected New Orleans family. Stifled by her propriety minded parents, Laurel finds solace in her bohemian Aunt Mae and her kindly older brother Jackson. But as with the Pearsons, the Vietnam War changes everything for the Dubois family. Jackson is killed in combat. And an ocean away, Hai is forced to flee Vietnam and resettle in New Orleans. That’s where he meets Laurel and begins a romance that first echoes Jack and Rebecca’s youthful passion and later calls to mind Rebecca and Miguel’s quiet maturity.
In fact, I wish this episode had made some of those parallels more explicit, as what we’re left with is an overstuffed story told through straightforward narration and clunky exposition. Instead of embracing the evocative, montage-heavy style This Is Us does best, “Birth Mother” prioritizes plot and dialogue, which is where the show often struggles. It doesn’t help that the episode largely skips over Laurel’s time with William to focus on her life on either side of Randall’s birth, which makes her story feel even more detached from the rest of the series.
We do eventually get answers as to why Laurel never tracked down William or Randall after surviving her overdose. It turns out she was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to drug possession—her first and only criminal offense. As with so much of this episode, Laurel’s harsh sentencing is a commentary on the Black experience that’s all the more powerful for not being explicitly named as such. Laurel’s harrowing postpartum experience also leads to one of the most moving moments of the episode, as a newly freed Laurel breaks down while discussing her feelings of guilt with Aunt Mae.
Yet because we have to take in so much of Laurel’s story at once, it’s hard to fully process the wide-ranging emotions of her complicated journey. I almost wonder if “Birth Mother” would’ve been stronger if it had focused less on the actual details of Laurel’s life and more on how hearing her story for the first time impacts Randall, which is ultimately what makes the climax so powerful. As is, “Birth Mother” can never quite shake the feeling that it’s serving as a slightly clunky retcon for how weirdly uninterested This Is Us was in Randall’s biological mom for its first four seasons.
Thankfully, the actors are capable enough that “Birth Mother” is always watchable, even in its weaker moments. Given that Jennifer C. Holmes was originally cast as Laurel for a brief, wordless montage way back in season one, it’s remarkable how powerfully she anchors this hour all these years later. Meanwhile, Angela Gibbs brings a fascinating new energy to the older version of Laurel—one that’s regretful but also full of warmth. And as present-day Hai, Vien Hong’s understated delivery is crucial to selling the heart of his bifurcated love story with Laurel.
But it’s only once “Birth Mother” returns to Randall’s story that it truly sings. Given how effectively this episode sticks the landing, a lot of my concerns seem more like nitpicks in retrospect. While this isn’t a perfect hour of TV, it is an emotionally affecting one. And there’s a power to that, even when the path to getting there is a little uneven.
Stray observations
- The episode ends with the cliffhanger that Madison has gone into labor and Kevin is rushing to get to her from his set in Vancouver. Who could’ve predicted this shocking turn of events!
- Back in the season premiere, we saw Laurel tell William that she doesn’t like to talk about her past, which is why William didn’t have much of her life story to share with Randall.
- You can ostensibly explain away any of this episode’s plot holes with the idea that its characters are acting emotionally or irrationality, but it does seem odd that after Laurel laments the fact that she can’t call William because he doesn’t own a phone, she doesn’t make any other attempts to contact him—not calling the building super to knock on his door or sending him a letter from prison, etc.
- Beth brings some much-needed levity to this episode, especially when she suggests that Hai should start a podcast. Also her short hair is super cute!
- So Randall now owns his father’s apartment complex in Philly and his mom’s house in New Orleans. What an eclectic real estate collection!
- At the beginning of the episode, Beth mentions that she and Randall just got into New Orleans last night. So are we meant to believe they quarantined for two weeks in their own home, drove 19 hours straight to New Orleans, spent two nights there, and then drove the 19 hours back to Philly? With an unnamed babysitter watching their three daughters? All to have a conversation they easily could’ve had over the phone? Okay!
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Just like how last week felt like a light reboot on Kate, is this a light reboot on Randall? The shorter season is forcing the writers to clear out the cobwebs quickly. I thought of another connection to Rebecca: the idea that Laurel made the wrong choice in her youth. Obviously it undoes the whole show, but there was a moment when we were supposed to wonder if Rebecca should have chosen the Hunter Parrish character. And that line of thinking undoes this episode a little. If the aunt is already estranged from the rest of the family, why couldn’t Laurel live with her and be with Hai? Of course, the actual answer is that this is a retcon meant to resolve a twist whose endgame wasn’t considered when it was tossed in as a cliffhanger.
I wondered the same. Laurel living with her aunt and dating Hai felt like such an obvious answer to her situation. This whole episode felt like retconning at its worst. I still can’t get past there being no one else that Laurel could call from prison (a friend, neighbor, anybody) to relay a message to a phoneless William.
I came away from the situation not having any sympathy for her. There’s no argument for active heroin users maintaining custody of their children, especially if (if I’m recalling correctly) she shot up while still pregnant. She expected the doting, caring Hai to abandon his ailing, war-traumatized parents? On this show, there are no friends. Kevin has no acting pals, Kate doesn’t have a singing group, and Randall doesn’t have a golf team. So of course Laurel was a rebellious young woman who…did not have equally wild friends. She rebelled with her aunt.
I think Laurel stopped using while pregnant, but this was her first time using since then, so her tolerance wasn’t what it used to be.
The only friend anyone had was Madison and now she is more the mother of Kevin’s kids than she is Kate’s friend.
Jae Won had friend potential but now he’s just a coworker. I need to know how his acoustic Everlong proposal went. That’s the kind of detail that keeps me coming back.
I agree that the This is Us universe is pretty friendless, but I felt like Laurel and William actually had another couple they were friends with. I can’t remember exactly what the scene was or how they knew them, but I believe they had them over for dinner or something and Laurel told them she was pregnant. I don’t get why they introduced that couple, pretty much the only friends on the show, if Laurel was just going to forget about them later when she needed someone.And, yeah, I didn’t have much sympathy for her either, particularly when she tried to talk Hai into leaving his parents just so she could run away from drama with hers.
Stifled by her propriety minded parents…Father. Mom was stifled herself.
My own stray thoughts on the stray thoughts:The cliff hanger with Kevin in an accident had zero effect. I mean, we’ve seen him in the future, so the stakes of this accident are pretty low. Sure, there could be a problem with the babies (and it would be very much in line with This Is Us “mirror” storytelling for Kevin and Madison lose one of the babies) but that would have nothing to do with Kevin’s accident. In contrast to the cliff hanger where Randall encountered the home invader (and I felt my adrenaline shoot up), this felt cheap and unnecessary.It felt odd to me that Randall would take possession of Laurel’s/May’s house so quickly and easily. First, from a legal perspective, if Laurel died five years previous and no one knew Randall, it seems like the estate would have been handled in some alternative manner already. Randall and Hai’s verbal exchange when Hai handed over the keys sounded like something that would be said if someone offers you a bottle of wine – “OK, sure, I’ll take it if you’re not going to drink it.” Hai obviously has a history with the place, and Randall is smart enough to recognize that and (in my opinion) classy enough to not immediately take Hai up on the ownership offer.There appears to be a chunk of story not told yet. When we last see Hai with Randall and Beth, he is walking out the door, saying that he will see them the next morning for breakfast. Then, after Randall’s swim in the pond, we see Randall and Beth leaving New Orleans. Did this next meeting with Hai take place? If so, what was said?
As with Future Kevin, we’ve seen both of his future kids, so at least we know they’re not going to lose one of them. I think however the crash/early delivery situation unfolds, it’s going to make Kevin realize what’s important to him.
Or maybe, since she is not in the picture in the future, and the kids are, Madison dies in childbirth.
I remember the blond boy in the future scene where Rebecca is dying, but I can’t remember seeing Kevin’s second kid. Was it in that same scene? And, was it a boy or a girl? Thanks
I’m pretty sure it was not the same scene; it was a different episode, maybe even earlier this season? It was a girl.
I assumed that Laurel left the house to Hai and that he still has his parents’ house across the lake. It should have been said though.
Interestingly, the car crash was only revealed in the promo for next week’s episode, rather than within this episode itself. (So those catching up on “Birth Mother” on Hulu won’t even see it.) I think that’s why it felt so different than the home invader reveal, which was actually built into the episode as a proper cliffhanger. Although you’re also right that there’s not much suspense as to whether or not Kevin survives.
I had a feeling a car accident was in Kevin’s storyline so I was surprised the show didn’t end like that, w Randall hearing it over the phone. I watched the episode on Hulu, so, yes, had no idea they were saving the crash to next week. Just figured I’d guessed the story arc incorrectly.
I guess I didn’t realize the car crash was in the promo for next week rather than the end of the episode. Sorry if that was a spoiler alert for anyone!
I watched on NBC.com and anticipated seeing an accident for Kevin, but it didn’t happen within the episode before the credits ran. Despite the fact he survives, it adds drama and suspense for people waiting to know how he fails Madison in some way or gets hooked on opioids after his year or so of sobriety. “US” cannot just be simple people getting through a simple life – it’s a couple of parents who had triplets, one of whom died and was replaced by an abandoned black baby; one of their kids got famous and one of them got really fat, and the other one was abandoned and black and didn’t ever feel like he fit in, and also the dad dies in a freak fire from a small appliance when they are around the end of high school. This is not really “us” but it is “them”. It’s a story about “them” now, but I guess “us” from their perspective. This is “ourselves” the audience, looking through the window at an “us” who this is, who is not “us”, but can be somewhat related to, and somewhat absurd tropes of a hack daytime soap.
A person … or Pearson… can’t simply drive back to the pregnant mother of their twins from their movie shoot without getting into a car accident, right? What would they make episodes about if he doesn’t? Randall and Beth were driving back to Philadelphia from New Orleans, maybe they get in a car accident, but it’s going to be Kevin because he’s an addict, and his girlfriend is giving birth to his twins, and they have to hook him on drugs again. He can’t just have an honest slip, he’s come so far and done well. He has to have an injury and a prescription for opioids, necessarily. This was such a dumb and disappointing episode – Kevin who is barely in it, still checks in with Randall, even if 2+ weeks ago, Randall hung up, but have they talked in the meantime? We will never ever know. We assume Randall never called back even though he had nothing else to do while quarantining before meeting Hai Ling in New Orleans. Randall’s mother and father were addicts, but Randall is not addicted to drugs, but Kevin is, and this is echoed in Jack’s story of alcoholism, and not the pressures and temptations of whatever Kevin’s life is. Up until 4 years ago, I think he was distant since his teens, being “The Manny”, and Kate looked the other way as his assistant. Now, he is present, being part of the Pearson family, being sometimes recognized and sometimes not, having an addiction that was only recently addressed within the show universe, twice, and just starting to feel connected and more like a real guy and not a superstar all the time, portrayed as the “most normal guy” Pearson, and the loneliest because he’s assumed to have the most advantage anyway, but weirdly thrust into superstardom once doomed for football scholarships, instead of a regular white guy with a regular white guy career path of a normal high school football hero turned nobody in particular. He’s a movie star, this is “us”? None of us has a movie star brother or is one our self. Some of us might be overweight or black or adopted, or any combo of those. Kevin is ok by me mostly for feeling his true feelings in his family dynamic, but his trajectory of fame is weird. Having a car accident isn’t weird. Having a car accident while your girlfriend is giving birth to your twins isn’t exactly unheard of. Sure, it adds to the drama. It seems scary. It’s either a blown tire and a minor inconvenience, or he’s going to be in a body cast prescribed opioids. And why? Yeah, the person who is already the addict needs another challenge in that vein. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. This show needs to wind it up if it’s just going to rehash and come up with reasons to justify existing anymore. This episode really makes that obvious like no other episode I’ve seen, and I consider myself a devoted viewer, not a hate-watcher.
there was no accident cliffhanger, no? He hang off the phone and drove off, that’s it
there was no accident cliffhanger, no? He hang off the phone and drove off, that’s it
I honestly thought for a moment that ending was revealing that Laurel was actually still alive, because that’s how goofy my expectations for this show have become. It was also a big relief that Laurel didn’t turn out to be her aunt’s daughter.
I forgot about that, I also thought Mae was gonna turn to Laurel and tell her that Laurel was her daughter! Shows the kind of expectations this show has set for us!
Also… we honestly never got a good sense as to why Aunt Mae had beef with Laurel’s dad. She didn’t seem irresponsible or immature. She was a gardener and business owner and in no way seemed like a bad influence on Laurel in the first place.
She got pregnant in an affair with a married man, seems like enough.
Young Hai was a hottie.The thing about Laurel being transferred to California seemed questionable. A garden-variety heroin user going back to using for the first time in a while, and it’s a federal case?
Yeah, that made no sense. They should have had her transferred to a rural area of Pennsylvania in a different part of the state—SCI Muncy, near Williamsport, actually seems the most likely place she would have gone. It would be sufficiently far away to explain why she wouldn’t go to find William when she got out, which is pretty much all they needed.
Quick correction – Kellita Smith played Laurel’s mother; the older Laurel was played by Angela Gibbs
I‘m shocked at the high grade of the episode, I thought it was among my least favorite of the show and highlighted a lot of the issues this season.It’s just so frustrating how lately every single story line is climaxing into something to validate Randall’s feelings and the episode being so rushed made so many things about feel incredibly on the nose without the show’s usual magic touch that subverts how melodramatic the show comes across as. instead it being so rushed made it as melodramatic as critics of the show say the show comes across us and without any of the depth that makes this show stand out.Also i had to roll my eyes at the cliffhanger and the preview for next week’s episode. This show is just gonna jump onto full on melodrama without actually moving any of the plots forward, huh?
The one thing that really took me out of the episode was Laurel being transferred from prison in Pittsburgh to California. Is that something that really happens? It’s unbelievable to me, but I just don’t know. Otherwise, it was a really good episode. Even though Randall going into the lake was predictable, it was still very effective and emotional. I hope he can finally find peace in that aspect of his life.Oh, and I also want to know who was staying with the girls?!
Maybe it was whoever was with Baby Jack last week while Kate & Toby were traversing southern California? Perhaps Miguel is a traveling babysitter.
Prisons do transfer inmates to different states due to overcrowding, but why make this a plot point in this episode? It had zero bearing on anything. Would Laurel have considered reaching out try to find William if she had still been in Pittsburgh? If that is the reason for writing in the move, they should have made that clear. This, among many other choices made in the plotting of this episode make it seem as if chunks of story were left out.
I had to create an account just to comment on this episode. I keep watching but I’m starting to think they should have quit long ago. This story was so unbelievable on so many levels but it’s dawning on me now why did Randall not look for his mother’s family? He hired a PI to find William. The way Randall is, would he have not looked for the death certificate? Found her grave? Tracked down relatives to learn about her? I never thought about that before but I couldn’t shake it through out the episode. And Laurel to not ever write or once she had terminal cancer to not look. Or Hai to not look. But really why didn’t Randall look? Ok rant over putting aside all the other impossible aspects. From legalities of home ownership to leaving a councilman job in the middle of a pandemic. Let’s just not find out laurels brother is also living in a trailer somewhere
So many great points. How are we supposed to believe that neurotic Randall was just conveniently uninterested in confirming his mother’s whereabouts/death?? It’s so uncharacteristic for him. This entire plotline was beyond unnecessary.
You’re right. Laurel died in 2015. Social media existed, Facebook existed. Randall could have done one of those “I was born on in Pittsburgh, PA and I am looking for my birth parents” posts.
For real, why didn’t Randal look for her as soon as William told him about her? He finally had a name for her and everything to go off on!
Maybe that’s what this episode was really about. He believed William without question for some reason and never followed up – well guess what? His mom Laurel lived. It’s not just that he knew his mom’s name, but if he thought she was dead, he would have looked for her family, wouldn’t he? Instead, we have the past couple episodes where he is getting angry at William for lying to him, as if William had known any better, or had the resources to look for her. It also doesn’t make sense if the authorities who arrested Laurel knew knew she had just given birth, and William was there, they never seemed to come looking for William or the baby after they arrested Laurel. It’s also here where we infer that Randall was surrendered because William was likely to get arrested, not because the mother died and he was not able to raise a child alone.
Is this going to dawn on Randall, even if William wasn’t lying and really thought Laurel died, that he gave him up to get out of an immediate legal jam and not because having a newborn when the love of your life just died during childbirth is overwhelming?
I’m starting to feel like this season is the Cliff Notes version of what the show used to be. This episode felt rushed and superficial, with so much happening so quickly and getting resolved so neatly that I didn’t have time for anything to resonate with me emotionally.I feel like this show could have gotten away with mocking The Notebook in the early seasons when it was a significantly better show, but for me the mention of The Notebook only magnified how bad this episode was. The whole waving at each other for years from their respective farm stands without having a conversation when Laurel returned to New Orleans felt about as Nicholas Sparks as you can get. It also felt too convenient that even though Laurel died relatively young from cancer, Hai’s wife had already passed away so that he could spend Laurel’s last few years with her. I like that Laurel asked Hai to run away with her to Chicago and leave his recently war-traumatized, refugee parents behind. I always appreciate that this show isn’t afraid to allow its protagonists to be selfish, since so many people are in real life, and in this case it looks like Randall came by some of his selfishness genetically.At this point, we’ve had special/origin story episodes for so many of the supporting characters: William, Beth, Toby, Deja, but not Miguel. I would have much rather had an episode that fleshes out Miguel’s history and perspective than one that focuses on Randall’s birth mother. I am Team Miguel all the way and I will be so disappointed if we don’t get a deep dive into Miguel before this series is wrapped up.
I have been waiting for the deep dive into Rebecca and Miguel’s love story, more so than into Miguel’s life, but as long as we are done with digging into Randall’s psyche, I am all for it.
A Miguel deep-dive is LONG LONG LONNNNGGG overdue
I admit, when I heard Hai tell Randall the house was his, all I could think was “Oh, great. Now in 3-4 years Randall can decide he’s saved Philadelphia, now he can go run for mayor in New Orleans because that’s Randall.”
I’m glad Randall decided to make up with Kevin, but I like him when he’s messy and controlling and not perfect and having real estate dropped in his lap. Sterling K. Brown is a great actor, but I’m feeling like a little less Randall and a little more of the other kids would be nice.
Randall getting Aunt Mae’s old house made me wonder what happened to the very impressive DuBois home. I’m wondering if it passed to Laurel when her parents died since she was their only surviving child, and if some attorney will track Randall down at some point to gift him with a New Orleans mansion.
I have many issues with this episode. The only problem I don’t have is with the acting. Say what you will about This is Us, they cast the show extremely well and 9 times out of 10 the performances are stellar. That being said, there are so many issues with how they chose to tell Laurel’s story – Randall should have many more questions now, rather than finding peace. Hopefully though his peace will last and he will now be able to move on from feeling lost and abandoned.Let’s start with William. He thought Laurel was dead, since one of the paramedics said so. In his grief, he ran away and NEVER RETURNED TO HIS APARTMENT??!?? Who does that? No one, that’s who. He didn’t have much by way of possessions, but he did have some stuff. You’re telling me that at no point did he go back and that if he did, no one was able to tell him anything about Laurel being taken to the hospital? They did have friends, they were a part of their community, someone would have known. Hell, even their local pusher would have known, they don’t miss anything. Also, he loved Laurel so much, yet he just surrendered her presumed-dead body, not caring what happened to her? AND he made the split-second decision to give up his one day old baby just because the bus drove by a fire station? The series of events that led to William deciding to give up Randall and then lose himself in drugs could have been handled so much better and much more realistically. I am just upset with how they chose to depict William’s thought process. I am not an addict and have never had to deal with the sudden death of someone I love, but I know logic doesn’t always win in those situations. However, this is just bad storytelling that could have been handled so much better. We know this show can do better than this.Laurel. Let me get this straight; she grew up in a wealthy family, with a father who was a little overbearing, but seemingly only wanted the best for his kids. They alluded to him being perhaps being a bit distant and caught up in his work, but overall, he wasn’t depicted as a bad person. Her mother was also perhaps a bit conservative, but again, nothing you wouldn’t expect from a mother in the South during that era. Laurel wanted to spread her wings a bit and not settle down with the boy they hand-picked for her, so she rebelled a bit and fell in love with Hei. I am hanging in there so far, and can even accept that after losing her brother (who was her best friend) she left town due to her grief and knowing that she wouldn’t be able to stay in town and have a life with Hei. She met and fell in love with William, became an addict, had a baby and then “died”. I can also accept that she would have found it difficult to reach out to her father and mother once she was imprisoned, but what about her aunt? Mae would have been there for her, with no judgement, which is clearly why Laurel went back to her once she was released. It was unnecessarily tragic to write her as someone who chose to isolate herself from her parents for the rest of her life and to also never try to find her son. This is all just a result of the way this story has been told up to this point, rather than a logical sequence of events; that is how I see it anyway. There was also no reason to make Laurel wealthy; this was an unnecessary detail since her family’s wealth made no difference in how her life played out. She still ended up an addict and in prison. The periods of happiness she had with William, Hei and Mae weren’t influenced by that, so why bother?COVID. They should stop making references to it at this point because they aren’t making sense. That line about quarantining was just awkward.Kevin. Yeah, we know he is just fine in the future, so why throw in the unnecessary car accident? The only unknown at this point is Madison, right? We haven’t seen her in the future, but there may have been reference to the kids’ mom? I am not recalling that correctly, but I do know Kevin is alive and well, unless the future we’ve seen so far turns out to be someone’s fever dream.
William ran because he thought he was about to be arrested, right? And I don’t know that the paramedics/cops would have bothered to let anyone else in the building know that Laurel was still alive.
The fact that there were no nosy neighbors around, or at LEAST the landlord to handle the logistics of a medical emergency in one of the units…. it’s insane how that info would never get back to William.
We know Kevin is alive in the future, but he’s been clean and sober too long. He has to get addicted to opioids for a while, or at least be in a coma.
In addition to your points, it still bothers me that after
Laurel was revived, nobody seemed to care that William had run off with the
baby. Didn’t they want to find him to make sure the baby was okay? Even though we (the viewers) saw that Laurel
stopped using during her pregnancy and did not start back until after she gave
birth, the EMS and police should have assumed the baby was born with drugs in
his system and would need medical help at the least, probably even social
services to step in. It wouldn’t have
been difficult to connect the dots to the baby who just happened to be dropped
off at a firehouse later that day. Obviously,
I realize the whole premise of the show wouldn’t exist if baby Randall had been
turned over to social services rather than being allowed to go home with some nice
white family who saw him at the hospital and decided they wanted him.
Why you angry at COVID? Were quarantine and restrictions over during the airing?
This felt like a Lifetime movie and, just so we’re clear, that’s not a compliment. A B+ score for this episode is way too high. I gotta say, the production quality is great this season, especially for a show filming during COVID times. I gotta hand it to the cast and crew, they’re doing a good job this season on that front.But *deep sigh* the storytelling is hella weak. The plot is STAGNANT. And I don’t know why, given all we know as human beings in the 21st century, season 5 of This Is Us is quickly turning into a Cursed 5th Season. Why all the melodrama? Why the needless retcon? Why are we being introduced to all these randos from peoples’ pasts when we still have no idea how Kate and Miguel fell in love? Why does this once-revolutionary show feel like a lazy soap opera in it’s 18th season??The performances in this episode are either good or leaning too heavily in the melodramatic. Yes, I almost fell in love with Young Hai when he waved too. But why is an upstanding city council-member traveling for leisure during the pandemic? For seasons Randall hasn’t exhibited any unresolved emotions about his mother’s supposed death, so exactly why did he need to go through this? Why did WE need to go through this?The writers really had the audacity to make Laurel’s family wealthy even though their wealth contributing nothing to the plot; made Laurel and Hai star-crossed lovers and later conveniently killed off Hai’s wife in true Soap Opera fashion; introduced us to Laurel’s super-chill-and-understanding Aunt Mae, who Laurel forgets about the second she needs help…I’m not holding my breath for the rest of the season to get better. I wonder if maybe this is the beginning of a decline :/
All great points. I’m starting to think this show has passed its sell by date and should have ended strong after only 3 or 4 seasons.
Devil’s Advocate version: Once Randall found out his birth mother didn’t die, he had to explore, because that’s how Randall is. Normal version: this episode was so dull to me. Shows like this cannot wow the audience anymore with surprising revelations we’ve all seen on a million other shows, where someone who died is still alive, or whatever, and while Laurel’s life was tragic in a few couple ways, and I guess Randall had to acknowledge he wasn’t looking for her, he thought he knew everything he needed to know and so did we.
I think she had to come from a prominent family to see how far she could fall (i.e. not typical expectations of being an addict coming from poverty), and also that her father would be discerning about who she marries. Also that Randall would feel that his adopted life was not particularly charmed due to white parents – that he could have been educated and successful either way, maybe even better with the DuBois. None of this does anything for me. I think Laurel died of an overdose at Randall’s birth, and William brought him to the fire station. His PI did not discover Laurel lived and went to jail and returned to New Orleans at all, so I think Randall ought to cancel that check, but I guess he gets a house by the lake in compensation.
Really great points, and even though the message the writers *may* have been sending about the DuBois’ wealth does tell us that Randall did descend from a high status family… We don’t see class tensions play a huge role in Randall’s life though, at least not recently, so I think you may be giving the writers way too much credit here.I think it would be amazing if the whole Laurel thing ended up being a massive scam by Hai. It’s sadly not… I mean, even I teared up during the last scene where Randall’s in the lake… but it WOULD be an incredible plot twist. Like where was the DuBois family to corroborate Hai’s story when Randall came to visit? Maybe we’ll see more of them when Randall returns there on vacation with his family.
It didn’t really answer any questions I had, and was pretty boring to watch. As others note, and really expressed feelings about the episode I didn’t even know I had, it was convoluted, but also just boring af. I struggled with the NBC site to try to get through the episode for hours, just to watch 42 minutes of show, it kept locking up, and made it painful to try to watch any more of an episode that was uninteresting just to see if something interesting would happen. It’s a story, it’s Randall’s story. It’s boring to me, but not to Randall I guess. Then he wins a whole house, what’s that about. You go to New Orleans to explore the story of a mom you didn’t know lived 35 years longer than you thought, and win a whole furnished house by a lake? I watched every episode, I watched this show like I couldn’t wait to hear more of the story, and this episode was so warped, I feel like I could quit and not care any more about any Pearsons. Well acted, I suppose, but why. Filler. If this doesn’t wrap up Randall’s neuroses and insecurities once and for all, I don’t know. I know that’s not even how feelings work. You think you have this missing piece in your life, and you find it, and it settles something for a while, but what you are and who you are, and how you behave and how you interact with others is not going to change just because you know what happened to your dead/not-dead mom.
I kind of liked when Randall knew his mom died in a drug overdose, and Kate didn’t suddenly get triggered by her surrogate to remember she once had an abortion. This is getting too daytime soapy, dead people are alive, and long-buried traumas find a convenient way out 20 years later, despite all the other stuff that should have dredged it up along the way. It’s too early in this show for this, but we have other dramas to thank for hanging on too long and making every week a random catastrophe, and the watchers who keep that drek on the air.
I struggle with the writers’ decision to have Laurel decide to not accept treatment for her cancer diagnosis. Because it makes her story more brave and tragic? In my opinion it would have been just as powerful of a tragic romance to have her go through the recommended treatment with Hai by her side.But I also feel like the ghost mother in the lake is the show jumping the shark. What meds is Randall on again? Sigh.
I agree that Randall seeing his mother in the lake felt like shark jumping instead of any kind of deeply spiritual moment. And speaking of scary things that live in the water, was I the only one who was surprised that there was no alligator in that lake in Louisiana at night? You couldn’t have paid me to go in there!
Yes! There was nothing particularly Louisiana about that lake or farmhouse or even market. It could’ve been in upstate NY!
I noticed how often they mentioned absinthe this episode. I wonder if that’s how they were setting up Randall’s vision of his mom.
I did think in last episode that Madison could go into labour earlier 😅I agree on that Laurel could have called someone else. As a non-American, I wonder how real is it for an inmate being transferred to the other side of a big country and being left there upon release? Why LA and not, say, NY? Also – is it realistic that her aunt, who lost a child that was conceived in an affair with a married man, wouldn’t tell her niece to at least try to see, if not directly interact, how her loved one and child live? Esp. when she didn’t ask whether he was also married or not.Funny you didn’t specifically mention how Randall tried to reach out to Kevin to make peace, which i liked. Hope it won’t get delayed too long.If “Nikki’s alive” story is to be considered 100% satisfactory, then this one is 90-95%