It’s the day of Kevin’s big movie premiere and his entire family is coming from far and wide to support him on his big night. But while his career is thriving, his new relationship with Zoe seems to be on the downswing as she gives him the cold shoulder. Meanwhile, flashbacks reveal the origin splinters in the Pearson family that never quite healed, as old wounds between Kate, Rebecca, and Randall rear their ugly heads.
Randall stepped into Jack’s shoes after his passing.
Kevin’s entitlement issues run annoyingly deep, but during one of his many outbursts last season, he accused his mom of giving Randall more attention than him as a child—which she admitted was “because he was easier.” A new flashback scene in this episode affirms Kevin's concerns and examines how Rebecca opened up to Randall as though he was the only other adult in the house.
It’s true: Randall was the one with the big college dreams and the level head, the one who acted well beyond his years. Kate abandoned her studies and developed poor eating habits, while Kevin’s once-promising football career dissolved after his injury, and he started drinking uncontrollably after his father's death.
Randall sees his siblings falling apart around him and ultimately confronts Rebecca for allowing Kate and Kevin’s behavior. Here, the power dynamic shifts between mother and son. He's got a little more bass in his voice as she admits to struggling to keep it together as a single parent. Later he apologizes, and Rebecca tells him there’s no need to feel remorse about his approach. She takes full responsibility for not doing better—as one would admit to another adult, not to her own child.
Randall decides to stay home, abandoning his dreams of studying at Howard University.
Last season established Randall's desire to attend Howard University in order to immerse himself in the culture he was never exposed as the only black child in a white family. But in this episode, we learn he forgoes his dreams in order to help Rebecca at home. It’s important to note she doesn't encourage this, but he feels obligated support his mother as Kate and Kevin spiral.
Perhaps we’ll learn next week that Rebecca tried to convince Randall to go to Howard anyway, but it's interesting that her took it upon himself to be the one to step up at home. In doing so, he further isolates himself from the rest of the family as the one who actually can pull it together after Jack’s death. This isn’t to say that he's mourning his father any less, but his actions seem to naturally propel him outside the Pearson circle, despite his best intentions otherwise.
Randall still struggles with what circle he actually wants to be in—or rather can fit in.
Randall's decision to turn down his Howard acceptance is just further evidence that he has unresolved identity issues. We see this in his inability to fit in at a pre-Howard party with other black college hopefuls. We see it as he struggles to deal with the loss of both his fathers—one black and one white. We see it as he struggles to connect to Deja—not even so much for her anymore, but for him. When she complains about her school being too white, he takes her to a recreational center across the street from his dad’s old apartment building so she can meet and mingle with girls who look like her.
Though Randall's desperate need for Deja to feel like she belongs seems to succeed (he actually allows her the space to find her community on her own terms), he simultaneously points out all the problems with the rec center—and vows to fix it. He doesn’t see the space for what it is, but rather for what it could be. I don’t question that Randall has a strong relationship with his own blackness, but I do think he's conflicted about where his identity and upbringing fit into that—and whether he thinks there’s any way to reconcile the two.
In an interesting turn of events, on Kevin’s big day, he gets the cold shoulder from Zoe.
Beth warned Kevin in last week’s episode that Zoe was a bit of a man-eater—“chews men up and spits them out” were her exact words. But true to Kevin form, he thought he was man enough to turn Zoe around. Spoiler alert: he’s not. We see the couple in bed as Zoe tries to work and Kevin wants to cuddle. She gives him the cold shoulder and even discourages him from going with her to visit her folks back home. She wants to keep their relationship “light,” she says. Of course, Kevin spends the rest of the episode overanalyzing what that means and why he’s not getting his way. This is compounded by nightmares of his premiere going horrible, with Jack there but asleep in the audience. Later, Kevin admits his sorrow that he never got to live up to Jack’s dreams for him while he was still alive.
Rebecca finds out about Kate and Toby’s IVF plans, and naturally, she does not take the news well.
Rebecca's been passive-aggressively broaching Kate’s health issues since she was a child, and when she finds out her daughter's going through IVF, she can't hold back. When she makes a comment about the dangers of “someone your size" undergoing treatment, Kate goes off. They arrive at Kevin’s apartment, where Toby—lovable, even-keeled Toby—loses his patience, shouting at them to stop fighting and pointedly telling Rebecca to mind her own business. Toby, it turns out, has started feeling the effects of withdrawal from his anti-depression medication, though he has yet to tell Kate that he’s no longer on them.
Kate reveals the shocking intention behind her desire for a baby.
Kate has always been much closer to Randall than Kevin ever was, so it's surprising when, through her anger at her mother's interference, she tells the family, “I’m the only one who can pass on a piece of Dad.” That not only slights Kevin, who’s already insecure about his relationship with Zoe (and apparently, in general), but it also takes a devastating dig at Randall, who’s not Jack’s biological child. That one line, delivered in blind fury by Kate, reveals that her attempts to get pregnant are not strictly due to her desire to become a mom, but also her duty to her father. It also, perhaps unintentionally, unearths some subliminal feelings she has about Randall as her true brother.
In his haste to spill all the evening's details (and unload his own insecurities), Kevin tells Randall what Kate said.
Throughout the entire episode, Randall has been grappling with identity issues of his own. So to hear that Kate, his longtime ally, has also alienated him completely crushes Randall. Kevin realizes about five seconds too late that he was so consumed by his own involvement in Kate and Rebecca’s disagreement that he forgot to think about how Randall would feel about Kate’s words. Classic Kevin.
Rebecca and Kate's journey to find each other might be through the path of motherhood.
Rebecca does not condone Kate’s decision to have fertility treatments—in fact, she admits the thought of losing one of her children makes her sick. But in a truly moving scene, juxtaposed by flashbacks of the two together in a rare moment of vulnerability after Jack's death, adult Kate finds herself in need of someone to administer her hormone injection while at Kevin’s premiere (Toby ran out the door after his outburst in Kevin’s apartment). Rebecca offers to do it herself and assures her daughter that it's only her concern for losing Kate that pushes her to lash out. In a moment of hope, Rebecca tells Kate she’ll understand this when she becomes a mother herself.
