The All-Kevin Episode of This Is Us Was Stressful
Warning: Contains spoilers for season 2, episode 8 of This Is Us, "Number One."
Tonight marked the first of a trio of episodes in which each Pearson sibling gets a week in the spotlight. First up is Kevin, who has really turned things around since hitting rock bottom at the end of last week’s episode. That brutal breakup with Sophie was just the wakeup call he needed, and it looks like he’s pulled himself out of the Vicodin spiral just in time to be functional at family Thanksgiving.
Haha! Kidding. Kevin’s a mess. A mess with a terrible beard who came pretty close to committing two different felonies this week. Let’s get into my thoughts and feelings from "Number One," because it was a goddamn rollercoaster.
1. I am extremely confused by the timeline of the Big Three’s births. How can Kevin be the first one born, when Randall was left outside the fire station that day? They’re making such a big thing of the order of births, but surely they don’t really have any way of knowing what time Randall was born - even if that kindly firefighter found him within minutes of William leaving him there, surely Randall must have been alive for a while before that? I’m very confused and will choose not to think too deeply about this.
2. Kevin’s huge, sterile Hollywood hotel suite is giving me some real existential angst. As is the prospect of Kevin giving an alumni speech to high schoolers.
3. “Maybe bathe him, too.” Martina is the MVP of this episode already. Can Martina just follow Kevin around and intermittently dispense #realtalk?
4. Oh. God. Teenage Kevin’s crop top. I am not okay with this at all. No. Nope. Hard pass. No thank you please.
5. Teenage Kevin is being a real dick to Jack. Who is now six months into his AA journey and still working incredibly hard, and my patience is already wearing very thin, teenage Kevin. Teenage Kevin is also just generally a bit of a douche, and seems to think he’s too good for this University of Pittsburgh coach who’s coming to see him. “It’s just Pitt”? Really?
6. Actually, it’s really hard for me to sustain my anger towards teenage Kevin. I think it's because adult Kevin is such a sad shell of a man, just wandering around his hometown while having visions of the burned-out shell of the Pearson house.
7. Jesus, if Kevin hooks up with this teenage girl because he’s high as hell and thinks she’s Sophie... This show wouldn’t go there, right? I’ve spent so much time writing about sexual harassment and sexual assault and men being repulsive monsters this month that I don’t even know any more.
8. I just realized that in last year’s Thanksgiving episode, Randall got accidentally high and had that hallucination of Jack at the cabin. And now Kevin’s either high or in withdrawal - I truly cannot tell which at this point - and hallucinating Jack in place of the football coach giving this speech. Is this the first full scene Milo Ventimiglia and Justin Hartley have done together?
10. “I’m not strong at all. Don’t love me.” I mean, no lies detected, but this is still brutal. Kevin wants to not be garbage, but he is lacking some basic emotional skills and this is why therapy is a very very very good idea. Not only for people who’ve lost a parent at a young age! But definitely for those people!
11. Jack reciting the Serenity Prayer is where I would have started crying. That is, if my emotions weren’t calcified this week by general horror at the world. Nonetheless, it is very affecting, and maybe hearing this will make teenage Kevin less of a douche.
12. “Great speech!” Did…did these people hear his speech? I guess not, actually - they didn’t listen to a word and that’s the point.
13. I of all people can acknowledge that Toby is the last person you want to take a call from if you’re having a bad day. (See here.) BUT. I’m pretty sure there’s a reason he’s calling Kevin right now, because I’ve been worried that Kate would lose the baby ever since the pregnancy was revealed.
14. I know Kevin is a man-child who needs to get his shit together, but I can't help it, I just feel so bad for him. Particularly in this scene, where he’s out on the field narrating all the ways in which he’s screwed up his own life, despite being given every possible break. “He blows it all! Surely the universe has to punish him this time, right?” It is kind of mind-blowing when you look at it: He torched his career and his relationship, then got both of them back, only to torch them again. Justin Hartley did warn us.
15. “You wanna party?” Kevin NO. NOOOOOOOooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
16. F**k you for that fake-out, This Is Us, I was ready to eject forever. Thank God, though, Kevin did not sleep with the high schooler. Instead, he slept with this Charlotte lady who looks a lot like his twin sister. (Is that just me? This actress looks so much like Chrissy Metz. Yikes.)
17. What, now he’s forging her signature on her prescription pad?!?!?! Avoiding one felony doesn’t get you a free pass to commit a different one, Kevin!
18. I’m exhausted. Kevin is at the pharmacy ready to turn in this forged narcotics prescription, but at the last minute he runs out because he realized he’s lost Jack’s necklace. If you choose to believe in this kind of thing, Jack is still trying to keep his son from being a total screw-up from beyond the grave.
19. Jack having to break the news that he’ll never play football again is definitely redeeming teenage Kevin. Or maybe it’s just the fact that Kevin apologized for being so awful to Jack. I can’t really keep my composure in any one-on-one scene between Jack and a Pearson kid.
20. “Someone very special gave it to me back in Vietnam.” Was it your secret brother Nicky???
21. “I just need somebody to help me.” Justin Hartley is killing this breakdown scene, and the fact it’s triggered by losing Jack’s necklace is pretty raw and convincing to me.
22. OMG, of course he called Randall. Even in the first season, when the brothers weren’t on great terms, Kevin called Randall for advice after everything went to hell in L.A. Surely Randall will talk some sense into him?
23. Ohhhhhhh. Kate did lose the baby. I did see this coming, but didn’t expect it to be revealed until Kate’s standalone episode next week. Poor Kate, and - never thought I’d say this - poor Toby. He was so excited.
24. “Randall, I have to tell you something.” This is so frustrating! Randall assumes Kevin is talking about Kate losing the baby, but didn’t Kevin call him basically a hysterical mess? And he’s also sweaty and red-eyed and clearly out of it when he shows up on Randall’s doorstep. I guess Randall might assume he’s just really upset about the baby, but nobody noticing that Kevin needs help is an ongoing problem!
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