We Need to Talk About What Happened to Beth on Last Night’s This Is Us

Last night's This Is Us was painful, to say the least. After several episodes of tiptoeing around each other, Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson) and Randall (Sterling K. Brown) finally had an honest conversation about what's straining their marriage. Those keeping up with season three saw this coming: Beth's new gig as a dance teacher is clashing with Randall's city councilman duties, and their family is paying the price. In a bold move, Randall asked Beth to quit her job to ease their home life, but she refused. And that, she explained, is why their relationship isn't working.

"For the past 20 years, I have stood by your side through every whim, every pipe dream, every flight of fancy that you can think of," she said to Randall in yesterday's episode. "For the first time I have a flight of fancy, something that I want, and still it becomes about you."

I called this exact thing out in November, and last night only strengthened my viewpoint. The episode explored Randall and Beth's entire relationship history, and it shed light on a trend: Beth constantly making sacrifices for Randall. In college, she flat out told him to stop calling her when they first met, but he persisted...and she bent. In 2016, when all Beth wanted was a night away for herself, Randall guilted her into staying home. In recent episodes the compromising has become more extreme. When Randall decided to buy his biological father's old apartment building, Beth went along with it. When he wanted to run for city councilman, she went along with it.

Now Beth is the one who's found her passion, and she's refusing to let it go. "We made a promise to one another that we would never get lost in each other, and I broke that promise. And you let me," she says at one point.

Beth isn't perfect, of course. During their fight, she made an insensitive comment about Randall's anxiety attacks that isn't OK on any level. It's ultimately what caused him to walk out, leaving the state of their marriage unknown to viewers. But I'm still siding with Beth, because she's dealing with something I've seen many women, both fictional and real, experience. How often do men in the public space quit their jobs or stifle their passions to support the women in their lives?

This doesn't mean Randall is bad guy. He's progressive, he's smart, and there's no doubt he loves and respects his wife. But our culture's insistence that women be selfless is so strong it can affect even the most liberal couples.

Take Madonna, who four years ago admitted she felt "incarcerated" during her marriage to director Guy Ritchie, which lasted from 2000 to 2008. "I did find myself sometimes in a state of conflict," she told The Sun. "There were many times when I wanted to express myself as an artist in ways that I don’t think my ex-husband felt comfortable with."

Or how about The Wife, which has shades of Beth and Randall's situation. The 2018 film centers on Joan (Glenn Close), a woman living in the shadow of her vain, self-absorbed husband, Joseph (Jonathan Pryce), despite the fact that she's the brains behind his success. Women have historically been the ones to compromise, to put their dreams on hold, to dim their shines—all for the sake of preserving the fragile male ego. In my opinion, this is what Beth's had to do with Randall for years.

And here's the kicker: Randall didn't even have evidence to refute Beth's claims. He just scoffed at her account of their relationship and called it "revisionist history." When Beth later asked Randall to admit he thinks his job is more important than hers, he said, "I will not be bullied into saying something even more awful to you." Read that response carefully. It's padded language: At no point did he say Beth was wrong or that their jobs carried equal weight. To me, this further confirms Beth's perspective on their marriage is true.

So where do Beth and Randall go from here? Hopefully not divorce, but I'm sticking to what I said in November: Randall has to be the one who bends. It's his turn. If that means quitting his city councilman job for a normal 9-to-5, so be it. Not only is that what Beth and their family need; it's what people need to see. We already have enough depictions of women shelving their ambitions for men. Let's see it the other way around for once.

The This Is Us season-three finale airs next Tuesday, April 2, on NBC.

Christopher Rosa is the Glamour entertainment staff writer. Follow him on Twitter at @chrisrosa92.