This is Us

This is your warning, stop reading if you are not caught up with This is Us.




Man, this last episode was a tear-jerker.  The first season of this show, I love love loved it.  Loved it!  But last season, blah!  I almost stopped watching.  Maybe because it focused a lot on Kate.  I really can't stand Kate.  But anyway, save for a couple episodes/scenes, this season was much more on par with how I view this show and this final episode last week knocked it out of the park.

One of my complaints was that the show missed a huge opportunity to deal with losing a child.  That's not to say they were obligated to, but they do like to take on tough subjects and the show is literally built around the fact that Rebecca and Jack had triplets, lost one but gained another to continue "The Big Three" and it really bugged me that they completely skipped over any grieving, any struggles, and even any mention of the baby they lost.  It's like welp, he's gone....oh hey, there is a baby available, let's just take that one!  And I just have to add, I am not sure that would have ever happened in real life.

The woman just carried 3 babies, which is no small feat....gave birth and is now expected to go home and parent their other two babies which is so hard even to parent a newborn, let alone two after experiencing a loss....who in their right mind would say yes, this is an excellent time to adopt another baby without giving it more than 5 minutes of thought while you're under a huge amount of stress.  While it did make for a great show, I'm not sure how realistic it is....but then again they did do some crazy shit in the 70's....or was it early 80's?  I'm not sure, I think the big three are supposed to be a year or two younger than me, which would make it 80 or 81.

But, I absolutely loved how they brought that into this episode and how they explained it.  Upon watching it, it does now make perfect sense why they never mentioned it.  They didn't know how, so they shoved it away and didn't talk about it.  I found out I was pregnant with Emily on July 4th, 2013.  I had over 3 months to grieve for Kayla and to think ONLY of Kayla before Emily even existed.  I gave birth to Emily 5 days shy of the one year anniversary of losing Kayla.  Despite loving your children while in the womb, there really is no comparison to how much you'll love them once they're here.  You just have no idea.  So I had almost an entire year to think of Kayla, and process my feelings before my heart really needed to make a lot more room for Emily when she was born.

They had about 5 minutes to process the fact that they lost one of their children before their other two, and then a new third child needed them.  I can relate having lost a baby, but I cannot relate to the fucked up conundrum of feelings of joy with your living children all at the same time as the pain of losing your other child.  So the way they brought Kyle into this last episode and the feelings they described absolutely made up for all these seasons of never mentioning him.  Well done writers!  Also on a side note, while I will agree Kevin is no slouch to look at, I reaaaalllly like the scenes of older Kevin.  Wow!

I also couldn't help but notice that this episode aired last week ON Kayla's 7th birthday.  What a coincidence.  I was a mess watching it, but I had a good cry.