This Is Us season 2 episode 15 review: Doubt and dealing with death
On Tuesday night’s new episode of the NBC series, what we effectively saw was that it was a returning Dr. K who was able to tell Rebecca that she can carry on and move forward with her family after the death of Jack. He was the father figure she needed in that moment as her world was crumbling. Her sons were fighting, Kate was talking about giving her dog Louie away, and she blamed herself for not being there the moment that he died. She was struggling with not having anyone to channel her feelings to since it was hard to do that with the children. She had to be strong for them.
There was tension at the funeral, and there was also pressure at the funeral. After this, she decided that she wanted to make her own funeral. Rebecca eventually took the Big Three over to the tree, the spot visited by Rebecca and Jack earlier in the episode and also Adult Kevin later on. That was a place where they could mourn Jack in their own way. The Pearson way.
What an outstanding performance from Mandy Moore once again in this episode — this was such delicate material to play, given that she was constantly straddling the line between crying and trying to keep things together. Then, at the end of it all she decided to take the family to a Bruce Springsteen concert in order to have a celebration of his life in a way that he would most certainly appreciate.
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In the midst of this story with Rebecca in the past, we also saw throughout this episode little interspersed moments of Jack with almost all of the other characters. This was not an episode intent on showing us what was going on in the present — there were too many loose ends that needed to be tied up in the past and significant story points that needed to be addressed.
CarterMatt Verdict
This entire episode was told through the lens of the family car and the adventures that they went on over the course of their entire lives. It was another reminder of just how great this family was and how great, in particular, Jack was. He wasn’t perfect, but he was the right person for this family at the right time. (Heck, Jack couldn’t even afford this car — he gave an impassioned speech to Mel at the dealership about why he needed that car and that was enough to get a little bit of help.)
Once again, This Is Us is magic.
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