Andrew Robinson
This Is Us aired its second episode in three nights on Tuesday, February 6th, before taking a break for the Olympics (it’ll be back on February 27th). After the emotional events of “Super Bowl Sunday,” fans were treated with… another highly-emotional episode! NBC’s top-rated scripted show is churning out the emotional episodes now. *As always, minor spoilers may follow.
Summary
“The Car” takes place entirely in the past, mostly telling stories involving both the young Big Three, and the teenage Big Three through events occurring in the family car. The Pearsons and their loved ones are brought together by a tragic event.
Analysis
This Is Us made the correct decision by airing “Super Bowl Sunday” and “The Car” on nearly back-to-back nights – it allowed them to essentially air a supersized episode without worrying about rushing through some of the most important scenes of the show to date. Doing so also serves as a way for them to capitalize on the massive audience the show received after the Super Bowl on Sunday night; the general, non-usual This Is Us watchers are not enough given time to forget about the show, so they are more likely to tune in again. The preliminary ratings for “The Car” are a bit up from the last non-Super-Bowl episode.
Once again, Mandy Moore (Rebecca) delivers a stellar performance. At times, she must be happy and carefree; at others, stoic and strong. Moore is quickly becoming one of the stronger performers on a show that features a near-unbelievable amount of strong performers.
Speaking of strong performers, This Is Us must have heard my pleas to air an episode taking place entirely in the past, leaving them devoid of usual standouts Sterling K. Brown (Randall), Chrissy Metz (Kate), and Susan Kelechi Watson (Beth), among many others. It worked out quite well – I never found myself longing for the usual banter between Randall and Beth or Toby and Kate. This fact simply makes me appreciate the show more; it’s depth of quality actors is impressive.
Milo Ventimiglia (Jack) got a chance to shine even more than usual with the episode taking place entirely in the past, and he delivered. The little monologue that he delivered to the car dealer was precious, and his interactions with both the young and teenage Big Three were great. What stood out most to me was the way he handled a strange situation on the bridge, especially how he responded to young Randall when he began to talk – that made me chuckle. It was also nice to see him act as a stern father at one point in “The Car” – we simply don’t see that side of Jack very often. Ventimiglia is a joy to watch, and makes Jack extremely relatable and heroic/superhuman at the same time, which is tough to pull off.
The interaction between teenage Randall and teenage Kevin at the gathering made me cringe. Teenage Kevin continues to be one of the characters on the show that I dislike the most, and his actions were wrong, but… I did see why he was upset. That’s what makes this show so special – I can sympathize with every single character, even Kevin – and I have a documented dislike of Kevin. In this case, I believe both his and Randall’s actions were justified and believable, especially given their situation, yet it makes you cringe as you watch, especially if you can recall a situation where you overreacted to something at a terribly wrong time (and many of us can relate to that).
Watching the Pearsons grow up through the life of the family car was quite beautiful, especially considering other happenings of the episode. Kudos to the writers for coming up with an idea that I never would have thought to explore in any episode, let alone a pivotal one in the series.
I loved the scene where the young Big Three sing in the car. It makes you smile.
I can’t imagine the guilt that teenage Kate (and adult Kate, honestly) must feel. It’s such a terrible situation, and the guilt must be crushing, even though Kate had no way of knowing what would occur; she just wanted to save (blank, as to avoid a spoiler). Hannah Zeile, once again, is wonderful as teenage Kate. She gives a heartbreaking performance.
During “The Car,” I found myself wondering when Kate begins to overeat and gain weight. It’s likely that she begins to lose herself health-wise very soon after graduating high school, but how will the show portray that? Will it just film scenes of Zeile eating junk food, and then manipulate her body to make it seem like she has gained weight? Or will it cast a new actress altogether for a few years after the Big Three’s graduation? That’ll be an interesting – and difficult – endeavor for the show.
(MINOR SPOILER) It was awesome to see Gerald McRaney back as Dr. K. He won an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in 2017 for his brilliant performance as the doctor who delivers Jack and Rebecca’s children, and he didn’t miss a beat in “The Car.” His speech to Rebecca was beautiful and inspiring. Here’s to hoping he can make a few more guest appearances in upcoming seasons.
Speaking of upcoming seasons, I swear that I heard the promo for the next new episode of This Is Us (again, it won’t air until February 27th) say “upcoming seasons.” This Is Us is currently renewed for next season – its third – but that is all (so far). It’s renewal chances for season four are likely north of 99%, but I still found it interesting how they pluralized “seasons” – that is rarely ever done before it becomes a certainty.
Verdict
“The Car” was a highly-emotional episode that was told in a very unique way. I thoroughly enjoyed the episode, and the performances set forth by the actors – particularly Ventimiglia and Moore – are brilliant. Watching McRaney perform on This Is Us again was a pleasure, and I hope he comes back occasionally. As for things that I wasn’t super fond of, I thought that Jack’s speech at the car dealership, while beautiful, may have been slightly over-the-top; it felt like the writers were trying to drill in our heads just how perfect the Pearson family is – especially Jack. They have toed the line with this before (again, especially with Jack), but they brought him back down to earth at the end of last season, in a necessary character development – no one is perfect. Here, however, they definitely seemed like they wanted to capitalize on the opportunity to make him out to be a saint and heighten the audiences’ emotions, and it seemed just a bit superficial to me. However, I still thought the speech was beautiful – just a tad over-the-top.
9/10
I’ll see you guys again after the February 27th episode! In the meantime, I’ll try to review some other shows that may catch your interest; my review of The End of the F***ing World on Netflix will be released soon!
FINAL NOTE: Dork Daily has finalized our website (which can be found at www.dorkdaily.com), and we will post this review, plus all future ones, on there. We will let everyone know where to find all of the content once things are officially up!
