You Can't Always Get What You Want was playing in my head after watching this, because "if you try sometimes, well you just might find, you get what you need" seemed to make a lot of sense in conjunction with This Is Us Season 1 Episode 5.
It's getting boring saying THIS WAS THE BEST EPISODE SO FAR after every one airs, but dang it, it's still holding true. The way everything played out, from learning about the long-standing history of football in the family to the deaths of both of Randall's fathers was done so brilliantly there is nothing else to do but gush about it.
Well, crying is also an option.
Rebecca and Jack almost didn't have children. Their childhoods weren't the best, and early conversations in their relationship always pointed to remaining childless.
Rebecca: I refuse to be my mother staring at my father staring at the television.
Jack: OK.
Rebecca: So teach me! Teach me football.
🔗 permalink: So teach me! Teach me football.
But then Rebecca wanted to learn about football, and it became their thing just as much as it was their fathers' thing, Jack thought of his own father and how special it was to him to spend time with him watching football, and he imagined himself having kids and doing the same.
So things changed, but it wasn't something they shared outright. Discussing it during the Super Bowl may not have been the greatest timing, but it was also the very best timing, because magical things happen when you have makeup sex in Froggy's bathroom. You conceive triplets.
That origin story is why football is so special to Kate now, and why she makes a big deal about watching the game, even if it's alone, something Toby finds odd, and most likely believed was because she had no friends with which to watch since Kevin was gone.
He was wrong.
We've been waiting to find out the fate of Jack, why he had been referred to in the past tense, why Rebecca was with Miguel and still wearing the necklace Jack gave her on the special night he told her he'd give her his all going forward. Now we know.
Kate: Growing up, I used to watch the Steelers with my dad, right? Every single Sunday. Until I grew up, and I moved out here, and I got out of the habit. And it wasn’t until the 2006 AFC Championship when they played the Broncos, do you remember?
Toby: No.
Kate: Well, anyway, I did, and then they won. And then they won the Super Bowl and I just, it’s just what I do now. I watch the Steelers, and I watch them with my dad.
🔗 permalink: Well, anyway, I did, and then they won. And then they won the Super Bowl and I just, it’s…
Kate has her dad's ashes, and she never watches the Steelers games alone, she watches with Jack, just like she did when she was a little girl. Oh come on. Tell me the tears were not literally flying out of your eyeballs as this started to go down.
And the way it played out with the rest of the episode? Puhlease! Not a dry eye in my house for two viewings. Two!!
Granted, I grew up in a Steelers family. Here's my dad smiling with his three friends just before they drove off to the 1975 Super Bowl, grinning like Cheshire cats with their Steelers hats on (and their plaid pants). He's gone now, too.
My dad, the tall, happy dude in plaid to the far left, just before taking off for the 1975 Super Bowl. #ThisIsUs #Steelers #Thisispersonal pic.twitter.com/YqJfJbmvr7
— Carissa Pavlica (@ModwildTV) October 26, 2016
If ever there was a time when this world needed the positive messages delivered by This Is Us, it's now. And it delivers week after week. As the montage carried on and we saw Randall packing up William's things, I was struck with just how much of an impact he made in such a short time.
Just like this show, really. Like Kevin told the girls, you never know when death is coming. And we never know when beauty is going to strike us. Randall found his father just in time to know him and to make an impact on his crazy life. Kevin arrived just in time to benefit from William's wise words and to share his own with Randall's girls, proving he's the best uncle they could have.
Everything happens for a reason, and just like we're seeing with the Pearsons, we need to make sure we step back and take it all in before it disappears.
So. There you have it. My take on "The Game Plan." What is yours? Were tears shed? Were you surprised, was your heart warmed, did you laugh? Tell me all about it and if you're late to the party, watch This Is Us online so you can be one of us.
