I think I’m broken since These are U.S‘first episode.
After all, the event of life at that seminal hour was supposed be happy: the birth of Rebecca and Jack’s triplets. And everything was going very well, until it really wasn’t. So, in Season 2, Jack It appeared quite well after surviving the fire at Pearson’s house, only to kick him in the hospital later, while Rebecca ate a vending machine chocolate bar. And the next season? When Kate went into labor very early and the whole family camped in the hospital waiting room while she was having an emergency C-section?
Series creator Dan Fogelman & Co. prepared me to get excited about potentially big milestones and then prepare for impact as if I were polishing the Titanic starboard grid. So, in this week’s episode, where everything goes well in various life and death situations and nobody is crying, I … I don’t know how to deal with it. And that BEFORE Randall and Kevin are reconciled!
As I search, read the highlights from “In the room”.
TRANSFORM DISCRETE COSINE | The episode starts almost every hour of These are U.S don’t: telling us exactly when and where we are in space and time. (See? I’m shaken already!) We are outside a party in Albuquerque, NM, in 1963, where a young Indian man named Nasir is reading a book on advanced computer programming. A chatty woman who identifies herself as Esther from Argentina approaches and asks him to light his cigarette. Nasir looks a little strange, but he gets excited when she asks him to explain what he is so interested in. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I know I love to hear you speak,” she says.
Later, we see them having their first child, a boy. And a few years later, we see Esther getting mad at Nasir for staying late at the office and missing out on family dinner. He tells her that he is very close to making progress on a technique that will revolutionize computers – and when she sees how passionate he is, she asks him to explain to her so that she too can understand. He briefly explains the World Wide Web and how his team is working on a form of data compression that will allow people to share images. “Imagine you can talk to someone on a screen, like a phone call, but with a video,” he ponders, and she is captivated.
We watched the Pearsons use the fruits of Nasir’s research with abandon later in the episode, and the title cards at the end of the hour tell us that: “In the early 1970s, Nasir Ahmed led a team of researchers who developed the Discrete Cosine Transform . This technique is still used by companies as part of their image and video sharing technology. You don’t know his name, but Nasir and his team are responsible for keeping us connected today. He and his wife Esther recently celebrated their 56º anniversary. “And the program writers room had a video conference with the couple to hear their story.
CAB FEVER | At the cabin, Rebecca and Miguel eagerly await any word from Madison and / or Kate, who are in hospitals and awaiting deliveries. She looks at a framed painting of colors all combined; when Miguel asks her about it, she remembers a time when a pipe burst and soaked the children’s works of art. She and Jack were having a little argument: he scolded her for upsetting the children so much, that she replied that it was their only defense against having three teenagers at home. Rebecca (much more gently than I would have) unearthed the real problem – Jack worried that the kids were growing up and getting away from them faster and faster – and calmed her husband by pointing out that her family
it won’t end anytime soon. “She showed him the bubbles, adding:” We are all still together, we are, even if it doesn’t look like it used to. ” Then she promised him that they would never lose anything in their children’s lives, “especially the big things”.
But because she is trapped in the cabin while three of her grandchildren are born, Rebecca tells Miguel, she feels like she’s letting Jack down. He helps her feel better about it, and Rebecca recognizes that they never talk about how he has to “endure Jack’s death differently for you, me and our marriage. Thanks. I know it’s a lot. I know I am too much. ”He smiles, replying,” You are just the right amount. “
THE FATHER IS HERE | Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Madison has been on FaceTime with Randall and Beth for hours. The Pearson’s won’t stop overnight on their way back to Philadelphia, so they’re happy to talk to her about the contractions and distract her from the epidural with embarrassing stories of Kevin drunk and naked and his love for the band Hanson. In fact, Randall is in the middle of a crazy falsetto version of “MMMbop” when Kev himself enters Madison’s room.
“I want to hit you, but I also want to kiss you,” Madison says to the groom as Beth and Randall hang up. We didn’t really find out how he got there, even though he didn’t have his identity – it is implied that the head of TSA at the airport did him a favor – but Kevin wants Mads to know this: “Before I left, you asked me what it was like this family will fit in my life … This family It is my life, ”he says, adding that he gave up on the film. “That’s all I’m going to need.”
In another hospital in California, Ellie’s delivery is progressing slowly. But she uses the time to ensure that the entire nursing staff knows that, after the baby is born, Kate must be the first person to hold her. Due to COVID-19 regulations, Toby is going to the parking lot and receiving phone updates from Kate, who is in the delivery room with her surrogate mother. A grumpy old man stops and tells Tobes that he is in his seat. “Buddy, I’m just waiting for my daughter to be born,” he says. “And I’m waiting to see if my wife is going to live or die,” replies the man. Ashamed, Toby moves his car.
We learn that the man and his wife have been married for 55 years, but she has been hit hard by the coronavirus and is breathing from the inside. He comes every night and parks at Spot 157, because she is superstitious and this is her favorite number. She also loves pigs, thanks to a New Year’s Eve spent in Salzburg, Germany, on their honeymoon (apparently, it’s something there), so he has a ton of pig figurines on his panel to invoke good luck. “I thought it best to bring the whole bacon army to this one,” he says. They also talk about how Toby has middle name rights for his impending daughter. And when the old man says his wife’s name is Rose, I write in my notes, “18 minute mark THE NAME WILL BE PINK, WILL IT NOT?” Having softened considerably, when the man finds out that Ellie is pushing, he wipes one of the pigs with an antibacterial cloth and tosses it to Toby to share some of the luck.
‘THE NEW BIG THREE’ | Ellie and Madison work. All the babies – twins Nicholas and Fran for Kevin and Madison, Hailey Rose for Toby and Kate – are fine. But when Ellie’s son leaves, the nurse will deliver the baby to Kate, and Ellie stops her. She changed her mind and wants to hold the baby, and also wants a moment alone with her. “That’s it!” I think, smug with my certainty that things can’t EVERYTHING work. Kate’s face looks like she fears she is losing her daughter, but what can she say? She agrees and leaves.
But all tearful Ellie wants to do is tell the girl that “Giving you to Toby and Kate is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it can be the best thing I’ve ever done”. And then the nurse brings the baby to Kate, who makes a video call to Toby. “Meet your daughter, Hailey,” she says. “Hello, Hailey Rose,” he murmurs.
So there’s a lot of FaceTiming, Skyping, whatever you want. Babies meet. They know Rebecca and Miguel. Uncle Nicky is shocked to learn that Kevin named his son after him. (By the way, Franny is named after Madison’s grandmother.) And finally, Kevin and Randall have a moment to acknowledge everything that happened between them in the previous months.
They admit that they said terrible things to each other and “we have a lot of ground to go” in relation to what Kevin did not know about Randall’s experience of growing up at the Pearson home. But Kevin says to his brother, “You are the best person I know,” and then Randall kindly says that they can talk about the most difficult things on a day when one of them did not bring a new life into the world. After all, “now is the time to celebrate with your new family”. (Side note: a really cool scene between Sterling K. Brown and Justin Hartley, over there.)
Oh, and Rose? She is fine! She makes a video call to her husband and warns that she will be leaving the hospital soon. See what I mean? LITERALLY EVERYONE IS HUNKY-DORY, AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THIS ANXIETY.
Anyway, now it’s your turn. What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments!