‘This Is Us’ Recap: Rebecca Says Goodbye and Reunites With Familiar Faces
18.05.2022 - 05:31
/ usmagazine.com
The end is near. The penultimate episode of This Is Us brought back fan favorite characters as Rebecca’s family prepared for her death.
Rebecca (Mandy Moore) is on a vintage train, reflecting on train rides with her father. She looks beautiful in her red dress, and she has aged down to her 30s. “I’m waiting for someone,” she says while staring out a window.
She’s talking to William (Ron Cephas Jones), Randall’s biological dad, who offers Rebecca an escort to the bar car. She insists she’s waiting for someone, but William says it’s fine for her to go for a drink.
At the house, Phillip (Chris Geere) brings Jack and Hailey, who are pre-teens, but Kate (Chrissy Metz) is boarding a plane from London. She’s still 12 hours away when Rebecca’s aide reveals that the family matriarch going to pass soon, likely before the night ends.
Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson) decides to go in first to say her goodbyes. She talks about how motherhood feels largely like she’s pretending to have all the answers. “All these years, so many times when I was faking it, I was doing my best impression of you, Rebecca,” she says. “I’ll take him the rest of the way, Mama. Thank you for helping me with that, complicated, incredible, beautiful boy that you raised. But I got him now.”
Rebecca can hear Beth in the train over the PA system. She sees Randall’s wife as a young mom reading The Little Red Caboose, before the scene briefly flashes to 18-year-old Beth.
William tells her they need to move along to the bar car. Dr. K (Gerald McRaney), who delivered the twins, is the bartender. The car is decorated with Pearson family memorabilia, from the Big Three’s height charts to Jack’s coffee mugs.
Rebecca knows Kate isn’t there. She looks at Randall (Sterling K. Brown)