“The Beginning is the End is the Beginning” was for once a This is Us mid-season finale that didn’t end in someone dying. Instead, it brought someone back to life (in a sense).
For one, Kate and Toby learn that they’re going to have a baby boy. For awhile, they didn’t want to know the sex so that in case they lost it, they wouldn’t feel as attached. But because of that alone, Kate decides she wants to take life into her own hands. After not getting a job as a chorus teacher because she didn’t have her college degree, Kate decides to go back to school and get her remaining eight credits.
Randall is struggling in many aspects of his life. After having an explosive debate where he felt like he won over the crowd, his campaign manager reveals he is still too far behind to win. For Randall, he wants to finish the race even if he does lose. It’s different for Beth. She wants him to drop out of the race because she can’t take all the pressure anymore.
On top of that, Tess tearfully comes out to both of them following the debate. It was the most moving scene of the episode. As they remind Tess they love her no matter what, both Beth and Randall have to remind each other of the same.
Kevin finally makes it to the village where Jack was stationed and meets a man who was in the village when he was there. Unfortunately, he doesn’t recognize Jack, but Kevin and him had a beautiful moment talking about how they can both share a meal in the same place their fathers had fought a deadly war decades earlier.
Kevin is bummed they don’t find the woman in the photos or learn more about Jack. Instead, however, Kevin learns something more valuable: His uncle could still be alive. The man who had been hosting Kevin revealed that Nick Pearson wasn’t in the database for the soldiers who died in the war. In that moment, we see that Nick has been alive the entire time and living in Pennsylvania.
What’s cool about Kevin’s storyline is that as he is talking about unpredictable endings and how it could play out like a Netflix show and Zoe tells him they might not be the ending but somewhere in the middle with more story to tell; this is exactly true with regards to This is Us.
The Pearsons’ story doesn’t end when we learn how Jack dies and it definitely isn’t ending anytime soon. In one of the final moments, we learn where Tess and Randall are heading after multiple episodes wondering. In a future time jump, Randall and Tess reveal they’re heading to meet Beth where she is a dance teacher and that is when Beth says they’re heading to see Randall’s mother, so this raises some new questions as to the path the show will be going in the second half of the season.
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