Kate finally got her episode, and it wasn’t such a happy one.
In This Is Us‘ “A Hell of a Week: Part Three,” Kate was in two unfortunate relationships. As a teen, it was record store Mark, who belittled her and criticized her and got angry about pretty much everything she did. As an adult, it’s Toby, who she loves but who can’t seem to wrap his head around the fact that their son is blind and they’ll never get to watch Star Wars together.
Toby hasn’t seemed to realize what a joy it might be to describe Star Wars to his son in his very best narrator voice, so for now he’s just bummed and obsessing over blind children who have gained sight and refusing to go with Kate to the retreat for families with blind kids that she tried to surprise him with.
She took her mother instead, and that gave Kate and Rebecca some bonding time they desperately needed. They even went night swimming.
“You’re fat, I’m ancient, we’re gorgeous,” Rebecca announced as she went to put on her suit.
Kate opened up about Toby, and Rebecca opened up about her cognitive impairment diagnosis, saying it has made her feel free and more fun. Rebecca advised Kate not to give up on Toby just yet, and then when Kate returned home, Toby said he wanted to spend some time with his son while Kate was off at the cabin with her brothers.
Teen Kate was just trying to keep Mark happy while her family got more and more worried. Her brothers already didn’t like Mark, and Rebecca kept saying she just didn’t know him well enough. Kate and Mark were on their way to the family cabin when he got angry at her for not quitting the record store just like he did, and he abandoned her on the side of the road.
She found a payphone to call Rebecca, but he showed back up with a blanket and an apology while she was on the phone. Kate then claimed everything was fine, but Rebecca saw through it and decided they needed to go after her, meaning everyone in the family in both timelines is headed towards the family cabin.
One thing we feel like we can see coming is that Kate will announce Rebecca’s condition to Kevin, and Kevin won’t be happy that Randall hid it from him. But is that a big enough betrayal for the two of them to not be speaking anymore by August?
Executive producer Isaac Aptaker said that “something big is coming in this next run before the end of our season that will tear these two apart,” so it feels like we’re close to finding out what that something is.
We’ll find out what does go down in the cabin on next week’s episode.
This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on NBC.
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