This Is Us 2.09: “Number Two”

“We will not let this break us.”
- Kate

I was ready for this episode of “This Is Us” to be gut wrenching and while it was emotional, I think it served to do a little bit of healing for some of the relationship, namely Kate and Rebecca. While Kevin is having his meltdown of epic proportions, Kate and Toby are going through their own trauma. Kate is excitedly taking her prenatal vitamins and singing to the baby when she decides she needs to measure the bathtub to make sure the baby bath she ordered will fit. Unfortunately, she suddenly has pain and we soon learn that she’s lost the baby. She and Toby are understandably heartbroken. Toby is ready to spend some time at home together processing their grief but Kate decides she needs to keep going on with her life like nothing happened.

While Kate is off singing at a gig, Toby gets rid of the shower curtain (which Kate ripped down while suffering the miscarriage) and then he gets notification that the baby bath is en route to being delivered and he heads out to the distribution center to stop it before it can get to the house to try and spare Kate some of the pain it would likely trigger. He gets a little aggressive with the guy at the gate but ultimately after much searching, Toby finds the package and even gives the baby bath to the guy at the gate because clearly, he doesn’t want it to be around. As much as he doesn’t want Kate to have the reminder of the loss, I suspect he doesn’t need it either. As Toby is being really sweet, Kate has a little bit of a freak out and almost chows down on a big plate of food at an all you can eat buffet. She also almost calls Kevin but can’t bring herself to leave a message. She eventually takes Rebecca’s call long enough to tell her mother that she lost the baby. We also saw the tidbits being filled in of Toby calling Kevin and Kevin not answering him. I like how these three episodes are all going to fit together and knowing that they are all the same day in both past and present, you can pick up on spots where they are going to cut away for another episode.

In the past, Kate is dealing with mother-daughter drama of her own. As Randall heads off to see a college with Jack and they have the debacle with Kevin and the scout, Rebecca wants Kate to make a list of five potential colleges she wants to apply to. Kate isn’t really interested. She’d rather hang with her new dog, Louie (the dog that Jack and Rebecca found when they were reconnecting after Jack revealed a few episodes ago that he took money from his father to pay for their house). Rebecca even tries to have a serious talk with Kate about how it’s okay if Kate wants to go to college to figure out what she wants to do with her life since Kevin and Randall clearly have it figured out already. Kate kind of blows her mom off and Rebecca happens upon an audition tape and an application to Berklee College of Music. Because Rebecca is nosy, she listens to Kate’s audition song. Which she really likes and tries to give Kate a check at Kevin’s football game to cover the application fee. Kate is at first upset that her mom stuck her nose in her business and then Kate explains that she didn’t want to tell Rebecca on the chance that she didn’t get in and Kate didn’t want to disappoint her mother. Clearly, Kate is still comparing herself to her mother. Rebecca assures her daughter that Rebeca would have disappointed on Kate’s behalf. The moment doesn’t last long before Kevin suffers his injury and they end up at the hospital where mother and daughter get to have another heart to heart where Rebecca explains that she hoped for a daughter because she wanted to do things differently from her own mother. I do think that the kids have such an inflated view of their father (even in spite of the alcoholism) that they treat Rebecca pretty poorly. She just can’t measure up to Dad and that’s too bad because she gave a lot for her kids. Neither of them are perfect. I get that she paid a lot of attention to Randall and she had a strained relationship with Kate and she I guess kind of ignored Kevin. But, she did the best she could for her family, especially after tragedy struck and honestly, as much as I want to see Jack’s death so we can get some closure on it, I want to see Rebecca handling her three kids on her own.

This of course, cues up a visit from Rebecca in the present to comfort her daughter. I about lost it the moment Rebecca showed up and Kate just crumpled into her mother’s arms. I also got misty-eyed when Rebecca and Kate talked about the baby and how Rebecca held her grief in from Jack for weeks and she ultimately lost it at a supermarket over some onions. Rebecca urges Kate to share her feelings with Toby (even if Kate thinks she failed her fiancé by losing the baby). While both mother and daughter lost a child, Kate fears that she in fact did something to cause it but Rebecca won’t let her daughter think like that. And then, Toby gets back and Kate says that she feels like she failed him and he assured her that she didn’t. I’m glad that they were able to show them fight over the issue, too. Kate went on a rant that the miscarriage happened to her, not Toby, but he hits right back that she may have physically lost the baby but he lost a child, too. They both lost that potential but in the end, I think they both needed to get those feelings out to be able to move forward. They decide they will try again for another baby at some point. I was expecting it to be a much sadder episode than it turned out to be.