This Is. Us 5.06: "Birth Mother"

“I didn’t even know I was looking for you. And then I found you and you were gone.”
– Randall

As the episode title suggests, this episode is all about seeing Laurel’s past. And I have to admit, it satisfied my hope that it would be in a similar vein to “Memphis”. Yes, we got one person telling her story while we saw things in flashback, but it felt like a good bookend to Randall’s origin story. And I am so glad that we are done with Randall’s search for his roots because now he can move on to other issues like healing things with the rest of his family.

Laurel grew up in New Orleans in 60s and 70s in one of the most prominent Black families in the city. She was ab it of rebellious girl and was always sneaking off to see her Aunt May, whom her father had told her not to see. We don’t learn until much later why he forbade contact and honestly, it spoke to the times she grew up in as to why. But before we get there, we need to talk about her own brother. She adored him (and I want to say that teen Randall played him but I’m not 100% sure). As is the case with so many people, he went to fight in Vietnam and did not come back. That broke Laurel’s heart and her Aunt May helped her through it by showing her how to let out and let go of her pain and grief. Over time, she’s seeing a nice, respectable man who her father approves of, but she is not really interested in. It’s one of those “rich people arranged relationship” type things and you can absolutely tell that isn’t Laurel’s style. She’s fallen in love with a Vietnamese immigrant fisherman who tried t save her when she was letting go of her pain (screaming in the lake). We see them fall in love over time (and see his English improve) and it is very sweet. But when Laurel’s father tells her that the man she’s been seeing is going to propose and he expects her to say “yes”, she freaks and run. She ends up in Pittsburgh where she met William and fell in love and had Randall.

Now, at this point, Randall is obviously upset about the fact Laurel didn’t try to reach out to William after she recovered from her overdose, but we learn that she spent five years in jail in California for drug possession in the early 1980s. And when she was released, she felt such shame that she returned home to her Aunt May. This is when she shares that she had a child with a married man and lost them both (it’s unclear if he took the child or if the baby died). But it is nice to see that Laurel has this person on whom she can lean. And as time goes on, she reconnects with her Vietnamese boyfriend (although not romantically because he’s married and has children). But they rekindle their friendship and eventually he finds out she’s got cancer and takes care of her for two years before she eventually passes away. She also shared her whole story (including Randall) with him during this time and apparently asked him to keep the house until or if he found her son.

As if all of this new information wasn’t enough for Randall to process, the farmhouse where they meet the current-day version of Laurel’s boyfriend is actually the house Aunt May owned which we are to assume she left to Laurel and Laurel left for Randall. So yeah, he and Beth now own a farmhouse on a lake in New Orleans. Randall can’t sleep that night and ends up going to the lake and stripping down naked and walking into the water (yes you could get a glimpse of all of him from the back). So risqué for the 9pm timeslot. Anyway, while he’s in the water he has what can be described as a spiritual experience where he has this whole interaction and conversation with Laurel. It was touching and beautiful as she finally could tell him (or he realized at least) that she loved him. And that William loved him. He’s spent so long wondering why they didn’t when he finally comes to see that they did in fact love him dearly, but circumstances saw fit to keep them from him for a period of time. As he lets out his own cathartic shout, you can just feel the weight finally lifting off Randall. I have to wonder if this will help relieve some of his general anxiety as well or if he will still have that battle. We know that much of his insecurity and inner turmoil came from not feeling like he fit in and I hope now that he knows his place, he can move forward.

As he and Beth start their drive back to Pittsburg, he wants to put the past behind him and Kevin as well. I know they’ve been slowly working toward this all season so I hope we get to see it and that the family can have a little less angst moving forward as we march toward that future with very old Rebecca on her deathbed. But, when he calls Kevin, it really is not a good time. Madison is in labor and Kevin is still in Vancouver and he’s trying to get back before the babies are born. Yeah, I am pretty sure I was yelling at the screen last week that twins come early, and Madison was kind of being too generous assuming the babies would stay put until after Kevin go back from filming. I have a feeling, given the status of filming right now, that the next episode might be the last one we get for a while. And I’m just hoping it doesn’t end on a huge cliffhanger that leaves us wondering forever!