This Is Us RECAP: Rebecca’s Diagnosis, and I’m Still Not Breathing Normally After That Guy Pulled a Knife

Okay, so now that my heart has begun to beat normally again (that guy with the knife!), I thought I would recap the episode.

Let me back up a little. We’ll get to the moment where my heart about stopped later…For now, let’s go over the events of this heart fluttering, pounding and stopping episode.

The first thing I thought of when Toby told Kate that Lady Kryptonite and he were “just friends,” was, “oh, so she IS a woman.” (Lots of folks on the fan page guessed that LK was really a dude, but no.)

When Kate decides to throw a surprise birthday party for Toby, inviting his CrossFit friends in all their “tire-flipping glory,” she finds out that Toby has been going to a different gym for two weeks. So why hasn’t he told her?

Kevin signs on with a matchmaking service who sends him a brilliant scientist and a racist–neither one will do, thanks–and he gets frustrated. How hard can it be for a guy who looks like him to find a nice lady with whom to share a cup of coffee?

Back in the late 70’s, we pick it up at the sad spot where a stumbling, drunk Jack has just been told he isn’t good enough for Daddy’s little girl. Rebecca’s dad sure is a swell guy, isn’t he? Although, Jack surely isn’t showing the best of himself either.

From that Jack and Rebecca flashback, we swing far into the future, and Randall, Miguel, and Rebecca are all waiting for Rebecca to be tested by a renowned memory care doctor. She asks Randall again to keep her memory issues to himself for now, which is surely planting a seed of future drama. Is this where Kevin and Randall’s estrangement begins? In Randall’s keeping his mother’s secret?

Then we were over with Kevin and Kate at the coffee shop, where he spots a beautiful woman who appears to be perfect for him. Too perfect, I thought. And I was right. Everything from her name–Lizzie–to her dog’s name–Adrienne, as in “Yo, Adrienne” Balboa–seemed just so winsome. She was sweet, funny, bright–and seemingly without the baggage of Kevin’s recent liaisons, Cassidy and Zoe. You know what they say about things appearing to be too good to be true…

Back in the past, Jack breaks up with Rebecca, in a painfully awkward scene where he couldn’t even afford to cover the complete cost of the meal. He is obviously believing what her dad said about him being just a part-time mechanic etc. Rebecca is bereft, and I for one did not see that breakup coming, did you?

In current day, normally even-keeled Miguel boils over in anger at Randall for overreaching and swooping in to save the day. Poor Miguel is just scared, and sometimes we yell when we’re scared.

After her memory tests, Rebecca remembers how she would scoop up baby Randall in the early mornings, and watch the sunrise, rocking her baby boy. “I wished time would stand still,” she said. And all the memories are even more poignant when you know she may soon lose them forever.

Over at Toby’s party, “Kara” is a no show, but I am guessing she will make her appearance at some point.

(Yeah, so “Lady Kryptonite,” you better lay low, because you have an army of Katoby fans who are just itching for a brawl! What were you thinking, trying to kiss a married man?)

Meanwhile, in La La Land, Kevin takes Lizzie to the Hollywood Bowl for a private John Legend concert (Oooh, that song–“Conversations in the Dark”: luscious, dreamy, swoony.) Everything is simply perfect until Kevin leans in for a kiss and Lizzie wigs out. Because of course, she’s MARRIED and was just hanging out with her “hall pass” because the opportunity presented itself. (I mean, has this ever happened to anyone, anywhere?) Poor, deflated Kevin has just wasted a private John Legend concert on a nonstarter. Yo Lizzie, I guess you’re not the mother of Kevin’s child, eh?

Time-traveling backward again: Rebecca finds comfort in the oddest person–her mother. Jack’s future mother in law offers a key insight: “dark, complicated” Jack, with his Vietnam baggage and lack of resources and apparent lack of a future was “scary” for her and Rebecca’s father. “But this is your life and you have to do what you want.” Pretty insightful coming from Randall’s future racist grandmother. That’s all Rebecca needs to hear. She and her fabulous velvet halter dress are out the door and on their way to the mechanic’s shop.

2020: Rebecca’s test results are in: She has a form of mild cognitive impairment, which could stay relatively the same or get much, much worse. I loved that scene where a broken Miguel unzips his soul to his stepson. “I don’t know what I would do if something were wrong with her,” he admits to Randall. Randall understands, and he trusts Miguel to take care of his mom.

In KaTobyland, the party is over, and the birthday boy must face the music. Kate wants to know why he didn’t tell her he switched gyms, which is when he tells her about Kara and the attempted kiss. This leads to Toby finally confessing the real reason he’s been gone so much–he is just so sad about Jack’s blindness. It was probably healthy to get that festering thought out into the open. Hopefully, those two can work through these issues together, not apart, although I still think we haven’t heard the last of Lady K.

Isn’t Baby Jack just a yummy crumpet? I love every scene he’s in, and I love that he was reaching for those pineapple lights!

As per usual on our show, events start to hurtle forward in the last moments of the episode.

Kevin, crushed after his hall pass debacle, goes off to shoot some scenes, leaving his phone with a bewildered assistant. Yup, Sophie is trying to call. But why? Oh, maybe because she wants to be the mother of Kevin’s child??? Just a guess. But I know I am right.

Over in the seventies, Rebecca blurts out her love for Jack, beating him to it (although he did break up with her). Their love, she promises, is “going to be one for the ages.” (That single tear, rolling down older Rebecca’s face as she remembered Jack and the past, was very moving.)

And then? Then we all collectively experienced the most heart-stopping moment: Randall checks on his sleeping girls and grabs a glass of water before bed, only to be confronted in the living room by a man with a big, fat knife. Terrifying. Just. So. Scary.

Were you as scared as me? What do you think will happen?

What about Rebecca? What’s going on with her?

And will Kevin end up with his first love, Sophie? Take a deep breath and share all your innermost Us theories and thoughts!