After three long weeks of unavoidable delays (during which Kevin Pearson’s fate hung in the balance), our beloved show came back with a bang. Like, a real bang. Last we knew, Kevin’s driver’s license was shown outside a car that had clearly crashed and was probably about to explode.
Since we have seen Kevin in the future, we knew that he was probably going to live through the accident, which, as it turned out, didn’t directly involve him. But still, STRESSFUL.
1960ish: Young Jack Pearson is gearing up for a big baseball game, and praying that he does well. If he doesn’t, he knows he will face the wrath of his father.
1994: Young Kevin is gearing up for quarterback camp, and the pressure is on. Jack, following an old but warped script, inadvertently leaning a little too hard on Kevin about performing well at the camp.
2020: Kate thanks Kevin for the “kind of romantic” fruit arrangement he sent her to mark Ellie going into labor. “I didn’t know the appropriate gift for ‘the birth mother of my twin sister’s baby is being induced,‘” he said. Ha!
“That would be a Tesla,” Kate retorts, in the best line of the night.
Kevin is gearing up to face DeNiro in court, at least in the movie he is shooting in Vancouver (the most beautiful city in the world, where I lived the summer I turned 16). Of course, the director is still the butthead “Foster,” who is not at all moved when Kevin relays the news that Madison is having contractions and needs him. When Foster won’t budge, Kevin walks off the set in a huff. He will be there for Madison and his babies!
1960ish: Yeah, Jack’s game didn’t go well, and his dad gets drunk and abusive. When Jack shows fear at getting in a car with his inebriated father, his dad demands that he drive (of course he’s like 13, 14? Nice).
2020: The car = danger theme weaves into the present as Kevin is nearly forced off the road by an erratic driver. Of course, it doesn’t help that Kevin is constantly fielding calls--from Madison, from Miguel, trying to book him the next flight out of Vancouver, from Randall, and from his irritated agent, who can’t believe Kevin walked off the set of a DeNiro movie.
(Those scenes, when Kevin kept nearly dying in a fiery crash! I could not handle them, could you?)
And finally, from Foster himself. “I know you’re emotional right now…” UGH. What a creep with his diminishing language and passive-aggressive non-sympathy. He demands Kevin turn around and get back on the set. To which Kevin tells him to shut up, for better or for worse. Probably for worse as far as the movie and Kevin’s career is concerned. But Kevin has bigger fish to fry: His babies are coming!
1994: Young Kevin throws up when he gets to QB camp and is greeted by his coach and two brawny college football players who will be watching him the next day. Oh but Sugar, don’t use your sleeve!
2020: Miguel gets Kevin booked on a flight out of Seattle, and Kevin is grateful. “I would kiss you right on the mouth if I could,” he exults.
“Thank you,” Miguel mutters quietly. Ha–such a dad.
There’s nothing stopping Kevin now as he races towards the Seattle airport, except of course the smoking, wrecked car he comes across on a dark stretch of highway. He pulls a bleeding man from the wreckage and decides to drive him to the hospital, even though he will surely miss his flight. Our hero!
1994: Kevin questions his dad and things get deep. “You think football is the only thing that’s special about me, don’t you?” Oh, my heart. And then Kevin reveals that his coach yells at him and calls him stupid “every day of my life.” No wonder the honey threw up!
Jack is sad to learn that his son thinks that he only cares about football (the look on his face when he realizes Kevin overheard him tell Rebecca he thought she had made Kevin “soft”!). He tells him about his own dad, how he was incredibly hard on him when it came to baseball (and almost everything else). But in a twisted way, it was their one point of bonding, too. “He wasn’t all bad,” Jack said. “Even after they are long gone, we are stuck with our parents. They are inside of us.” So true, for good and for bad.
When Jack spots the sleazy coach at the restaurant, he follows him into the men’s room and confronts him. “Don’t ever call my son stupid again,” he utters in a low but unyielding voice. Our hero!
2020: Back in the car with the car crash guy, Kevin keeps talking so the guy won’t slip into a coma. “My dad was the most there person who ever lived,” he says, comparing himself to Jack. Boy, he really does have his dad on a pedestal. Dropping the guy off at the hospital, Kevin once again thinks he has a chance to make his flight.
Except, when he gets to the airport, his license is missing! (Well, we know where it is, but that doesn’t help him now.) He begs the gate agent to let him through anyway. “It will break me” if he doesn’t get on that flight and get there for the birth, he tells her.
Meanwhile, Madison is alone at the hospital and scared. She’s only close to two people, she says, Kate (who is deeply involved in her own birth story at the moment) and Kevin. You have to wonder why she is only close to two people but I am betting we will find out Madison’s backstory at some point. But in the sweetest moment of the show, Randall and Beth call her to check in, knowing as they do that she is alone. They can tell she is hanging on by a thread, poor sweetie, and they offer to stay on the phone with her as long as she needs them. Madison, and all of us back home, cry tears of relief and joy.
Next week promises to be huge. The birth mother of Kate and Toby’s child is in labor with a baby girl. Madison is about to give birth to twins, a boy, and a girl. Will both of them live? And will Kevin make it to her side in time? We do know that it appears that Randall and Beth help coach Madison through her labor, so maybe Kevin doesn’t make it? I am betting he will, somehow.
Well, tell me all your thoughts. Will Ellie, the birth mother, actually relinquish her child to Kate and Toby? Will Madison herself make it through the labor okay? Any name ideas for these Pearson cherubs?
Don’t hold back, fellow Us fanatics. I know you have opinions!
So how did kevin cross the border from
Canada to the US without a license? Well he must have had a passport because he flew to Canada. So where was that?