MsChicklet

I've seen that print at Eloquii, but in a shirt. Chrissy is now a spokeswoman for them.

I think Rebecca gets an unfairly harsh judgment about keeping silent about William. First, she grew up in a time where adoption was about closing the door on the child's biological roots, and that any connection with the biological family would weaken the adoptive relationship and be bad for both the child and the adoptive parents. As progressive as she and Jack may have been in adopting a black child during that time, those attitudes about adoption lingered. MrChicklet had to wait until his adoptive mom died before searching for his biological family because she would have taken it as his rejecting her as his mother and been devastated. Second, her first impression of William was as a junkie. He may have done the right thing leaving his son at a firehouse, but he was a junkie nonetheless. Then, when Randall was a child, this was the era of the War on Drugs and the crack epidemic. What with all the news coverage at the time, she was probably scared that if she let William into Randall's life, all sorts of bad things could have happened. Then, Jack died. She lost her home. Her world was upended. She was struggling just to get through the day and she's supposed to bring someone who is essentially a stranger into the life of her son who just lost the only father he'd ever known? Now with Randall today, he can't see that the tighter he tries to hold onto controlling things, everything he cares about is going to slip between his fingers and he'll lose them, possibly for good.

THIS. Everyone around her thinks Kate is fragile but in so many ways, she has stepped up. Rebecca sees her -- she can be both sensitive and strong. Like Kate isn't sad or scared right now? She was the one who held the practical parts of Kevin's life together in his Manny days, and is probably a huge reason why he still has a good chunk of his Manny money. When Kate was working on her weight after she and Toby met and he decided to jump off the wagon when it came to food, she drew her line in the sand. She stood by Toby through his heart attack. She put on her adult pants and got over her dog issues to bring Audio home for Toby. On her wedding day, she found the courage to scatter Jack's ashes so she could let go and move on, and also told Rebecca how much she admired her and wanted to be like her, helping them move forward in their relationship. She got Toby through the depression brought on because he stupidly and secretly stopped taking his meds. Since Baby Jack was born, she's carried the load of parenting and learning about raising a blind child while Toby was CrossFitting. She gave up much of her outside stuff like school and any singing gigs. I liked how calm she was with Toby, and I think that came from Rebecca helping her to see her feelings are valid and that also she doesn't have to give in to despair. I don't think Toby is bad, but he has been self-centered, negative and secretive as has been his way in the past. Asking him to see past his own ish and engage in the family he has rather than wallow in losing what he wanted is not too much to expect.

Speculation on the Kevin episode next week. Considering the show's love of zagging when we think it's going to zig, I'm thinking the woman next to Kevin may not be Sophie. Or Cassidy. Or the Hall Pass chick. Instead, they're going to throw someone new at us. Maybe an old classmate of Kevin's from high school. Maybe someone he just met, like how his dad fell for his mom.

I'm not liking CrossFit Toby much lately. Kate has shown several times that she is stronger than Toby, or her family, think she is. She's the one who held everything together when Toby fell into a depression caused by going off his meds (another case of keeping Kate in the dark). She's sucked it up for him before, like getting over her thing with dogs to bring home Audio because she knew it would make Toby happy. She's been carrying the load for taking care of Jack, and learning about parenting a visually impaired child, and hasn't faltered. Instead of being able to resume any of the stuff she was doing before Jack was born, she's had to focus solely on Jack. She's had to feel pretty isolated and stressed, and Toby's behavior is compounding that. Toby's way of keeping Kate at arm's length and in the dark about important parts of his life like the meds and CrossFit is incredibly unhealthy and hurtful. It's about what's easier for him, not about any true consideration for her feelings.

Something worried me in the flash forward. When Randall asked Kevin's son where Kevin was, the boy answered that he was getting takeout, but there was an odd tone and pause in the way he said it. Then the way Randall and Beth looked at each other and he said, "typical Kevin." I hope Kevin doesn't return not just with takeout, but a water bottle filled with vodka.

And if they bought after the real estate bubble burst around 2008, they could have gotten a foreclosure.

As much as I think Beth has justification for much of what she's feeling, I agree. Imagine if she'd said "When would I have done that, huh? Between which of your chemo rounds?" Or dialyses treatment, or something related to a physical illness.

It's been kept pretty ambiguous. Randall had just finished calling Toby when he asked Tess if she'd called her mother and Tess said she'd do it in the car. It may have been simply, "You call your mom and I'll call Uncle Toby" rather than a sign that they're split. Beth spoke of Rebecca as "Randall's mother" to her assistant as opposed to "the girls' grandmother," which would seem more likely if she and Randall had been divorced for more than 10 years. And "Her" next week may not answer all of the questions from what we've seen so far.

You're not alone. This is one reason why, to me, the show is so good. It's not a clear-cut, one-sided thing. Both are right, both are wrong, both are struggling. The only team I'm on is Team R&B, both of them.

Breaking Down the R&B Fight

Yeah, that was cruel. It happens when someone feels hurt and angry enough to lash out, it can be a rush of power and relief to be able to hurt back, but, like the voicemail, it can't be deleted or forgotten. Randall, like Kevin, has been able to get through many things in life with his charm. But that has also given him a big, honking blind spot to seeing things from others' points of view. Deja has called him on it at least once. His one flash of clarity came when he remembered the Jack and Rebecca fight and wouldn't escalate to Jack's level. But that may have made things worse by also not acknowledging that Beth had cause for feeling how she did. While Beth is in the right about many, maybe even most, things, she is wrong about some things as well. She complained how she had "asked" when she needed a respite while William and Kevin were there. She chose to ask instead of take the lead (boy, was William right) and tell Randall it was happening, this was when, no negotiation, and let him handle things while she was gone without any criticism when she returned. They had a built-in babysitter with Kevin, it's not like the girls were going to die if they lived on pizza and cereal for a couple of days and no one did the laundry. She was caught between her need to take a break and her need to manage things. It's like when she woke up to micromanage and criticize Randall through the diaper change. She may be more like her mom than she knows. It's how most marriages are. It's not always Team Wife or Team Husband. Both went down the path to where they are now.

This episode showed just how much Kevin and Randall are both Jack Pearson's sons. They both inherited major traits from Jack, for better and worse. Kevin, obviously, got the addiction gene. He also got Jack's easy, sincere charm that not only lets him get what he wants but hides demons and secrets well, as well as Jack's love of the grand gesture (the "I choose you" statement, and the Billy Joel tickets). Randall got Jack's sense of purpose in family, the love of the dramatic monologue, but also Jack's control issues and an anger management problem.

The Loop: We Need to Talk About Kevin

Her play The Cake just opened and now she's leaving TIU to help develop a Broadway musical version of The Notebook.

I think a friend of Kate's was boarding Louie after they moved out of Miguel's and into the hotel, and that's who Kate gave him to. This was a hard episode for me personally. A friend is in the process of losing a much-wanted pregnancy at just shy of 20 weeks, just a few years after losing her only child at birth. And Zoe's response to Kevin brought up a whole lot of old issues. What Zoe did in that moment made sense. No point in confronting Kevin while he's drunk and they're all under stress. And her flat voice when she told Beth about the water bottle. I've heard myself use that voice so many times over the years in regards to the alcoholic in my family. They're doing this because they're an addict and this is what the addiction has them doing -- lie, hide and manipulate to keep the addiction fed.

I was wondering if she has tachycardia that was never diagnosed. If Jack never told Rebecca about his heart problem (remember how he shrugged it off during his pre-Army physical), it may have gone unnoticed in Kate, or brushed aside by her doctor in his or her rush to get to the "Lose Weight" lecture. Her pregnancy maybe exacerbates it. The doctor asks about family history, resulting in the Pearsons realizing that, other than alcoholism, no one knows about Jack's family medical history except ... Nicky.

One thing I was wondering that I didn't see and may have missed in this episode: Beth has said she grew up with 14 other people in her home. Her parents, her, Zoe and her three siblings only make seven. Who and where were the rest?

TIU and New Amsterdam get shelved for the week for the season premiere of JLo's dance competition show.

That, to me, was at the core of Beth's pain. Her mother considered any show of grief for her father as "wallowing." Beth basically went straight from the funeral home back to school and ballet. Her mother could have waited at least a few days to give her the college book and "new direction." talk. I can see why Beth didn't go back to dance in college. Dance was still entangled in grief and pain for her. Also, her mother already said she wasn't going to pay for any more dancing. She would have disapproved of Beth taking time away from her studies to dance. Beth chose to clam up, as Zoe would say, rather than re-open those wounds dealing with her mother's dictates and disapproval. Her mom's call-to-action about going to Staples and getting the nice paper for Beth to print her resumes for mailing out reminded me of the Old Economy Steve meme:

This is where I hope Kevin gets to. I wish he had seen that possibility.

(((((againstthewind))))) I wish, instead of checking out, Randall and Kate had tried to really talk Kevin out of his Save Uncle Nicky crusade. Maybe if he'd just hung out at the hotel with him for the morning, let Nicky get to know him a bit. Did no one think of the pain Nicky felt of being cut off by his childhood hero? Did no one realize they also had some ish to process? I hope they can work Nicky back in in future episodes, just for seeing Griffin Dunne knock it out of the park again.

Last night was the original date for the SOTU address, so TIU was scheduled for a pre-emption. Same thing happened last year ahead of the Super Bowl episode. With the uncertainty of when/if the government would reopen on time, I wonder if advertising commitments meant NBC couldn't move TIU into last night's usual time slot.

Good point. It's an extension of the self-protection element of Jack's cutting himself off from Nicky. This was the family that Jack was willing to go groveling to his rotten, abusive father for in order to provide them a home. This was the family for whom he gave up his dreams of starting his own business. This was the family who gave him unconditional love, and a place he belonged. The last time (we know of) that he saw Nicky, Nicky was strung out and had just killed an innocent kid. It makes Kevin's drunken joyride with Tess look like wacky hijinks. Jack wouldn't want someone that messed up, that reckless, near the family he put his life into making. Jack felt, right or wrong, it was an either-or choice between Nicky and the life/family he had now.

Maybe that's part of why Jack closed the door. Also, so he could better compartmentalize, as Miguel said. There may be more to the rift than what we've seen so far. There may have been repercussions for Jack from the Army. There may have been a revenge attack on his platoon. Jack may have gotten more abuse from his father -- he was very close to the breaking point the night he got his mom to leave. Maybe in psychiatric care Nicky blamed Jack for trying to help. And there may have been nothing else. This may have simply been the thing that broke Jack, He had tried and tried and, largely because of circumstances beyond his control, failed. And he got to see bits of what was once a child floating in the water because of it. Nicky's not the only one who was still hearing the mother's wails. ETA: It doesn't mean Nicky was in the wrong to try and reach out to Jack. Both of them had their own damage, trauma, hurt and grief. And that they were never able to bridge that gulf is another tragedy that Vietnam wrought.