S03.E04: Vietnam

[doodlebug]

11 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I completely agree with you.  In reality by the time Jack could get to the same base as his brother in Vietnam, Nicky would have been transferred somewhere else.   The military has a logic completely its own and truly Jack would never have been anywhere near his brother.  He would have stood a better chance of running into Nick somewhere when they were on leave. 

Yep, in 1970, there were over 300,000 US troops in Viet Nam which is about the population of the city where I live but Viet Nam's area is the size of the state of California. The odds that Jack could ever get anywhere near his brother were astronomical. A teeny tiny needle in a very big haystack.

In addition, basic training in the Viet Nam era lasted about 4 months.  So, by the time Jack enlisted, went through training and got to Viet Nam, his brother would've either been killed or be about ready to come home since he had, at minimum, a 5 month head start on Jack.  Viet Nam tours lasted a year unless one voluntarily re-enlisted.

Once again, this show demonstrates a remarkable lack of common sense in the storylines.

[qtpye]

6 hours ago, plurie said:

I got the impression that the Pearsons didn't have the money for college, so it wasn't an option for Nicky. If he'd been born into a wealthier family, he would have gone to college (and gotten a deferment and not been drafted).

 

15 hours ago, CleoCaesar said:

It's rare that I so completely lose interest in an episode that I space out for entire scenes.

That was just brutally boring. At some point I started mentally listing actually interesting things the show could explore: how Rebecca and the kids moved on after Jack died, how Rebecca and Miguel got together, what caused Kevin to cheat on Sophie, how Randall fared in college and got so successful, how Annie and Tess feel about Deja joining their family, literally anything about Kate that isn’t about her weight or her mommy issues.

But no. We get this.

Jack isn't an interesting enough character to me to merit this kind of treatment (same goes for William). Yes, they had some nominal flaws but they're both so disgustingly perfect that there's nothing to really explore there. It doesn't help that every other character sees Jack (and William) as perfect. It's one-note. Jack is dead. We finally know how he died (a rather dumb death). Let's just move on. So many other characters to get into.

 

15 hours ago, chocolatine said:

Jack is a "superhero" for the people he loves, what else is new?

 

15 hours ago, bettername2come said:

The way that lock of hair fell in Jack’s face in the opening scene on the helicopter gave me Peter Petrelli flashbacks. But not in a bad way. Just in a nostalgia-fueled “dang that man doesn’t age” and “aw, Milo’s still playing protective brothers” sort of way.

Tachycardia! OMG! So this is a contributing factor to the Crockpot of Death?

I love that Nicky has lighter hair. Kevin makes genetic sense! Oh, and Michael Angarano from Sky High. I knew that guy looked familiar. And he looks pretty good shirtless.

Their dad saying “make me proud, son” was a good moment. Not uncharacteristically nice, but also not a complete dick move, which is a nice change of pace. And he used to be decent back when he didn’t drink. The “what might’ve been” there could have been such a better life for him and his family, but it’s interesting to see how they’re showing that cycle of addiction across four generations.  

He’s a tough guy in disguise. That’s you, Nicky. You’re CK. It’s only a matter of time before people realize you’re Superman.

“The three of you deserve each other.” Yeah, they do.

Pearson granddad almost had the same birthday as the kid like Jack did with his. Nice to see them tie back into the originally claimed premise of people with the same birthdays and their connections at the hospital. Poor kid. Two minutes later and he would’ve missed the war.

Seriously. Milo doesn't have that strange a look. They could fine someone to be a much better match for him. The older teen Jack from a first season episode wasn't a perfect match but he was at least in the ball park.

 

15 hours ago, deaja said:

I was so bored that like a PP said, I kept losing track. The jumping around made it so disjointed too.

I said this once last season, but I think the show is at its weakest when it dwells on one character. The show works best as an ensemble- an hour of Jack is too much. 

 

14 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Yeah, that was uncanny. I wonder if Kevin looking like his brother affected how Jack saw Kevin at all?

Not a bad episode or anything, and I've wanted them to explore Jacks wartime experiences and backstory with his brother before the war, but none of this is stuff we dont already know. Jack has always been a super protective everybody's hero type, and always put others first. The biggest shock to me was that his dad used to be a stand up guy, which actually does make it even sadder to think of the abusive, drunken asshole that he would grow up to be. No wonder Jack tried so hard to be Super Dad, he must have, on some level, wondered if the same thing could happen to him. 

I always prefer episodes with multiple characters, so I am excited to see what the rest of the Pearson's are up to as soon as possible.

 

13 hours ago, voiceover said:

As soon as Jack's soldier buddy said someday he'd replace Roberto Clemente, I knew it was not going to end well.  And I truly hated the showrunners for that.  Sometimes I don't mind the cheap grabs for my emotions.  This one?  No.  

Because I was a little kid, and a Royals fan, but I had his baseball card, and I wept when he died.

 

On a weirder note: Jack's mom looks like Mary Chapin Carpenter.

 

I'm sorry, but this show is chock full of characters with interesting storylines and I have to sit through another episode of "Damn, Jack is such a saint". I already knew his father was an asshole and the fact that at one time he was nice does not make me care more. I am someone who really likes Jack and thinks the actor is very easy on the eyes (even better looking than when he was Jess on Gilmore Girls) but this episode was a total dud for me. Of course, Jack goes to war to take care of his brother and his asshole father will later make fun of him for "not saving Nicky". Enough with the lives of totally perfect fathers, who except for the little run-ins with addictions that they totally beat, are hero worshipped more than the living breathing characters on the show. Jack literally died saving a puppy from a burning building and than going back in because his "goodness" was too strong in him. I want to know more about Beth. How does a woman like her, who holds it down for everyone else, deal with a setback? What is her family life like that she can roll so easily with all her husband's Superman issues? Also, I am familiar with the actor that plays Nicky and it tickles me that people say he looks like Kevin. The actor is cute but is in no way the looker that Kevin turned out to be. My guess is that Nicky could not go to college because the asshole father drank away any savings they had and blue-collar kids were not as aware of scholarships and financial aid as they are now. Of course, how the hell did he have money to give St. Jack a loan to buy the house? 

[doodlebug]

5 minutes ago, DFWGina said:

If he had been Jack's dr since childhood, shouldn't/wouldn't he have already noticed the heart defect?   But I did like the foreshadowing....  (is it foreshadowing if we already know a heart issue takes him out? LOL)

My dad was in ROTC in college and commissioned as an officer in the US Army in the late 60s.  He was eventually sent to Vietnam when I was a baby and fortunately came home safely after a tour.  He was in the reserves for a period of time afterward (not the same as the reserves today where you do weekends).    He has not spoken one word about Vietnam to his family (parents, wife, child, etc) and none of us would ever ask him given he doesn't share it freely.   I can only imagine it was a horrible time and something he doesn't wish to talk about.   I find that part about Jack's experience to be very realistic as it mirror's my dad's experience and mine as his child.

I don't think most vets share a lot with their families.  I had an uncle who was a POW in Germany during WWII and I remember my aunt saying he never spoke of it.  I have a cousin who, like your dad, went to Viet Nam after ROTC in college.  I was alive, but a preteen, but do remember it.  I happened to visit that cousin and his family a few years ago.  I went out to dinner with him, his wife and adult daughter.  We were talking about our younger lives and the subject of his ROTC and tour in Viet Nam came up.  I cannot remember the context, but he spoke of not being in combat, but that, at one point, their base was attacked and a couple of men were killed.  He spoke of being their CO and having to identify the bodies, collect their personal effects and write the letter to their families and how awful it was.  After the dinner, both his wife and daughter told me that was the very first time either one of them had heard him talk about anything that had happened there.  He'd been married 35 years at that point and his daughter was 32.

[CountryGirl]

30 minutes ago, Neurochick said:

I thought the end scene, when Nick was born was interesting because Jack's dad wasn't an asshole, but it looked like his grandfather was, plus he was drinking.

Yes...and the parallels resonate to present day and why the past matters.

[Biggie B]

Certainly many vets cannot/will not talk about their experiences, which is why I find it a bit frustrating that I, as a viewer, get to see everything that happened in full detail. This gives me a level of insight that the other characters do not have and won't ever have, in Jack's case, since he's dead and can't ever tell them anything. Sometimes I want to yell out to one of them, "Jack went through X, Y, and Z!! That's why he is saying/doing such-and-such!" We're getting all the answers to so many questions, but we have to watch the rest of the characters stumble around in the dark. And it's not even just the war stuff. We now have a glimpse of Jack's father as a decent guy. But Rebecca and the triplets have no clue about this (or if they do know something, it's likely very minimal). 

[Soup333]

Do we know what happened to Jack's mom? Did she go back to the dad? Did she die before the kids were born? Was she ever in their lives?

[chocolatine]

1 minute ago, Soup333 said:

Do we know what happened to Jack's mom? Did she go back to the dad? Did she die before the kids were born? Was she ever in their lives?

In the pilot, Jack said his mom made the onesies for the Big Three, but she wasn't in any of the childhood flashback scenes, unlike Rebecca's mother.

[doodlebug]

3 minutes ago, Soup333 said:

Do we know what happened to Jack's mom? Did she go back to the dad? Did she die before the kids were born? Was she ever in their lives?

We know she knitted outfits for them when they were born.  I have a feeling we're going to find out more, especially as Jack's courtship of Rebecca is undoubtedly going to be given more time.

[albinerhawk]

I was born in 1980 which really helps me connect with the Big Three. Young Nick reminded me of pictures of my dad growing up. Fortunately my grandfather was nothing like Jack's dad. However, I feel like I was really sheltered from the Vietnam War. My dad was 4F, and no one in his family went. No one on my mother's side did either. I did find the lottery scenes really chilling despite knowing the outcome. I watched this the next day on Hulu and was in another window googling how the lottery system worked. I didn't realize it was based on your birthday. I just assumed you were given a random number, and you were sent a letter if you were drafted.

[doodlebug]

8 minutes ago, Biggie B said:

Certainly many vets cannot/will not talk about their experiences, which is why I find it a bit frustrating that I, as a viewer, get to see everything that happened in full detail. This gives me a level of insight that the other characters do not have and won't ever have, in Jack's case, since he's dead and can't ever tell them anything. Sometimes I want to yell out to one of them, "Jack went through X, Y, and Z!! That's why he is saying/doing such-and-such!" We're getting all the answers to so many questions, but we have to watch the rest of the characters stumble around in the dark. And it's not even just the war stuff. We now have a glimpse of Jack's father as a decent guy. But Rebecca and the triplets have no clue about this (or if they do know something, it's likely very minimal). 

But, isn't that kind of the point of the show?  All of us go through life interacting with friends and family and, no matter how close we are, no matter how much we love them; we never get to know everything that shaped them.  'This is Us' indeed.

[albinerhawk]

6 hours ago, plurie said:

I got the impression that the Pearsons didn't have the money for college, so it wasn't an option for Nicky. If he'd been born into a wealthier family, he would have gone to college (and gotten a deferment and not been drafted).

My mom went to college and paid for her own tuition. She was born in 1950. Nick doesn't seem to be a slacker. I'm sure if he put his mind to it he could have gone to school.

[qtpye]

1 minute ago, albinerhawk said:

My mom went to college and paid for her own tuition. She was born in 1950. Nick doesn't seem to be a slacker. I'm sure if he put his mind to it he could have gone to school.

If he was in college, would he have been able to avoid the draft? Would even a relatively low-cost community do the trick?

[Biggie B]

Separate and apart from Vietnam, the number 18 is very significant in Judaism. It's far too complicated to explain, but if you Google it, you can find out some really cool stuff about the number 18. I remember as a teen, when I got my first car (an old clunker!), I was given a small drawstring bag with 18 pennies in it, and was told to put it in the glove compartment, for good luck. So I found it sad that for Nicky, the number 18 was ultimately very unlucky for him. 

[doodlebug]

4 minutes ago, qtpye said:

If he was in college, would he have been able to avoid the draft? Would even a relatively low-cost community do the trick?

There were deferments for college, but they ended in 1971 because many, many guys were enrolling in college in order to avoid the draft.  Also, I believe the student had to carry a certain number of hours and also had to maintain decent grades.  I think we're supposed to think that either Nick didn't have the money for college or, for some reason, didn't go straight out of high school.  Plenty of guys who had no intention of graduating college enrolled to avoid the draft; figuring the war, and hence the draft, wasn't going to last forever.  A guy like Nick, who wanted a college education should've gone to college straight from high school, even if he had to hold a job at the same time.  Makes a lot more sense than running to Canada.

[WhosThatGirl]

8 hours ago, himela said:

If I wanted to watch a series about war, I would do that. There are many things I hate watching and the worst for me is war stuff. I didn't watch this episode. You have so many interesting characters with great potential of stories and you keep insisting to show us only one character (a dead one) and his life 47 years ago. I mean, who cares?

 

7 hours ago, Cementhead said:

Same here.

 

6 hours ago, Jeddah said:

This is a tv show. I think it’s unfair and simplistic to say anyone who doesn’t like this episode must be a lucky member of the younger generation who just doesn’t get it.

Yeah, I understand Vietnam is a undeniably horrible more so than words  and everything, but I don’t watch war type movies or tv shows. They aren’t my thing. They never have been. It doesn’t take anything away from it and it doesn’t mean I don’t understand.

Also I agree with another poster who said it’s hard to connect with this story when Jack is dead in present day. As I said we know how his story has ended. We know how His brothers has ended. It’s not just this episode but the 3x01 when we saw Jack and Rebecca’s first date and then ended on a cliffhanger when her high school boyfriend; we already knew this random flower guy wasn’t going to be anything, Rebecca andnJack got married and had three kids. It’s hard for me to see beginnings when the end has been shown. 

I don’t mind the flashbacks to when the big three were kids or teens or whatever when they fit the story in some way to the present, but a lot of the flashbacks so far this season don’t seem to have any connection to the present. At least to me. 

[qtpye]

16 minutes ago, doodlebug said:

There were deferments for college, but they ended in 1971 because many, many guys were enrolling in college in order to avoid the draft.  Also, I believe the student had to carry a certain number of hours and also had to maintain decent grades.  I think we're supposed to think that either Nick didn't have the money for college or, for some reason, didn't go straight out of high school.  Plenty of guys who had no intention of graduating college enrolled to avoid the draft; figuring the war, and hence the draft, wasn't going to last forever.  A guy like Nick, who wanted a college education should've gone to college straight from high school, even if he had to hold a job at the same time.  Makes a lot more sense than running to Canada.

Yes, but then we would not have had St. Jack to come to the rescue. Nicky only exists as a character to tell us about Jack, not a person in his own right. He is someone that needs a hero and Jack will be that hero. The fact that Jack fails to save him will only serve to give Jack more depth. To hell with Beth and Randall's biological daughters who have gone through so much in the last year...we need to find out more about Jack. 

[Soup333]

26 minutes ago, albinerhawk said:

My mom went to college and paid for her own tuition. She was born in 1950. Nick doesn't seem to be a slacker. I'm sure if he put his mind to it he could have gone to school.

This doesn't seem to be an apples to apples comparison. Want does not equal ability.

[OhSarah69]

While it can be hard to watch when an ensemble show suddenly focuses on one character only (you keep expecting them to cut to one of the other main characters), and while I don’t usually enjoy army stuff (I’m a wimp), I’m glad I stuck with the episode.  I don’t necessarily want to see tons more like it, but if Kevin is going to persist in “getting to know his dad”, then I think this illuminating background episode was necessary.  Let us hope that Kevin doesn’t end up making it all about himself.  We shall see.

Some folks here commented with their takes that “we get it, Jacks’s a superhero who can do no wrong, how boring”, and I have to say that my thoughts are different.  Jack’s empathy and sense of protectiveness are one part of the equation, ones I feel he was born with, whereas his life circumstances (abusive parent, unhappy moments) are the other part of the equation.  I feel that rather than feeling a rush from being an empowered superhero, Jack always felt this burden to try to fix the things and people around him.  That is a heavy load to carry, man.  Not something that brings you joy.  If people want to put that superhero label on you, is that your fault? 

On the subject of the physical resemblance (or lack thereof) of the little kid Jack and grown-up Milo, I have to say the kid actor’s deep brown eyes and gentle strength to me channeled Milo.  When first little Nicky and then little Jack came into the kitchen when the dad was beating up the mom, and little Jack looked up at his dad with equal parts bravery and terror, I totally bought that this was the same character as grown-up Jack.  I may be a little biased, because grown-up Jack, with the dark soulful eyes and modest height, bears a bit of a resemblance to my own late dad at that age.

The back-and-forth timelines (“fourteen months earlier….a year earlier…etc.”) threw me a bit.  I was keeping a bet with myself for awhile on how many times they would go back and forth within a single episode.  The draft lottery....no words. I cannot imagine sitting through that.

[Scarlett45]

2 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

Jack's grandfather and father were alcoholics.  I hope Jack doesn't head down that path.  It wouldn't be shocking if he did.  I do wonder what caused Jack's dad to turn to the bottle and become a wife beater. 

Jack was never abusive (physically or verbally), but he was an alcoholic. He had a long stretch of sobriety after Rebecca called him on his drinking when the kids were young (8 or so) until they were 17, picked up the bottle again and eventually went to AA (he was an active member when he died). 

Edited October 17, 2018 by Scarlett45

[Allison1]

My husband served in Vietnam (he enlisted to avoid the draft).  The oldest son of the neighbor of my childhood home (the literal "boy next door") died there.   I can still remember sitting in a huge lecture room at college the day of the lottery.  Everyone was terrified because everyone either was up for the draft or had someone in their life who was.  It was a terrible time.  I can understand Kevin wanting to know more but that doesn't make it any easier to watch.  

[ShadowFacts]

2 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I hated that war movie cliche.  Also when the soldiers throwing the football did not listen to Jack about stopping, I  knew that something bad was going to happen.  Those beats are way too obvious and should not have been included. 

A bit of heavy-handedness is the coin of the realm for this show.  I'm sure that we're going to see more of football soldier, either killing himself or committing some atrocity.  Something big will be happening with the woman and her son.  They were setting things up to be finished later, pretty clearly.  Probably anything that happens in Vietnam scenes will be somewhat predictable.  In a sense, we've seen it all before, but it still gives context to Jack's future actions.  Not everybody's cup of tea.  I personally don't need to see how Jack's father came to be what he ended up as, but I'm sure that Nicky's birth scene was inserted because we are indeed going to see it.  It's a mixed bag of a show for me.  In this episode, I thought Milo did a really fine performance.  The man can act. 

[bichonblitz]

17 hours ago, Dreamboat Annie said:

hose old white men in the white office, announcing the young men they would send off to war.  May it never happen again.

I don't remember it happening that way. I remember my brother getting a letter in the mail and my parents sitting at the kitchen table discussing it with him.  He was 20 and I was 5 yrs younger but still a day I will never forget. 

[saber5055]

I lived through the Vietnam era and yeah, my number would have been called if I had been a boy. Meanwhile, friends died and other friends have never recovered, including me. I have not recovered. I did not want to see this episode and, in fact, did not watch once I saw what it was going to show. I have no interest in reliving that through some tv character acting in some story made up by tv script writers.

I strongly dislike Kate and Toby but would rather see 10 hours of them than last night's one hour.

[memememe76]

That lottery scene was so impactful to me. Was that scene on the tv screen made up? It seems like the producers lifted it from a real-life broadcast. 

[CountryGirl]

2 minutes ago, memememe76 said:

That lottery scene was so impactful to me. Was that scene on the tv screen made up? It seems like the producers lifted it from a real-life broadcast. 

It was a real broadcast.

[jmonique]

My problem, as others have mentioned, is we're treading water at this point. Jack is dead, and has been for upwards of 20 years. We know what happened to him, we know he got married, and had three kids, and fought alcoholism, and died. We know he was the bestest father to ever father, the kindest man to ever be a man, and the saintliest saint to never be named one. 

There are rarely shades of gray when it comes to Jack -- he's never met a person who didn't wind up considering him a superhero. Which is fine. It's great. More people could stand to be like him.

If this show were about the War and the 60s and 70s, fine. But it's not. The 2018 Pearsons can't move forward because the show can't move beyond Jack because the show has to keep Milo around. I've said it before, I think Milo is great and is doing the best work of his career here, but despite the big scene in the finale last season, all the other characters are still haunted by him. There are countless other stories that could be moving forward: Randall ignoring two-thirds of his girls and the repercussions; how is Randall going to afford to run for office in a district he doesn't live in, when he and his wife are unemployed; when will Beth ever get to pull focus from Randall; HOW THE HELL did Miguel and Rebecca move from friends to a couple; what's next for Kevin's career now that he's broken into movies; is there anything more to Kate beyond her dress size and her daddy issues?
But no. It's still All. About. Jack. Literally, in the case of last night's episode.

[Neurochick]

2 minutes ago, jmonique said:

If this show were about the War and the 60s and 70s, fine. But it's not. The 2018 Pearsons can't move forward because the show can't move beyond Jack because the show has to keep Milo around. I've said it before, I think Milo is great and is doing the best work of his career here, but despite the big scene in the finale last season, all the other characters are still haunted by him. There are countless other stories that could be moving forward: Randall ignoring two-thirds of his girls and the repercussions; how is Randall going to afford to run for office in a district he doesn't live in, when he and his wife are unemployed; when will Beth ever get to pull focus from Randall; HOW THE HELL did Miguel and Rebecca move from friends to a couple; what's next for Kevin's career now that he's broken into movies; is there anything more to Kate beyond her dress size and her daddy issues?
But no. It's still All. About. Jack. Literally, in the case of last night's episode.

That's how a lot of real life is.  I mean what happened in the past has a lot to do with what happens in the future and I think that's the point of the show.  

[Empress1]

7 minutes ago, Neurochick said:

That's how a lot of real life is.  I mean what happened in the past has a lot to do with what happens in the future and I think that's the point of the show.  

Right. For example, last night we learned that Kevin is the FOURTH in a line of Pearson men who battled addiction. That's significant.

[ShadowFacts]

13 minutes ago, jmonique said:

My problem, as others have mentioned, is we're treading water at this point. Jack is dead, and has been for upwards of 20 years. We know what happened to him, we know he got married, and had three kids, and fought alcoholism, and died. We know he was the bestest father to ever father, the kindest man to ever be a man, and the saintliest saint to never be named one. 

There are rarely shades of gray when it comes to Jack -- he's never met a person who didn't wind up considering him a superhero. Which is fine. It's great. More people could stand to be like him.

If this show were about the War and the 60s and 70s, fine. But it's not. The 2018 Pearsons can't move forward because the show can't move beyond Jack because the show has to keep Milo around. I've said it before, I think Milo is great and is doing the best work of his career here, but despite the big scene in the finale last season, all the other characters are still haunted by him. There are countless other stories that could be moving forward: Randall ignoring two-thirds of his girls and the repercussions; how is Randall going to afford to run for office in a district he doesn't live in, when he and his wife are unemployed; when will Beth ever get to pull focus from Randall; HOW THE HELL did Miguel and Rebecca move from friends to a couple; what's next for Kevin's career now that he's broken into movies; is there anything more to Kate beyond her dress size and her daddy issues?
But no. It's still All. About. Jack. Literally, in the case of last night's episode.

In fairness, we don't know what the rest of the season holds.  We know the Big 3 in the present will figure prominently, they have to.  We know the Vietnam story is unfinished because we know Nicky dies there and we haven't seen that.  We will see more of all those characters to finish off what happened there.  I'm sure in due course we'll get Toby and Beth back stories, maybe Rebecca and Miguel's courtship, etc.  It's not going to be all Jack.  But Jack is the patriarch who looms large, because as Neurochick said, that is how it happens in real life, at least sometimes, for some people. 

[SevenStars]

18 hours ago, Veronica said:

Would your draft number be called? Type in the month & day you were born to see if you would have been drafted. 

2 minutes. 2 damn minutes. 

If I  had been born decades earlier and a boy, I would have been there. 

[Eureka]

3 hours ago, kili said:

His reaction to a child giving a fish to Jack was a bit extreme.

I actually thought it was going to be a grenade or bomb and obviously wouldn't have killed Jack but wounded him and killed others.

[WhosThatGirl]

I get that these flashbacks were important but I kind of wish they had inculded Kevin present day, traveling to find out more info. Like we know Kevin is probably going to meet up with the man who lost his leg, so I don’t understand why we have an episode focused on JAck.

Also like someone else said, as viewers we get to see this story. None of the other characters will know parts of this story. Kevin will eventually learn some but probably not even half of what we saw in last nights episode. And who knows how many people Kevin will meet or get to meet, he still probably won’t get much of the story that we saw.

Also I know Randall knows a little , they went to the memorial site and talked a bit but not a lot. I doubt Kate knows much and I don’t think Rebecca does because he told her he doesn’t like to talk about it much on their first date and to me, it seems like he wouldn’t push. Maybe I’m wrong but it seems to me they didn’t talk about it much. 

It’s why I agree with someone else stating that as viewers in a flashback episode that is solely on one character, the other characters are probably never going to get parts of this story.

Also.. I think the kids might have a good idea of how Jacks father was a bad guy. I know Rebecca knows and Rebecca brought Kate when Jacks dad was dying and Jack wasn’t happy about it. And they sort of know jack had a drinking problem, and I think the show has implied Rebecca knew and possibly knew it was a possible hereditary thing but she chose to ignore it because she didn’t want them to have terrible memories of their father. Which yeah okay but Kevin calling her out on that therapy made sense.

But again..there are stories and things that the characters are never going to know because jack is dead. EVen Nicky’s death while it will be sad, I don’t know how much the other characters we know- unless someone else was there with jack and Kevin meets them. Which.. possible. 

Like I said.. I have a problem when the flashbacks don’t connect to anything going on in the present and that seems to be a problem this season. 

[Mom2twoNonna2-3]

My dad was a diabetic, but, his number was 259 so he was pretty much safe anyway. My boss, an attorney, has told me that his son, born in 1967 literally saved his and his ex-wife's life. His number was 31. As a husband and student he got a deferral. It was discovered sometime during the pregnancy or delivery that his ex had a tumor. She lived and went on to have 2 girls when my other boss (the son) was in his teens. My uncle was 165, but, he enlisted so he could enter with his friends. My grandparents  moved from Pittsburgh to Florida in May 1970 and he didn't want to get drafted down there. I'm not sure he ever left the US though. He worked in some kind of office logistics. I remember spending summer with him and my aunt in Georgia in the mid-70s. He was still serving at that point and later used his GI bill to get his accounting degree at the same college my uncle (who served in probably WWII) did.

I never knew how the draft lottery worked.  I just spent time explaining to my 19 year old son how it works and how his diabetes is slightly different than his grandfather's. But, he told me his T1D would still preclude him at this point.  The basics of T1D are the same, except the insulin. In my father's day, insulin had to be kept cold. Now, once you open the dispenser pen, it only needs to be kept room temp. 

I am glad the whole episode was not war scenes. I'm curious as to how Jack and Nicky's dad became an alcoholic. It's sad to see the cycle continue. Poor Kevin.

[CleoCaesar]

5 hours ago, Blakeston said:

I'm very interested in Vietnam, and I was very glad to see that Tim O'Brien had a writing credit on this episode.

But I was bored by a lot of it. It didn't teach me anything about Vietnam that I didn't already know, and frankly, I couldn't stand all the cliches they were throwing at us.

Exactly. It was just stale. It's a sappy 40-minute evening soap - what kind of profound new ground are they going to break with a Vietnam episode? Hell, the Vietnam scenes in Forrest Gump packed ten times the emotional wallop that last night's episode did.

 

3 hours ago, ProudMary said:

 Also--and I say this as the mother of two sons--why would he ever do that to his mother?  Of course, she was frantic with worry about Nicky.  Now she has to be frantic with worry about Jack too?  Honestly, Jack's savior complex here is selfish and misplaced.  

Agree completely. Savior complexes are all about the "savior", not the person he/she attempts to help. Enlisting was yet another of Jack's grand gestures (or I suppose in the chronology of the show, one of his first).

 

1 minute ago, WhosThatGirl said:

 I have a problem when the flashbacks don’t connect to anything going on in the present and that seems to be a problem this season. 

Yep! It just felt like the writers going "Oh you like Jack? Here's Jack, all Jack, 40 minutes of Jack!". We didn't learn all that much about Jack that we didn't already know: savior complex, had a shitty dad, had a brother named Nicky, fought in Vietnam. We already know his story, and even how it ended.

[callmebetty]

2 hours ago, ShadowFacts said:

A bit of heavy-handedness is the coin of the realm for this show.  I'm sure that we're going to see more of football soldier, either killing himself or committing some atrocity.  Something big will be happening with the woman and her son.  They were setting things up to be finished later, pretty clearly.  Probably anything that happens in Vietnam scenes will be somewhat predictable.  In a sense, we've seen it all before, but it still gives context to Jack's future actions.  Not everybody's cup of tea.  I personally don't need to see how Jack's father came to be what he ended up as, but I'm sure that Nicky's birth scene was inserted because we are indeed going to see it.  It's a mixed bag of a show for me.  In this episode, I thought Milo did a really fine performance.  The man can act. 

I can see them setting up some Casualties of War type of scenario.  Or at least Jack saving her from being assualted by football soldier or a twist that superior of Jack's that showed up to check on him.

[Quark]

A fairly boring episode.

One thing I'm curious about though. This lottery system for the Vietnam War. When these people were announcing birthdays, did everyone that was born on that specific day need to sign up (provided they met the age requirement)?

[Kdawg82]

Hi all! I'm a long time lurker on these forums, following many of my favorite shows including this one. This episode inspired me to finally become a member & post. I thought it was a well done episode.  My father is a Vietnam Veteran and he was drafted. He spoke often about it. Asked how he felt when his # was pulled, he said he was sick to his stomach, couldn't eat or sleep.  Though he spoke of the bad, he spoke of the simple pleasures of home he was amazed by upon returning , never to take for granted. He wanted to remain in the Army b/c he "liked the camaraderie" but worried who would take care of his mom so he didn't remain in the service.  He also had an a**hole father named Stanley and my dad also turned to alcohol and struggles all his life with it. He is a proud patriot and I know he believes that serving in the war in some way made him special- kind of like Nicky may have felt...a time to be a hero. I'm glad he lived and glad he went on to have me.  His experiences & the way they shaped him, both having an abusive father and serving in the war, definitely influenced the way he raised us kids.  I could go on and on about how much in common I have with this show but I'll leave it at 1)I've cried every episode without fail & 2)Was literally breast feeding my infant son when Rebecca was breast feeding Randall & I LOST IT! 

[sadie]

Sorry but I’m in the I was bored camp on this one. The reason I like this show is it’s about the three siblings with snippets of the past to explain why they are what they are today. A whole episode on a character that is dead in the shows present time, and never spoke of his time in the war to his kids makes me wonder why we needed this story told eating up a whole episode. And once again Saint Jack is just perfection, his dad told him when he was 5 to watch over his little brother is just an eye role moment for me, I can’t remember any sage advice I was given at 5. This would have worked better for me had they interspersed Jacks wisdom about the war in dealing with his children, instead we get a one off “Apocalypse Now” and it just didn’t interest me. YMMV 

[nexxie]

Looks like Jack chose to be a hero to his family because they desperately needed a hero - if his dad wasn’t such an asshole, he might’ve been different.

[Bringonthedrama]

5 hours ago, ProudMary said:

  Now she has to be frantic with worry about Jack too?  Honestly, Jack's savior complex here is selfish and misplaced.  

I'm wondering if Jack developed a savior complex *because* his brother and mother - the two people he loved the most in the world - died at some point. He obviously felt protective of his little brother and his mom as a young man, but that is not the same as having a life-long prominent hero complex.  If he felt he "failed" to stop their deaths, it would make sense that he overcompensated by trying even harder in the future to be a hero for those he came to love.

[babs j.]

I typed in my birthday and it was in the 300's  but my brother's was 59 and he would have been.  I'm female so no draft, my brother was 20 with a bad back and in college.  I think he did have to go somewhere possibly for an evaluation, but he wasn't drafted.

[Lisa418722]

I actually liked this episode after I got used to the going back in time.  I was born during the Vietnam era. My dad had already been in the Air Force (being honorably discharged in 1964) and he never had to go to Vietnam.  But seeing the lottery was .... terrifying, I'm not sure the word I'm looking for, but I cannot imagine how young men old enough to be drafted - and their families and other loved ones -- felt while listening for his birthday. 

I wonder what happened to cause his dad to turn into an alcoholic jerk. Then as others have said, you see the progression from Great-Grandfather down to Kevin.

I am very thankful that Jack was the only focus in this episode.  The idea of going back and forth in current time with the Big Three would have lessened some of the impact in my opinion.  

[Drumpf1737]

6 hours ago, DFWGina said:

If he had been Jack's dr since childhood, shouldn't/wouldn't he have already noticed the heart defect?   But I did like the foreshadowing....  (is it foreshadowing if we already know a heart issue takes him out? LOL)

Check the dialog I believe the doctor indicated that he'd diagnosed the heart condition and had advised Jack that he'd probably be 4F. 

 

6 hours ago, DFWGina said:

He has not spoken one word about Vietnam to his family (parents, wife, child, etc) and none of us would ever ask him given he doesn't share it freely.   I can only imagine it was a horrible time and something he doesn't wish to talk about.   I find that part about Jack's experience to be very realistic as it mirror's my dad's experience and mine as his child.

My Dad and Uncle were the same. Both talked about the opportunities to travel after being discharged, but never the war.

Any speculation on how Jack's grandfather triggers the father's drinking?

Edited October 17, 2018 by Drumpf1737

[meep.meep]

2 hours ago, Quark said:

A fairly boring episode.

One thing I'm curious about though. This lottery system for the Vietnam War. When these people were announcing birthdays, did everyone that was born on that specific day need to sign up (provided they met the age requirement)?

Everyone had already registered for the draft.  The lottery told them which ones should be expecting letters telling them that they needed to report for duty.

Registering for the draft is still required.  For some jobs, you need to show proof that you registered.

[Baltimore Betty]

39 minutes ago, babs j. said:

I typed in my birthday and it was in the 300's  but my brother's was 59 and he would have been.  I'm female so no draft, my brother was 20 with a bad back and in college.  I think he did have to go somewhere possibly for an evaluation, but he wasn't drafted.

My brother turned 18 the day after the draft ended, it was a huge relief for my parents. I have no memory of the drawing of the draft lotteries on TV but vivid memories of watching the war footage on the Today show each morning before going off to school.  My father was in the Navy during the tail end of WWII, (enlisted on VE Day) saw no action and talked little about the actual war but all the traveling, his time in China, lot's of pictures (very cool) but no details of anything awful. 

Jack liked to be in the here and now, so I guess his time in the service was just a means to an end, when it was over, it was over.

This episode is drawing back in to the series.

[athousandclowns]

21 hours ago, Veronica said:

Would your draft number be called? Type in the month & day you were born to see if you would have been drafted. 

2 minutes. 2 damn minutes. 

Thanks for posting that is very interesting. . My first husband was called for his physical in Fort Ord  in 65 but was not taken because I was pregnant ( had note from doc )!when  I tell that story people don't think it could  be true, so I'm assuming by each state things were different. My brother was same age and year joined national guard so he avoided war also . My late husband was called in 67-68 but he  was  in college  and also had high security job which eliminated him 

i know ow someone who had bone spurs 4 times and wasn't drafted. 

My father who had a bad heart condition but was drafted anyway in Korean War. 

That televison thing didn't happen in CA to my knowledge. 

Edited October 17, 2018 by athousandclowns

[cpmomm]

I also agree with Roxie...you had to live through that era to really feel what was going on. Do viewers  realize the significance of 11:58 pm? If Nick were born two minutes later at midnight his birthday would of been October 19 on his grandfather's birthday that his draft number would of been 241 and not likely to go to war but since he was born on October 18 at 11:58 pm his draft number was 005 and was drafted to the war. If he was born 2 minutes later the whole war thing would not have occurred. Also they could not use the date that Vietnam episode aired as his birthday  because the airing date was October 16 and  the daft number for that birth date was 254 too high of a number to be drafted. 

[voiceover]

I've been musing on the "If you didn't live through it, how can it resonate?" angle.

Wellllllllllllllllllll...

It's true that watching a fictionalized account of your cultural past can cause you to think, "Wow, that's what that felt like/No, it wasn't like that at all..because IwasthereIremember!"

On the other hand:  

I was born long after the Korean War concluded.  But I grew up loving M*A*S*H (eh, seasons 2 through Radar's exit, anyway).  Loving it so much that my brother and I would recite whole pages of the show's dialogue at dinner.  Loving it so that it was always & ever Hawkeye Pierce (not Mary Richards) as my idol.

My parents were infants during WW2.  But I was gutted by the D-Day re-enactment in Saving Private Ryan, and I think Band of Brothers was an exceptional series.

So it's possible that *young people out there* gave last night's ep a pass because they weren't drawn in by the writing.  Or they don't much care for Jack.  Or Nicky wasn't onscreen long enough to be a compelling character.

[Biggie B]

Quote

I also agree with Roxie...you had to live through that era to really feel what was going on.

I disagree with this. I think human suffering can be understood even if you didn't experience it first hand. I was only 8 in 1970 but that doesn't mean I can't be affected by the horrors of Vietnam. Obviously, it didn't have an immediate or personal impact on me as it was happening, as I was too young and had no family members or friends involved. But I think that now, as a 56 year old person who has lived a bit and has experienced the broad variety of major life challenges (illness, death, financial crap, etc.) that most of us encounter as we navigate through life, I can be affected by Vietnam. I don't think there's only one way to recognize and be impacted by tragedy. I'm Jewish - every year at Passover, we commemorate the horror the Jews in ancient Egypt endured. I didn't live through that era, yet it is a part of my very being and I feel it quite intensely. And on a very shallow level, if only people who experienced Vietnam in real time can "feel" it in the present day, that would mean that the makers of this show are targeting a very specific demographic and are purposely excluding the rest of the viewing audience - and I suspect that isn't what they're aiming to do. 

Edited October 18, 2018 by Biggie B

[ShadowFacts]

29 minutes ago, voiceover said:

I've been musing on the "If you didn't live through it, how can it resonate?" angle.

Wellllllllllllllllllll...

It's true that watching a fictionalized account of your cultural past can cause you to think, "Wow, that's what that felt like/No, it wasn't like that at all..because IwasthereIremember!"

On the other hand:  

I was born long after the Korean War concluded.  But I grew up loving M*A*S*H (eh, seasons 2 through Radar's exit, anyway).  Loving it so much that my brother and I would recite whole pages of the show's dialogue at dinner.  Loving it so that it was always & ever Hawkeye Pierce (not Mary Richards) as my idol.

My parents were infants during WW2.  But I was gutted by the D-Day re-enactment in Saving Private Ryan, and I think Band of Brothers was an exceptional series.

So it's possible that *young people out there* gave last night's ep a pass because they weren't drawn in by the writing.  Or they don't much care for Jack.  Or Nicky wasn't onscreen long enough to be a compelling character.

For the record, I was one who said it would probably resonate more with people who experienced some of it, which I think is true enough, but of course that is a generalization.  Some people who were in the thick of it might not have liked the episode for various reasons, and some who were born later might have loved it.  Both are possible.  I am likely drawn in by feelings I recall from my past, especially around weighty things like the draft was, but it doesn't mean I would like it if the writing or acting were poor, which I don't think they were.  I also said it's partly generational, partly personal preference.   Another poster mentioned that people who didn't have to fear the draft were lucky, which I think is perfectly true as well, and isn't meant as dragging the younger viewers.  It's a blessing not to have to fear such a thing, and with an all-volunteer military, it's very much a thing of the past (knock wood).