This Is Us Season 2, Episode 3 recap: “Deja Vu”
Kevin Pearson was front and center with Jack this week on an emotional episode of This Is Us.
This Is Us finally gives Kevin an actually storyline this week in, “Deja Vu,” that could become on of his series long conflicts. In the last episode, Jack finally began to face his drinking problem head on, and this week fans finally get to see the ramifications of his addiction issues. While he may not have made it to see his three kids grow up, there’s no denying that the patriarchal Pearson shaped their lives but left them with a lot of emotional baggage to deal with. Kevin might get to do the heavy lifting this week, but Randall and Kate still continue to struggle with the death of their father.
Last season Kevin’s hard work was rewarded with the spot in a Ron Howard movie alongside Sylvester Stallone. In “Deja Vu,” he brings his sister to set to meet the movie star where she proceeds to bestow him with compliments and praise. However, when Kate brings up Jack to Stallone, Kevin becomes visibly uncomfortable. It turns out, he has just as many problems dealing with the death of his father and when Kate continues to push the topic he finally snaps. His words to her are brutal and cutthroat, but everyone knows he doesn’t mean them when he apologizes by the episode’s end. However, his thoughts about Jack mess up his performance and Kevin injures his “bad knee,” which was in a cast in the flashback to Jack’s death. After getting off the phone with Kate, she makes a remark to her father’s urn that Kevin is just like him, as her twin brother pops a pill to numb the pain.
Randall is also thrust into a situation where he’s uncomfortable in “Deja Vu,” now that the couple finally gets their first foster child. The teenage girl, Deja, doesn’t exactly get along well with Randall, and she is understandably upset that her mother has been dragged off to jail. She gets into a fight with Beth once the latter finds cigarettes in the girl’s bag. Luckily, her two new foster sisters are happy to let their new family member stay in their room if she’s scared and the two parents can breathe a sigh of relief. The next morning, Deja apologizes for her behavior but when she finds out that her mother is going to be in a jail for a longtime, she once again lashes out. It’s always interesting when television tries to tackle the horrors of being in the foster care system, and This Is Us looks like it’s crafting a compelling season long story.
In the past, Rebecca and Jack’s relationship has hit a bit of a bump while he focuses on staying sober. She confides in Miguel’s then wife about their lack of a sex life, and is encouraged to do date night. However, things don’t go as planned in “Deja Vu” when Jack gently rejects his wife which embarrasses both of them. Sitting in the car in front of the house, he reveals that he doesn’t want to be intimate while he has so many things on his mind because it doesn’t seem fair to her. After a heart-to-heart in the car, the two reconcile and get busy in the backseat thus solving the big problem in their marriage.
It’s satisfying for This Is Us to finally give Kevin a decent storyline that finally gives the audience a deeper look at the most vain Pearson. “Deja Vu,” reveals that he could be suffering from addiction issues like his father, and is still handling his death poorly into adulthood. It’s a longtime coming now that Randall and Kate spent last season dealing with their grief that Kevin finally get some focus. Hopefully while the series explores his problems, they continue with Randall’s and Beth’s decision to foster a child because it’s such a rare occurrence on television to see that storyline done correctly.