This Is Us Recap: “The Fifth Wheel”

This Is Us returned from winter hiatus with guns blazing as “The Fifth Wheel,” takes the audience into an emotionally charged therapy session.

The Pearson family misses all of the happiness from the holidays and skips right to Kevin’s rehab stint with everyone going to visit. This leads to a massive confrontation and the family will have to deal with some large consequences.

Kate and Randall are both trying their best to be supportive for Kevin throughout “The Fifth Wheel,” even though both of them are dealing with their own issues. Beth and Randall are worried about their daughter, Tess, after her attempt at running away while the former is holding onto her anger over the DUI. Randall points out that their frustration should lie with Kevin’s carelessness and stupidity over endangering other people, but that they should tone it down a bit because his brother didn’t know Tess was in the car.

Nevertheless, Beth is holding onto her passive-aggressive nature for the time being. Kate, on the other hand, has begun secretly eating unhealthy food to deal with the trauma of her miscarriage and how separated she feels from her twin. She blames herself for not noticing his addiction, and Toby isn’t exactly sure how to help her.

In therapy, Kevin is guided by guest star Kate Burton, to finally communicate with his family. He clearly doesn’t want to, but his therapist knows that open communication is the key to healing his relationships with his loved ones. Despite his hesitation, he dives into certain realizations he’s had recently involving their father’s addiction as well as his childhood.

“The Fifth Wheel” is named after Kevin’s feelings of growing up as the odd man out because Randall had their mother and Kate had their father.  However, it lets him look at his parents without rose-colored glasses because he’s aware that his parents favored the other kids.

Unfortunately, “The Fifth Wheel” has Rebecca finally admit that she loved Randall more when her two sons argue over “The Randall Show,” and “The Kevin Show.” She accidentally blurts out that Randall was easier to raise because he never pushed her away and didn’t abandon her when Jack died. The whole part of therapy was to highlight how all of the siblings remember their childhood differently and how it has impacted them all.

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Yes, Kevin was harder to raise, but that’s because he was constantly acting out just to get a small amount of attention. Randall took his mother’s side because he always felt separated from his twin siblings while Kate has these views of her mother being the heart of her problems when it could have been Jack’s easy-going attitude that did it too. Luckily, the kids all makeup on a park bench and even share a laugh over how Randall is officially their mother’s favorite.

Back in the past, the Pearsons take a family vacation to a log cabin that sours quickly. Rebecca feels like she has to be the bad guy because she’s the only one who disciplines the kids when Jack caves.  Kevin finally releases an “I hate you” on Rebecca in the cabin when she accuses him of stealing Randall’s new glasses. However, when he wakes up in the middle of a thunderstorm, he’s scared being alone since his siblings have disappeared.

He finds Randall’s glasses where he dropped them, and goes to excitedly return them to his mom but finds the bed full of his other siblings. So poor Kevin goes and sleeps on the floor because he was too scared to return to his own room. It’s one of the saddest scenes of “The Fifth Wheel,” but thankfully, Rebecca notices later into the night and joins her son on the hardwood.

Next: This Is Us Recap: “Number Three”

“The Fifth Wheel” definitely throws a wrench in every relationship, but will help the characters finally deal with some of the long-simmering issues. Also, Kevin has always been the sibling pushed to the side on This Is Us and it will be interesting to finally see his family acknowledge their own hand in his addiction.