An Homage to This Is Us’ S2 E17
What makes This Is Us so special?
That is the burning question many critics and fans are asking themselves. What makes us love this show so much? It isn’t like we haven’t seen a drama before (a la Parenthood, Gilmore Girls, Switched at Birth, The Fosters). So, what is it that makes This Is Us stand out among the sea of family dramas that flood our cable every day.
Well, Deja’s very special episode from Season 2 gives us the answer we’ve been yearning for.
Let me walk you through it. Season 2 Episode 17 follows Deja’s journey of being brought up by a struggling teen mother. She is thrown from foster home to foster home until she finally ends up at the Randalls. It’s a heart wrenching episode (which isn’t something new for This Is Us), but it’s also a surprisingly fresh episode. By that I mean, we’re finally getting the story of someone who is not part of the Pearson family. Considering this show is primarily about the Pearsons, why deviate and dedicate a full episode to Deja’s backstory? Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t the first time a show has done this. Yes, I’m talking about Stranger Things’ notorious episode 8 which deviated from following the group of youngsters to following just one character’s arc. This was a controversial episode as some argued that it slowed the pace down and was an unnecessary episode. That’s to say, Eleven’s backstory did not require a full episode.
However, This Is Us bravely takes the risk of losing their audience’s attention by diverging from their main plot line. So, why do this? Well, Stranger Things’ may not have been successful at this one-episode-deviation-tactic, but the show writers of This Is Us have done a phenomenal job at maintaining the appropriate narrative pacing that is required in an episode that takes its audience away from the familiar space they’ve been in for so long. In fact, if we look closely at the narrative structure of this episode, notice that each of Deja’s experiences is paired and associated with a similar experience from the Pearson’s life. When Deja’s step dad drinks, we get quick shots of Jack and Kevin drinking. When Deja makes food for her mom, we cut to Rebecca and her kids playing with dough in the kitchen. When Deja thinks of selling her special pendant, we get a quick shot of a young Kevin receiving his dad’s chain as an emotional token.
What do all these experiences have in common? Us. They have us in common. They have the people who experience them in common. Notice, that we don’t get the same exact visual of each experience. Deja has to cook the food for her mom, but the big three are shown to have fun cooking. For them it’s not a necessity, but a luxury. For Deja, it is a necessity. The point isn’t that Deja has it bad and the Pearson’s good, but the fact that they both share a connection through their shared experiences. The point of these quick shots was to show that we’re all connected through the same things we do. Nothing can describe this notion better than Deja’s speech at the end of the episode: “no matter where we are. Poor or rich. We all go to sleep. Every single person in this planet goes to sleep at night”
There is a thread (the thread of our shared experiences) that stitches all our lives together, so that even though we never meet, we are still connected. This is the precise emotion that this episode wants us to feel. And not just this episode, but the whole show. Why do you think the shows jumps back and forth? It’s not just for storytelling purposes, but also to stay true to their title and show what the “this” in the This Is Us is. “This” is our shared experiences that stretches across time, space and distance to connect all of us in a wonderfully, whimsically wicked and beautiful human tapestry. That’s why this episode was a breath of fresh air, because even though it deviated from the Pearsons it found its way to “us,” the humans all across the world who watch this show and share their experiences via their characters. We are like Deja in this episode who journeys through her life not realizing that there are others around the world who have shared the same experience. The purpose of this episode was to remind us of why this show is so beautiful and who makes it beautiful. Yup, you guessed it: it’s us who make this show worth watching; all the people and all the lives that connect through the wonderful experience of life.
So, why is This Is Us so special? Because as Kevin says, “Life is full of color and we each get to come along and add our own color to the painting. And even though it’s not big, it stretches till infinity. And even though some of us have died, we’re all in the painting. There’s no you, me or them. It’s just us. This right here, I think it’s us.”
