I’ve still got to work at home, so that means not much extra time to get more television in, but somehow I’m current. That’s why you get to read about my take on this week’s episodes of This is Us and Prodigal Son.
After three weeks off, Prodigal Son is finally back with some new content. In what seemed to be a rather intense few episodes, this week reminded me of the first half of the season in that it was a little lighter. Malcolm and Jessica still have to deal with the stabbing of Martin, to which he manages to get some more father/son time out of the deal. Outside of that, Jessica wants Malcolm to try his luck with Eve again. They go on a mildly successful date before Malcolm gets dragged into the latest NYPD case.
A gang is robbing places but someone is straying from the pack and killing curly haired women. At the start of the case, Malcolm gets reacquainted with an old friend from school. Initially skeptical if he can be trusted, Malcolm might have actually come out on top with a new friend. I’ll be interested to see if he sticks around in the weeks to come. What we also learned by episode’s end is that Eve is a whackadoodle. She’s got to be connected to that girl in the box. and based on next week’s preview, we won’t have to wait long to find out.
On This is Us, Randall is back in therapy replaying how his life could have turned out if Jack hadn’t died after the house fire. It’s all really nice, but Randall’s therapist calls bullshit, and I agree. Jack survives, he finds his birth father sooner, still gets the same wife and kids, stops William’s stomach cancer, and catches Rebecca’s memory loss early. Wouldn’t that be sweet? She asks him to play out his worst fears if Jack had survived. The catalyst for this disaster is that neither Randall nor Jack really forgive Rebecca for keeping the knowledge of William’s identity a secret from the two of them. With this, Randall goes to a different school, never meets Beth, becomes a bit of a player, and isn’t close with his family.
Randall is convinced that both of these scenarios are related to his fathers, but Dr. Leigh points out that in both trajectories, Rebecca coming clean about William early is involved. She thinks Randall hasn’t truly hashed out his feelings about that with Rebecca. Rather than accept this and confront Rebecca about it, Randall makes it all about him again and says that he lost his fathers and his birth mother, and that if he doesn’t try to help his mom, he may break. Cut to Randall calling Rebecca, who is having a grand time playing Pictionary with Miguel, Kate, Toby, and Kevin. Randall guilt trips Rebecca into agreeing to do the trial even though she doesn’t want to because “he’s been a good son” and “has never asked for anything.” Based on this season’s flash forwards, that decision is clearly going to blow up in Randall’s face. As much as I don’t want to see Rebecca’s decline, it sort of serves Randall right for pushing so hard when he shouldn’t be. Let her live her own life!
Either way, I’m eager to see what both shows have in store next week. It’ll be the season finale for This Is Us, so I’m expecting some major plot points to be revealed and for some shit to go down. Don’t disappoint me, writers!