It was already a strong show for its first 41 minutes – and had firmly earned a Week 2 return from me – but in the final three minutes, the premiere of “This Is Us” (10 p.m. Tuesdays, NBC) clinched its spot as the best pilot episode since “Lost.”
In this day and age, it’s difficult to keep a surprise twist under wraps, and indeed, the marketing teams of most TV shows and movies usually don’t even try: They’ve found that spoiling the whole story in the trailer doesn’t make people want to see it less. So “This Is Us” – from Dan Fogelman (who also wrote “Crazy, Stupid, Love” and who has “Pitch” coming up later this week) – deserves credit for not using the big twist in the promotion. Hopefully it will pay off with buzz (the pilot will air again at 10 p.m. Saturday) and “This Is Us” will become a hit despite not having a hook-worthy title or (so it seemed) premise.
SPOILERS FOLLOW.
As viewers of the pilot episode now know, there is indeed a connection between the three seemingly disparate storylines: Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebecca (Mandy Moore) are the parents of Kevin (Justin Hartley), Kate (Chrissy Metz) and Randall (Sterling K. Brown). In a clever reveal that starts with a fireman smoking a cigarette in a hospital, we realize that the parents’ story is set in 1980 and the children’s stories are set in present day. And this makes “This Is Us” more than merely the next “Parenthood”; it gives it a fresh angle into the “people living their lives” genre.
We’ve all probably thought “What were my parents doing when they were my age? What was happening in their lives?” “This Is Us” will specifically answer those questions in regard to this family as the series moves forward; Jack and Rebecca were 36 when their kids were born, and the kids are now 36. The writers will have to perform a balancing act where the two timelines run in parallel but they don’t reveal too much about the parents’ lives before we see those scenes unfold. Or perhaps every episode will end with a mini-twist where the lives of the siblings are informed by advice from the parents, based on their experiences at the same age.
I’m a big fan of period pieces from the second half of the 20th century, when they are done well. I expect “This Is Us” will be done well, as the pilot episode’s reveal is entirely made possible by the camera panning back to reveal 1980 items such as coffee machines, TVs and medical devices from that era. People who figured out the twist ahead of time (indeed, someone did on the series’ IMDb thread), or who have rewatched the episode, report that there are clues in the corners and backgrounds of the frame before the final three minutes. Indeed, while everyone was distracted by Ventimiglia’s butt in the opening scene, he was wearing a 1970s-vintage Terrible Towel.
OK, onto the character arcs themselves. Jack and Rebecca are mainly focused on raising their three kids – two biological twins plus the adopted Randall – so their storyline might have somewhat of a “Parenthood” vibe. Perhaps there will be some 1980s twists such as young Randall dealing with being a black son of white parents, with two white siblings.
Among the three kids, I liked Kevin’s story the best. When he quits his popular and brainless sitcom, “The Manny,” it’s a “Take this job and shove it” scene that will likely be a YouTube staple. As we’ll find out next week, it’s not that simple, as he’ll probably be sued for breach of contract. But it’ll be exciting to follow the next step in the career of an actor who quits a steady, great-paying job because it’s not creatively fulfilling.
Randall’s story is fairly clichéd so far but well-acted. He meets his biological father, William (Ron Cephas Jones), and – as if he has two competing brains – brings him home to meet his family even though he simultaneously hates the man’s guts. It’s a beautifully written portrayal of the conflict of the conscious and subconscious minds, and Brown does a masterful job in a scene where Randall breaks down into a laughing fit.
Kate’s story is something you’ll rarely see on network TV. She weighs over 300 pounds and her overriding mission in life is to “lose the weight” – but she’s lousy at it. The first date between her and “Fat Friend” Toby (Chris Sullivan) is cute, and I like how Kate and Kevin support each other in their wildly different life challenges.
The American population has been overweight for a while, but primetime dramas almost never address this storyline (yes, I know, “Mike & Molly” – but that’s a sitcom). For example, where was the fat member of the Braverman clan on “Parenthood?” Among 20-some characters, somehow none of them had that specific issue.
“This Is Us” isn’t exactly a whole show of fat people; Ventimiglia and Moore are the big-name draws, and Hartley is a James Van Der Beek-esque heartthrob. Still, it deserves credit for taking a risk most other shows won’t even consider.
“This Is Us” is a safe show on the surface, but it’s already full of surprises. I hope there are more to come.