'This Is Us' Season 4 Episode 13 Review: Will Toby be the father Baby Jack needs him to be?
Spoiler alert for 'This Is Us' Season 4 Episode 13 — 'A Hell of a Week: Part Three'
A bedtime story, a lover's spat and a marriage in shambles — Kate Pearson has a lot going on in three stages of her life. Like musical notes in a sonic spectrum, 'This Is Us' carves out a world of shared human experiences and it is, indeed, beautiful how it hits at the core of the heart.
With an explosion of emotions, the NBC series puts the spotlight on how the third sibling's week goes awry. All the dots connect — starting from Kate (Chrissy Metz) and Toby Damon's (Chris Sullivan) baby troubles to teen Kate's (Hannah Zeile) rough night with her then-boyfriend Mark (Austin Abrams) and finally, to baby Kate's (Isabella Rose Landau) enchanting bedtime story with daddy dearest Jack Pearson (Milo Ventimiglia).
Present Kate
Kate and Toby are seen in bed and the latter is pretty ecstatic after realizing that Baby Jack saw the lights in the kitchen earlier that evening. Through online research, Toby comes across the story of a Minnesota girl who benefitted from gene therapy. He's all excited about how the girl recovered 30 percent of her eyesight. "If my son could see 30 percent of me, I'd be ecstatic," he says.
Joyous to see her husband happy, she, however, warns him: "Before you go down this rabbit hole, this kind of therapy is not going to work for Jack." And with just one comment, they go back to how Jack's blindness makes Toby unhappy. They’re supposed to leave for the retreat the next morning, but Toby is super preoccupied with work and her mom Rebecca Pearson (Mandy Moore) agrees to join her daughter.
"I am strong. You made me strong." pic.twitter.com/ggp9J3qhH9
— This Is Us (@NBCThisisUs) February 12, 2020
Together, the two have a lovely time and an intense secret-sharing trip. Nevertheless, Kate longingly looks at all the couples holding hands. She then finally confides in her mom as to how Toby is "struggling" with their son's blindness. But Kate has her troubles too. "I am anxious about wearing a bathing suit without him. Someday Jack is going to ride a bike and I don't know if I can do it alone with him," she tells her mother. Seeing her anxiousness, Rebecca asks her to hurry and wear her bathing suit to go for a swim. Her words: "You're fat. I'm ancient. We're gorgeous!" serves as an inspiration to all the women in the world!
In the pool, Rebecca helps her daughter calm down. "Just because you are sensitive, doesn't mean you are not strong," she says. Rebecca even reminds Kate how she is her sweet little "bug," and tells her she is "perfectly capable" of raising Jack all by herself. Finally, it is Rebecca's turn to take something off her chest. She tells her how she is slowly moving towards Alzheimer's disease. But she is not worried. "The diagnosis has made me more powerful and fun." The two end the night by singing Alanis Morissette's pop-rock 'Ironic' together! "I am strong. You made me strong," Kate joyfully tells her mom.
Teen Kate
Both, Kevin Pearson (Logan Shroyer) and Randall Pearson (Niles Fitch) can't stand Kate's new boyfriend Mark. But she really adores him and even invites him for her mother's birthday dinner. It comes spiraling down later in the story when Kate tells her mom how he is the "first guy" to look at her that way and the one to "make her happy" after her dad's death.
But Rebecca knows how it could be a fallacy after meeting him at the coffee house before dinner. During the meeting, he reveals how he quit his job at the record store and it comes as a shock to Kate. He tells Rebecca that the two will write songs together and hints at going to their family cabin. Even the phone call where Kate was distraught and kept saying "sorry" was basically Mark's fault!
Even though Rebecca is skeptical, she hands over the keys of the cabin to Kate and Mark. On the way to the cabin, Kate and Mark are in the car singing Ben Folds Five songs when they have an argument about quitting the record store. Mark is furious and drives erratically in a snowstorm.
When she begs him to stop and gets out of the car, he yells, “I can’t even look at your fat face!” and speeds away. Sobbing, Kate calls Rebecca from the gas station and apologizes. She is about to tell Rebecca about their spat but right then, Mark comes back and wraps her in a stole.
Baby Kate
The episode begins with a magical bedtime story that Jack tells Kate. In the story, a princess and a prince go to a flower bed. When Jack warns the little one that the flowers are poisonous, Kate protests that she likes them. "The things we like can be bad for us sometimes," Jack says. In the story, Kate and Jack go to a cave dripping with water and then Kate adds a twist saying the "prince disappears." In the end, Kate runs on to find her mom.
The gist of the tale was that even if Kate lost her dad, she did find her mum and that gives her all the love she needs! The performances in the heartwarming episode are top-notch indeed, but it is the direction by Justin Hartley that deserves a gold medal.
Kate and Toby: Will they last?
Back home, Toby asks Kate about the retreat. Confronting him, she asks, "Can you be the man I need you to be? Can you be the father that Jack needs you to be?" Toby's answer to it is: "I want to." [That's all? Doesn't Kate need Toby to support her better?] Right then, Kate gets a call from Kevin and Randall, and The Sad Three decide to head out to the cabin after a "hell of a week."
Finally, Toby chips in. "Let me take care of Jack this weekend," he says. When Kate says no, he assures her, "Go to the cabin. Leave Jack with me. I need to spend time with my son." So will he finally assume his responsibilities as a father to Jack and husband to Kate? Only time will tell and until then, we can only hope to see the Pearson family untangling the knots of their complicated issues as more episodes of 'This Is Us' air every Tuesday on NBC.