Wow! Randall took Rebecca’s words to heart.
Rebecca’s support on This Is Us Season 6 Episode 10 helped him get past not being made her health care proxy and embrace the next step in his career.
It almost felt as if her Thanksgiving Day speech was meant for him more than for any of the others.
One of the most touching moments of the hour was when Rebecca explained why she didn’t make Randall her health care proxy. She knew he would put his life on hold for her yet again, and she didn’t want him to do that.
Rebecca’s cognitive decline has hit Randall harder than any of the others because he’s always made himself her rock. He couldn’t accept the idea of her deteriorating and eventually dying without having done absolutely everything he could to help her.
That’s why he manipulated her to enter the clinical trial, causing a massive rift with Kevin, and that was part of why he was procrastinating about meeting with Senator Gamble about potentially becoming his replacement.
Rebecca felt Randall had sacrificed enough for her throughout his life, and she wasn’t having it happen once she couldn’t take care of herself anymore. And Randall was able to accept that and move forward in his life.
What a beautiful resolution to the central problem in his relationship with Rebecca over the years!
Randall and Rebecca’s road trip was a mixture of fun and sadness.
It started out as Rebecca wanting to help keep Randall calm while dealing with the Deja situation. But once she convinced him to leave Deja alone for a day, she and Randall had the opportunity to have an impromptu vacation.
Scenes like the one in the bar where Rebecca wanted to play darts with Randall like she always did with Jack were heartbreaking. The specter of Jack’s death always hangs over the family no matter what. But this was doubly sad because it is likely one of the last times Randall will have the opportunity to spend this type of time with Rebecca.
The flashback scenes mostly demonstrated how Randall had been the family’s rock from a young age.
As a little boy, he didn’t get to enjoy his victory at the swimming pool because his siblings were not strong swimmers, and he felt he needed to help them get over their fears and into the water.
Are you sure we’re allowed in here? We’ve broken enough laws for one night.
Randall
And as a college student, he had to talk the police out of arresting him and his siblings after they were caught at the abandoned pool with beer.
I was surprised that This Is Us didn’t address the racial aspect of those scenes with the police. Randall’s experiences with being treated differently because of his race have helped shape him, and it didn’t seem likely that the cops would take kindly to a Black teenager trying to talk the three out of trouble.
But the purpose of this particular story was to show that Randall always had the verbal skills and the confidence to be a Senator and even talked a cop out of arresting him and his siblings, so it made sense that this time racial issues didn’t come into play.
For once, Randall had fun with the other Big Three when they went to the diner, though his insistence on calling Rebecca so she wouldn’t worry demonstrated the dynamic that present-day Rebecca was so worried about.
Rebecca did almost as good a job of keeping Randall calm as Beth would have. She convinced him to give Deja space, distracted him with her memories of his childhood, and encouraged him to be gentle once Deja finally called.
Randall: I was not like this with Beth.
Rebecca: No, you were not, but not everyone’s first love story is the same.
Their discussion of first loves was interesting. Randall’s right that he and Beth didn’t act the way Deja had.
But as Beth has pointed out many times, nobody tried to stop them from being together when they were in college. Besides, Randall was too caught up in taking care of Rebecca to be rebellious in those days.
And did anyone else want to hear more about Rebecca’s too-old-for-her first love? That story seemed to end as quickly as it began, but maybe it’ll come up again later in the season. After all, This Is Us rarely brings things up only to immediately drop them.
Rebecca was right that Deja and Malik would work things out themselves if Randall left them alone. I’m glad that he listened and that he got to make these new memories with Rebecca while he was waiting.
Rebecca’s insistence on taking selfies was touching. Nobody knows how much time she has left before she begins to deteriorate, but her need to take all of those photos drove home the point that someday, they may be her only link to the world she once knew.
As for Deja’s situation, I wish her conversation with Malik had been on-screen. I know there wasn’t a lot of time and that this was mostly Randall’s story to tell. But the Deja/Malik situation felt like it was wrapped up too quickly, and it lacked emotional punch as a result.
Both Randall and Deja said that maybe in the future, something would happen even if things were over between Deja and Malik for now. Could that have been a hint about what’s to come? After all, we still don’t know who the father of Deja’s baby is in the flash-forward.
Your turn, This Is Us fanatics. Hit the big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know what you thought about Randall and Rebecca’s road trip.
If you missed the episode, you can watch This Is Us online. And don’t forget to check back toward the end of the week for the latest This Is Us Round Table discussion.
This Is Us airs on NBC on Tuesdays at 9 PM EST / PST.
Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. His debut young adult novel, Reinventing Hannah, is available on Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.