This week’s episode of This Is Us, “Number Three,” wrapped the show’s trilogy of insights into a crucial turn of events in the Big Three’s past, centered around Kevin’s life-changing football injury and what Kate and Randall were concerned with leading up to it. While the trilogy turned hopeful when Kate decided to try for another baby after miscarrying, “Number Three” introduced another sudden rift between Kevin and Randall after the former was arrested for a DUI with Tess in the car. As Jack said, when one of the Big Three falls, the others are standing strong, and in this case, Randall is wobbling while Kevin has taken a full tumble.
We won’t know how the brothers will deal with this until the show returns on Jan. 2, but for now, I have these new details of Randall’s past to analyze in true former English major fashion. To distract you from the heart palpitations you got when you realized Tess was with Kevin, here are four major takeaways from this Randall-centric episode of This Is Us.
1. Randall continues to be the most adorable suburban dad ever
The first few minutes of this episode were classic Randall, from the return of calling himself the Thanksgiving dad to delivering a corny joke to Tess and Annie. Seeing as he was quite the reserved kid, it makes me so happy to see adult Randall so goofy and not a bit self-conscious. Plus, Randall being the dorky dad showed an important shift in his relationship with Deja. The two bonded over working on her science project together, and their funny exchange—“working hard is what gets you the big house and fancy car” —felt like a very normal conversation between a dad and a teenage daughter. Seeing as Deja could barely be in the same room as Randall when she first arrived at the Pearsons’, the sweet moment represented a personal victory for Randall as a foster dad.
2. Regardless of how loved he was in his childhood home, Randall needed that exposure to his own culture
Proving to be a classic kid-applies-to-colleges story, Randall had been under parental pressure of applying to Harvard when he expressed interest in looking at the historically black Howard University. Understandably, Jack didn’t initially get his son’s desire to check out the school, but as the episode later showed, Randall knew that he had grown up in a privileged position and wanted to experience his cultural identity in a new way. Meeting with a hometown friend at Howard (is Keith his friend from the pool?!), Randall experienced a camaraderie that was never a possibility as a minority in his Pittsburgh neighborhood. Randall also met other boys who also came from white high schools, so he saw himself in Howard’s students, giving him African-American role models that he rarely witnessed growing up.
Later, adult Randall watched a black family on their front steps in what seemed to be a predominantly African-American neighborhood. The moment came off as Randall recognizing that there is a cultural part of African-American life that he never experienced, perhaps stirring up guilt that he can never truly identify with struggles of someone growing up in that environment. Seventeen-year-old Randall said he was afraid of always feeling “off balance” because of who he was, and I interpreted this as foreshadowing of how centering his relationship with Beth will be for him. We know that Randall choosing to be with a black woman rather than someone who reminds him of Rebecca is noteworthy, and his conversation with Jack hinted that meeting Beth, and later William, were factors that helped Randall finally find his balance.
3. Jack struggled with giving up on the Harvard dream because Randall was on the road to becoming his most traditionally successful kid
Jack was a former blue-collar worker who came from dysfunctional roots. Similarly, Rebecca never quite made it when it came to her dreams of singing stardom. Although they saw great potential in Kevin succeeding as a pro athlete, Randall presented the possibility of achieving the most traditional, prosperous success as an adult. He would work hard as an Ivy League student and, as a result, find an amazing job and create a kind of stability that neither of his parents ever knew. It was only natural for Jack to want the prestige of Harvard for his son, but remember the timing of this father-son college road trip—at most, it’s only a few months after Randall witnessed Jack yelling at Rebecca during their huge fight. Randall kept his distance from Jack for a while, and we can assume that Jack agreeing to visit Howard was like a tentative peace offering. Jack supporting his wish and later confiding in him about his post-Vietnam struggles just emphasized that adult Randall has the most peace about his father’s death.
Also, when Jack kept mentioning Harvard, please tell me I wasn’t the only one who thought of this Jess Mariano moment:
4. Randall saw himself in Deja, and that’s why he had to let her go
Take care of that big, beautiful heart. Share this moment of saying so long, for now, presented by @Chevrolet. #ThisIsUs pic.twitter.com/iNAGSc48WO
— This Is Us (@NBCThisisUs) November 29, 2017
When her mother came to bring her home, Deja told Randall, “Just because I want to go home doesn’t mean I don’t like living with you,” and their farewell conversation scarily mirrored young Randall’s confession to Jack. Deja’s situation of living with a new family and wanting to be with her birth mother parallels Randall’s love for his adopted family and conflicting desire to explore his heritage. Plus, a new flashback revealed that William almost brought himself into nine-year-old Randall’s life, but he realized that he had no right to barge in on a flourishing life he had no real knowledge of. The “what if” scenarios of Randall growing up with William were heartbreaking, particularly the high school graduation scene—as far as we know, neither of Randall’s fathers actually witnessed this milestone.
Remembering this moment with William caused Randall to consider his own “what if.” What if William never brought him to the firehouse and he tried to raise him? Could Randall have been like Deja and experienced the foster care system instead of growing up in a loving home? Knowing this new detail, we watched Randall learn that Deja had an established life with Shauna that he didn’t understand, and he had to let what came first play out as it will.
While “Number Three” gave important insight into why Randall became the adult he is, it’s left plenty of questions for the show’s return. Did Randall actually attend Howard? How is the family going to deal with Kevin’s arrest and him endangering Tess? Most intriguingly, will Randall and Beth soon take in the little boy briefly seen at the end of the episode?