Last week on This Is Us, Randall (Sterling K. Brown) and Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson) invited Malik’s (Asante Blackk) parents over for dinner after he and Deja (Liberty Ross) skipped school and got caught. After an awkward dinner, the parents come to a consensus and decided that Deja and Malik can continue dating, but they have to be supervised.
Read on to see how that goes in season four, episode eight.
In the past, Randall (Nigel Fitch) visits Rebecca (Mandy Moore) to help fix some things around the house. Kate (Hannah Zeile) and her boyfriend, Marc (Austin Abrams), walk in and say they’re going to the movies. Randall asks Rebecca if she dislikes Marc as much as he does and she says she’s just happy Kate is happy. He asks if Rebecca is doing OK and she says she really needs to get a job because the mortgage is eating her alive. Randall offers to help her with her résumé and before you know it, Rebecca has a job interview.
She does well and is charming, but since she doesn’t know about the company’s software, the employer isn’t willing to hire her…until Randall sneaks into the man’s office while Rebecca is in the bathroom and tells him he can teach Rebecca the software by Monday morning. In the end, she gets the job and asks Randall what he said to make him hire her. She tells him he’s so much like his father and that it makes her proud.
We pick up where we left off: right after Kevin (Justin Hartley) and Cassidy’s (Jennifer Morrison) tryst. They share an awkward goodbye and Cassidy says she won’t call. Later, Uncle Nicky (Griffin Dunne) asks Kevin if he slept with Cassidy and that’s the reason she hasn’t been to Alcoholics Anonymous all week. Kevin doesn’t want to discuss it but Nicky knows he’s right. Nicky tells Kevin he should be ashamed.
Several days later, the day of his court hearing, Nicky goes into Kevin’s trailer to apologize and to tell him to stop moping. He quickly realizes that Kevin isn’t there and that he’s left his phone at home. Nicky calls Cassidy to see if she has any idea where Kevin is. She says she has her own stuff going on and that she just signed the divorce papers.
Lo and behold Kevin is in a bar, but thankfully he’s just drinking soda water. He overhears a man behind him bragging about punching a football player and Kevin antagonizes him until he, too, gets punched in the face. He leaves the bar and Cassidy and Nicky find him. Kevin has clearly forgotten about Nicky’s hearing and he’ll hardly be a good character witness with a black eye and busted lip. He apologizes to Cassidy and she offers to put some makeup on him. She also reassures him that her marriage was broken long before he showed up. Oh, she also mentions that she signed the divorce papers. Just then, Nicky walks in and says he’s ready for his hearing.
When the judge hears his trial, Uncle Nicky admits he was sick when he threw that chair through the window of the V.A. But, he has let people into his life who have helped him and now he’s on the mend. The judge agrees to let it slide as long as he remains in treatment.
Later, Kevin drives Cassidy to the diner where her soon to be ex-husband and son eat dinner on Wednesdays. He and Uncle Nicky give her a pep talk because she’s going to try and see if they’ll let her join them. Before she goes, Nicky tells her not to wait 40 years to find happiness like he did. She thanks Kevin for his friendship and tells him that she hopes he finds his happy ending. (So they’re not running off together?!)
Afterward, Kevin asks Nicky if he’d like to come to Philadelphia with him for Thanksgiving and he surprisingly says yes. Now, that’s progress.
Rebecca arrives in Philadelphia to visit and Randall tells her he’s going to whisk her away on a tour of the city. Beth, meanwhile, is playing chaperone to Deja and Malik’s movie date. Deja is none too pleased, but Beth is trying her best to not make things awkward.
First, Randall takes Rebecca to his office, where she takes photos from every angle so she can show Miguel (Jon Huertas). She and Randall enjoy Philly cheesesteaks in his office and he asks her about living in Los Angeles. She tells him it’s “lovely” and offers to show him photos of baby Jack but she can’t find her phone and starts to panic. It ends up being in another part of the office, but Randall can’t ignore the fact that his mom’s memory seems to be going.
Back at home, Malik and Deja seem to be enjoying their movie until she storms off and asks him why he can’t take no for an answer. Beth follows her upstairs and asks what happened. She doesn’t want to talk about it and asks if Beth can send Malik home. So, Beth heads downstairs to see what happened and Malik reveals that Deja wants to visit her birth mom but she’s too nervous to talk to the Pearsons about it. She did ask them before the move, but they never followed through. This really lands with Beth and it’s clear how bad she feels.
Beth goes upstairs and apologizes to Deja for not prioritizing her wishes. Deja is mortified that Malik told Beth, but she says she’d love to invite her mom to their home for Thanksgiving. Beth agrees but when she tries to tell Randall, he’s a little distracted. Later, he confronts Rebecca about her “senior moments” and asks if she’s seen a doctor lately. He tells her he’s worried about her and she reacts angrily. They fight and she asks him to leave the room she’s staying in, slamming the door in his face.
Kate tries to get baby Jack to eat a banana, but he’s not into it. Toby has to get to work, but Kate promises to breastfeed Jack through the day so Toby can be there if he takes his first bite. So, she heads out to go for her walk with her neighbor Gregory (Timothy Omundson) but he doesn’t meet her at the curb. She knocks on his door and he tells her he’s not having a good morning. She asks if she can help with anything and surprisingly, he says yes. She makes him coffee and he tells her that he has trouble modulating his voice and moving his face to show gratitude because of his stroke. This takes Kate by surprise, because she just assumed he was, well, grouchy.
They make breakfast and Gregory offers Jack some avocado. He eats it and Kate is thrilled—until she realizes Toby will be crushed that he missed this special moment. Later, Toby recreates that moment with avocados at their own home and is very excited.
Next week, This Is Us’s Thanksgiving episode (aka the fall finale) debuts, and from the looks of it, it’s going to be chock full of drama. Tune in on Tuesday, November 19, at 9 p.m. PT/ET on NBC.
