ET breaks down Tuesday's emotionally charged episode of the hit NBC series.
Warning: Spoiler alert! Do not proceed if you have not watched Tuesday’s episode of This Is Us.
Jack Pearson may be gone, but his "romantic gestures" and "insane good looks" will always live on.
Tuesday's episode of This Is Us, fittingly titled "The Most Disappointed Man," was filled with emotional moments from beginning to end, but we think it's safe to say Toby's (Chris Sullivan) conversation with Jack's (Milo Ventimiglia) spirit tugged at our heartstrings a little harder than any other moment.
As Toby and Kate (Chrissy Metz) begin to reveal the exciting news to their family members that they're expecting their first child together, we learn that Toby is a bit nervous to tell his Catholic mother. In fact, he's "terrified."
Toby: "Do you remember how she reacted when we told her that we were moving in together?”
Kate: "Yeah, a lot of tears. But, you know, she got over it."
Toby: "Yeah, she did. But a bun in the unmarried oven? That's like a whole new level of freakout."
After seeing how on edge Toby was at the thought of having that conversation with his mother, Kate suggests that they just "get it over with" and get married at the courthouse.
"Nothing about our relationship has been traditional," she says. "I proposed to you and I thought you were unconscious."
"Think of all the money that we're going to be saving, and all the other wedding crap that we get out of," she adds in a later scene. "I don't have to go wedding dress shopping, so they can't break it to me that none of the pretty ones come in my size. Oh, and I don't have to listen to those random wedding guests come up to me every five minutes and say, 'Oh, your father would have loved today.' And then, 'Who's going to walk you down the aisle?' And father-daughter dance. It's like, whatever."
Toby is open to the idea at first, but as the episode progresses, he starts to have second thoughts, wondering if this is what Kate really wants. He decides to ask for advice from the person who knows Kate best: her father.
We see Toby sitting on the couch, watching Judge Judy as he turns to talk to Jack's gold urn on the mantle. "It would have been nice to get your permission, or your blessing, the right way," he says. "FYI, I would have crushed proposing to your daughter, by the way. I'm the king of romantic gestures. I hear that we have that in common. That and our insane good looks."
"Here's the thing: Kate loves weddings," he adds. "She watches Say Yes to the Dress with her special Say Yes to the Dress notebook, like she’s studying. Yeah, my b.s. meter is going off too with this whole courthouse thing. I do not think that this is what she wants to do."
Then, in one of the sweetest moments we've ever seen between the two, Toby formally asks Kate to marry him. And by formal, we mean in typical Toby fashion… with $200 worth of zip-up sweatshirts and an emotional speech!
"Listen, I know that not everyone you would want to be there can be there," he exclaims. "But I think that's what he would want. In fact, I know it is, because I asked him."
In contrast with Kate's tears of happiness, Sophie (Alexandra Breckenridge) is heartbroken when her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Kevin (Justin Hartley), makes a surprise visit that doesn't end well.
Kevin appears to now be addicted to his pain pills, taking it one step further by mixing them with alcohol, and it's clearly affecting his actions. Hours before his flight to see Sophie, he visits a jewelry store and rushes to find a ring that he thinks his girlfriend would like.
"This is like something my dad would do," he tells the jeweler. "After he messed up with my mom, he would do something big like this. Something romantic."
Kevin ends up purchasing three engagement rings because he can't decide on "the one." Ultimately, though, he can’t pull the trigger, and ends up having a meltdown on Sophie’s doorstep.
"Sophie, I don't know how to do this ... I don't know how to be a husband to you. I don't know how to be a father to our kids," Kevin tells her. "I don't. I don't have anything to give you. There's nothing inside of me to give to you, OK? I don't have anything, I'm an empty shell."
"Kevin, you’re spiraling, OK?" Sophie replies. "What’s going on? This isn't you."
"No, no. This is me, OK," Kevin says. "The guy who comes to your doorstep and says those [sweet] things to you? That is not me. That's me trying to be that guy, the guy who does that kind of thing ... that's me trying to be my dad, OK? Or Toby."
"I'm saving you from 40 years of disappointment with me," he adds.
What did YOU think of Kevin's proposal-turned-breakup? How did you feel about the episode's other heartbreaking moments, like Randall's (Sterling K. Brown) scenes with his adopted daughter, Déjà (Lyric Ross)? Or seeing William (Ron Cephas Jones) receive a second chance from a judge? Share your thoughts and theories with us by tweeting @etnow!
This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.
