This Is Ushas quietly been one of the best shows on TV in recent years. The tightly written drama is all about family and touches on countless social and personal issues while never feeling overwrought. The main crux of the story focuses on the three Pearson kids and how their parents, specifically their father Jack, shaped their lives. Most episodes include a story set in the modern day alongside a parallel story that takes place in flashback, showing how an event or moment that happened in their childhood mirrors their current situation.
Jack was the main focus as far as the parents go for most of the early seasons of the show. His impact was felt in everything, and so much of the kids' lives revolved around the trauma they experienced when he died. For the most part, the show really positioned Jackas the center of the family. However, recent seasons have done a sort of pivot and shifted the focus to Rebecca instead. In hindsight, though Jack was obviously incredibly important in the lives of his family members, Rebecca was the one who was holding the family together the whole time, and the show is finally (rightfully) giving her that spotlight.
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This Is Usrevolved around Jack so much that it was easy to forget that he was only in one set of storylines. Despite half the show taking place in the present, Jack doesn’t appear in that part of the story, and yet somehow he feels like the character that is onscreen the most. The clear conclusion was that the show was supposed to center on Jack in the way that he wasthe center of the universefor his wife and children. And it’s not like he doesn’t deserve that role; he is absolutely integral to the story and is shown time and time again, despite his flaws, to be a fantastic and devoted father and husband.
However, those flaws of his become more numerousas the series goes on. This is just the nature of storytelling and character building, because the audience will obviously learn more about characters as the show goes on and they are given more depth and backstory. However, it also seems like a very intentional move byThis Is Usto ensure that they didn’t just put out this narrative that Jack was a perfect human being (which was the general tone that was given for so long because of the way his kids put him on a pedestal). The show was making a deliberate move to say that while Jack was important, he was still flawed, and Rebecca was an equally integral presence in their kids' lives.
The later seasons have much more of a focus on Rebecca, and specifically how she held the family togetherafter Jack’s deathwhen the kids were still adolescents. She had to help her children grieve while experiencing those same emotions herself, feeling like she had to be strong for them the whole time. She also had to deal with all of their other problems - like Kevin and his acting career or Kate and her terrible boyfriend Marc - while feeling like she’s not allowed to chase her own happiness, which is evident in the various ways that the kids react to her dating again (and specifically dating Miguel) after Jack’s death.
Rebecca is there for everything, from the Big Three’s early lives to their teenage years, from Jack’s death all the way into their adulthood, where she’s still a constant presence. The addition of the storyline surrounding her Alzheimer’s diagnosis is addinganother level to this character, as the story becomes more and more about her impact on the family and how upsetting the idea of losing her, or of this character no longer being in control of her mind, really is. She has been a voice of reason and a guiding hand through the whole series, but now she’s in a very vulnerable position where she needs the other characters to care for her, which is a really interesting shift in the dynamic.
She was always there to balance Jack out, and she is still the one providing guidance to her children in their adult lives. The storyline where Randall puts her in a clinical study partially against her will is so intense and causes such a blowup in the family because of how much the kids care about their mom’s well-being (and go about showing it in different ways), andit hurts as an audience memberto see a beloved character go through something like that and not feel like she has agency in her own life. The last season seems to be about giving Rebecca that agency once again, which is so important.
Of course, Mandy Moore’s incredible performance is what really elevates this character, and her ability to perfectly portray Rebecca at so many different ages is very impressive and a testament to her skills as an actor. She can be the young Rebecca who is just meeting Jack in one scene and old Rebecca playing with her grandchildren in the next, and both versions feel so natural and realistic. She can deliver the most devastating monologues (such as the one in the final season’s Thanksgiving episode) that areincredibly emotionaland make the viewer intensely feel everything she’s saying. The fact that she hasn’t won an Emmy for this role yet is a crime, and hopefully that can be rectified at the next awards ceremony.
Rebecca has really been the main Pearson all along. Despite her flaws, she was always the one holding everyone together, and she’s still the constant in all of her kids' lives even in the present day. This is whythe storyline around herin the last couple of season have been so emotional, because losing her really does feel like a huge blow to the family, especially after everything they’ve been through with Jack. The past couple of season have also been leading up to the continuously teased family reunion at the house Kevin builds for her, and it seems to be setting up that all of the characters will meet here to say their final goodbyes to Rebecca, and this will likely be how the series concludes. It’s fitting, in a way, that it all leads back to her, because the show has always been about her strength and her impact on this family.
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