"This Is Us", you magnificent monster! NBC's formidable Franken show has synthesized feel-good family camaraderie, soapy melodrama, and surprise twist-driven storytelling into a strange, irresistible package that doubles as the fall season's only bona fide hit-on network TV, anyway.
What's the secret to its massive appeal?
True to form, the final This Is Us of 2016-a Christmas episode, of course-was another whirlwind grab-bag of warm hugs and cold gut-punches. Here is the quick recap. When Young Kate tells her mother that her stomach hurts, and Rebecca replies that it must be because Kate ate all of Santa's cookies. These are retrospective tears, because it won't be long before we find out that Kate's actually suffering from acute appendicitis, Rebecca. The first time Rebecca declares that "nothing bad ever happens on Christmas Eve." Because we know, now, that something bad is definitely going to happen on Christmas Eve.When the Pearsons discover that the elderly doctor who delivered Kate and Kevin is also lying in a hospital bed, weakly delivering sage advice while quietly suffering from a potentially deadly hemorrhage. Oh God, here comes that bad thing that happens on Christmas Eve. Earnest Young Kevin examining religious icons and asking a nurse, gravely, "If I want to pray, which one works the best?" Come on, show.
Old Rebecca, who spent her daughter's childhood telling her not to eat so much, sadly asking present-day Kate if it's her fault that Kate is fat. Because, I mean, yes. But she didn't know! She didn't know! The second time Rebecca declares that "nothing bad ever happens on Christmas Eve." You ever heard of a jinx, Mandy Moore? That awful split second when it seems like Randall's colleague Andy, a.k.a. William from Westworld, has in fact jumped off the roof Randall spent the last five minutes trying to convince him not to jump off of. What a day this has been! Don't worry, this is still network television; guest star Jimmi Simpson does come out of their encounter alive.
Then in walks Toby, who's flown thousands of miles just to tell Kate that he wants to be with her. Look: Is Kate a cardboard character defined entirely by her weight? Yes. Do we know next to nothing about her personality, her hopes, her dreams, her aspirations? The flashback that reveals Dr. K survived his risky surgery after all. It's a Christmas miracle! Toby collapses, headfirst, into a coffee table. The last shot of the episode shows him lying on an operating table as a group of doctors swarm; equipment beeps ominously until we fade to black. Damnit, This Is Us! You've done it again!
