If I had to pick an episode of This Is Us to live inside of, it would be this one. Like many of the best episodes of This Is US, “Sometimes” doesn’t play into the stereotypical image of the show as a corny, tear-jerking family drama full of big speeches and histrionic moments. Instead, this is an…

In my last review, I described the structure of a prototypical This Is Us episode, and—lo and behold—“Kamsahamnida” fits that structure almost to a tee: The episode offers a thematically resonant story about the Big Three’s elementary school years coupled with a story for Kate on the West Coast and a joint story for…

This Is Us has always been an ensemble show, but this season seems to be using its ensemble in a new way. Back in season one, we’d often get episodes with a main flashback storyline, a present day story featuring Kate in L.A., and another featuring Randall and Kevin together in New Jersey. That boils down to just…

In an attempt to fill some cinematic blindspots, I’ve found myself watching a lot of Vietnam War movies this year. And if you watch enough of those films in a row, the storytelling clichés start to become more apparent: the soldier who’s gravely injured just before he’s about to be sent home, the…

As a human being, I have innate emotional reactions to the media I watch, and as a critic, it’s my job to analyze and explain why the media made me feel that way. But that’s sometimes easier said than done. I spent most of the second half of “Katie Girls” feeling really choked up and I’m not…

The third season premiere of This Is Us felt a little undercooked, and this week’s episode has the opposite problem of feeling way overstuffed. Ostensibly, “A Philadelphia Story” is a Randall-centric episode that examines his life-long identity crisis. As he explains to Beth at Kevin’s movie premiere, he’s always felt…

Between last year’s second season premiere and tonight’s third season one, This Is Us has established a template for its season starters: Deliver a low-key episode that reminds the audience how incredibly endearing the show’s actors are; offer a general sense of where the major storylines are going; then end the…

NBC’s weepy mega-hit This Is Us really likes making people cry, killing its dad, and when possible, doing both at once. Luckily, it also likes great actors, which is no small part of why it’s so good, despite the whole dad-killing obsession.. Theirs is a crowded field—Mandy Moore was so good last season, Susan Kelechi…

Welcome to Development Hell, the fiery pit into which we fling recent developments in casting, distribution, and everything else that’s new and mildly interesting in the Boschian phantasmagoria of the entertainment industry.

Last night the 29th annual GLAAD Media Awards were held in Los Angeles, and along with fulfilling the salutary purpose of presumably irritating the shit out of Mike Huckabee (frankly, it’s odd he didn’t try out one of his signature painful-joke tweets—“I’ll be GLAAD when this show is over,” or some such—during the…

“The Wedding” spends its runtime trying to convince us that something bad is going to happen. Will Kate freak out and run away from her wedding? Will Toby get cold feet and call it off? Will Kate and Rebecca get into a big blowout fight? Will Deja act out and ruin the wedding, potentially by murdering Randall and…

There aren’t many actors on a bigger roll at the moment than Sterling K. Brown. A pivotal role in the worldwide smash Black Panther, his first Saturday Night Live hosting gig this weekend, and an award-winning triple play (Emmy, Golden Globe, and SAG award) for his role as Randall in everyone’s destination ugly-cry…

Even among those who like it, This Is Us often gets discussed as if it’s a conventional, old-fashioned family drama. The show’s tearjerker status and Jack’s death-by-Crock-Pot have been the source of far more conversation than the fact that its structure is unlike anything else on TV. It’s not just that This Is Us …

After three episodes focused on the devastating death of Jack Pearson, tonight marks the start of a new era for This Is Us. The show no longer has a big storytelling secret at its core and it’s free to explore the part of its timeline we still know very little about (the years immediately following Jack’s death). For…

Taken together, the past three episodes of This Is Us have served as a mini-series about Jack Pearson’s death. “That’ll Be The Day” celebrated Jack’s final day on Earth, “Super Bowl Sunday” depicted his tragic death, and “The Car” is about laying him to rest, both literally and figuratively. Since it’s designed to…

“I just need two minutes, okay? I’m going to step aside for two minutes.”

Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Sunday, February 4. All times are Eastern.

Last week’s This Is Us ended on a big cliffhanger, as the show almost certainly revealed that the culprit behind the long-foreshadowed death of Pearson family patriarch Jack was a malfunctioning “slow cooker” (or Crock-Pot, as those of us who aren’t afraid of getting sued for associating fiery death with a beloved…

Ninety percent of the time, This Is Us is a sentimental, beautifully acted show about family and the way our childhoods shape us into the people we become as adults. And then every once in a while it becomes something more akin to The Walking Dead or Game Of Thrones in its obsession over the impending death of family…