This Is Us Review: Vietnam (Season 3 Episode 4)

This Is Us has been many different things to many people, but of all things, I never thought it would be a war story. And that’s what This Is Us Season 3 Episode 4, “Vietnam,” is from start to finish — a front row seat to the ugliness of Jack’s war.

“Vietnam” doesn’t allow the audience the luxury of breathing. There is no switching to a lighter scene in the present to combat the darkness that surrounds that period of Jack’s life — and if this episode was judged solely on how tentative and uncomfortable it manages to make its audience, it would be some of this show’s best work.

This episode stands out drastically from what we’ve come to expect from This Is Us every week and while it is another glorious installment of strong storytelling at the highest level of perfection, the need to stand out might just be what causes “Vietnam” to miss its mark.

“Vietnam,” in no way is a bad episode of This Is Us — quite frankly there is no such thing as a bad episode of This Is Us. The experience and professionalism that shines through in the writing and in the actors’ performances do not allow for there to be one.

A better way to describe this episode is to say it feels off.

Even on This Is Us Season 2 Episode 14, “Super Bowl Sunday,” Jack’s death is surrounded by moments of love, hope, and even happiness. But “Vietnam,” is very much gritty, sad, and something This Is Us rarely lets itself be for an entire episode which is bleak.

Yes, war is bleak and this is clearly an intentional choice when it comes to the direction of the episode but the change in tone is almost too jarring.

The choice to throw Jack into war works well for the current story Season 3 is trying to tell — and yet at certain times, it feels like it doesn’t.

That’s the problem with one-off episodes like this that choose to explore one singular storyline. If they stray too far from the show’s theme it doesn’t matter how good the subject matter of the episode is, something will always feel off about the story because it doesn’t portray the same tone as the rest of the series.

Sometimes one-off episodes can feel like you’re watching an entirely different show — one you wouldn’t necessarily have watched if separate from This Is Us.

When Stranger Things Season 2 Episode 7, “Chapter Seven: The Lost Sister,” shoved the main cast aside to follow Eleven on a separate side-mission for an entire episode, fans of the show were far from happy with the decision. The episode was meant to set up for Season 3 but felt more like an unnecessary interruption to the end of the season.

This Is Us manages to avoid most of the problems that Stranger Things struggled with by positioning “Vietnam,” closer to the beginning of the season rather than at the end when the regular storyline’s momentum would be picking up. Any later and “Vietnam,” would have stuck out like a sore thumb.

One-off episodes already stand out simply because of their unique structure, so timing is everything and thankfully this episode does not suffer due to timing.

While the bleakness that settles on this episode is somewhat off-putting and goes against everything we’ve come to expect from this show, those powerful emotions that drive the story are still present in Jack’s younger self.

This show doesn’t just thrive because of big surprises like revealing Jack served in the Vietnam war. No, it is the quieter tidbits, the kind you can easily miss if you aren’t listening close enough, that build intrigue.

Realizing Jack has always struggled with an irregular heartbeat somehow manages to make the ending to his story even more devastating — something that shouldn’t be possible at this point. It is the tiniest of details and yet somehow it changes the outlook of his entire story.

This episode is grand and action-packed, but something as simple as a heart condition nearly overshadows the plot as you start to see how Jack’s heart quite literally is his downfall in the end. He will always put his family first over his own health and elaborating on that fact just adds another beautiful layer to the Jack Pearson we thought we knew.

This Is Us goes big with this episode in hopes of wowing the audience but it is still the smaller moments that keep us coming back in awe.

That emotional punch to the heart is something This Is Us does so well and this episode is no exception to that.

For those that did not know much about the Vietnam war, there is a particularly pungent moment where you have to watch Nick, a man who is in no way a soldier, win the draft lottery for a birthday everyone had always deemed as being lucky.

The harsh truth that many men who were not equipped for war are told in a grand televised event that they were chosen by their country to fight and die is so incredibly sad and practically verging on dystopian.

What really packs that emotional punch is in the final moments of the episode, which just happen to be the first moments of Nicks life, where Jack and his father look over the hospital nursery and Jack’s father points out that all these babies will have the same birthdate as Jack’s brother.

We don’t even need to see the names on their birth certificates to feel the dread that comes with the realization that all these babies will be soldiers one day whether they like it or not.

And the fact that Nick was one minute from being born on a different date is enough to break out the tissues.

You either love a one-off episode or you hate it — but it kind of seems like This Is Us wants us to feel strongly about this episode regardless.

If this episode’s differences rub you the wrong way at first it is likely intentional because “Vietnam” is meant to be polarizing. If the storyline feels like it is being counterproductive by transitioning from the end of the story to the beginning it’s, as Nick later explains, because This Is Us wants us to see his life play out backward.

For a one-off episode “Vietnam” is successful in telling the story it originally sets out to tell, but where this episode stumbles is in its attempt to integrate itself into the rest of Season 3 without feeling forced.

The intention to do something different is admirable and if “Vietnam,” is to be memorable for any reason it should be for delivering the performance that Milo Ventimiglia will win an Emmy for one day.

What did you think of this episode of This Is Us? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on NBC.

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