This Is Us Review: Don’t Take My Sunshine Away (Season 3 Episode 16)

This Is Us Season 3 Episode 16, “Don’t Take My Sunshine Away,” dances back and forth between the blissful nostalgia of a school gym bursting with colorful streamers and the bleak reality of the Big Three’s present-day lives.

Much like Rebecca’s memory of her first school dance, at times it feels like we too are having a good enough time to overlook if someone steps on our toes.

Unfortunately for this episode, there are other times when the crushing weight of the Pearsons’ latest turmoils is just too much to ignore.

After being absent for nearly three episodes, Jack has returned to Rebecca’s side and everything feels a little brighter in the company of their loving smiles.

It’s no secret Jack Pearson and his love for his family is the sun for which this show orbits best around. So every time he and Rebecca can give us another little piece of their time together it feels like this show is doing us a favor.

Which is why our time spent chaperoning a school dance with the two Pearson parents does not feel tedious or misplaced despite the fact that the scenes lend nothing overly important to the other storylines.

Hearing Jack speaking openly to Rebecca about his rough childhood is an easy way to grab at our heartstrings. But it is Rebecca’s attempt to comfort him by giving her husband that first childhood slow dance he missed all those years ago that is mesmerizing and embracing in all the best ways.

And what would any good Jack memory be without a faithful and charming speech to wrap everything up? The kind of Jack speech that somehow manages to make even the most mundane of storylines feel whimsical and moving. Middle school dances are not supposed to be whimsical, they are supposed to be awkward and sweaty!

This episode spends far too much time convincing us Kevin is charming when Father Pearson is having no problem making us cry in the gymnasium (because he’s too classy for the club).

In a haze of slow dancing, Jack somehow manages to take a terrible memory with his drunk father and retell it as a beautiful fairytale of young Jack meets overachiever Rebecca and all his troubles wash away. The man is just too good!

Jack: I would’ve walked right up to you and said, “hi,” and that would have been it. Happily ever after.

Rebecca: Just like that?

Jack: Just like that.

The moments spent under the gym lights with Rebecca and Jack are cute, sincere, and refreshing when the present day Pearsons are anything but.

Kate and Toby’s bonding time with Baby Jack is another perfectly on-brand storyline for This Is Us in terms of weight and emotion.

We get a nice balance from the couple as Kate embraces parenthood with open arms, while Toby struggles to see past the pain of his child with a tube down its throat. That raw emotion on Toby’s face as he begs the nurses not to take a urine sample gives people a small window into the horrors of their current predicament.

I can’t believe I am saying this but I am so glad we revisited that dreadful waiting room with Toby.

And I say this because Waiting Room Kevin (not to be confused with Kevin Pearson) is a perfect faceless conduit to stress the difficult times these parents go through. The man’s perspective is selfish, honest, and blunt in all the best ways.

The gravity of the situation is felt in Toby’s realization that some parents have been waiting in that hospital 6 weeks and others won’t get to bring their child home at all.

This Is Us shines when it is giving us parts of the human experience that aren’t commonly portrayed on television due to their difficult nature. This show is about us in a lot of ways and our collective experience but that can be lost in the more made-for-tv drama storylines we are used to seeing everywhere else.

Baby Jack’s story gives us something real to hold on to as we see Kate and Toby begin the journey of having a premature child — but I for one am glad it is a journey this show is taking us on.

Everything about their predicament should be far too depressing to bare but the message of taking what life throws at you and making the best of it is one that lifts this episode from the depths of its despair in both the hospital room and on the dance floor.

However, there is one couple that refuses to lift each other up and in doing so continues to drag everyone else down.

Beth and Randall are strong characters, but their growing differences are threatening the likable personas these characters have given us. I mean how am I suppose to forgive Randall for leaving that nasty voicemail message on Beth’s phone?

A childhood reference to Randall putting his school work before an obligation to take a girl to the school dance is the only way I could bear another tedious Beth and Randall squabble. But the insightful flashback is quickly overpowered by the bizarre choice Randall makes to throw any sensibility out the window when speaking to his wife.

I actually love the fizzling end to this episode. Randall and Beth have been bickering and brooding for almost the entire season now. Slam that door shut, throw some punches, and get a divorce if you have to — but work this out!

Kevin and Beth take a different approach to their relationship after leaving the waiting room and while their relationship struggles aren’t the most pleasant to endure, this couple can take pride in the fact that they aren’t the worst couple of this episode.

This has to do with another great topical discussion on This Is Us‘ part.

There are woman and men in this world who do not want children and that can be a hard concept for some to deal with in a society that still pushes the ideals of having to start a family to be happy.

Beth’s ultimatum for Kevin is one we will start to see more as women break away from the role of wife that has been expected of them and live more independent lives. Beth is a great representation of that new normal and I am impressed with how mature the show has been about discussing what is still considered a very taboo thing in our culture.

That being said I see so much of Jack in Kevin and it is hard to picture him as something other than a father, but that man is nowhere near stable enough to raise a kid anyways.

THIS IS US — “Don’t Take My Sunshine Away” Episode 316 — Pictured: Mandy Moore as Rebecca Pearson — (Photo by: Ron Batzdorff/NBC)

“Don’t Take My Sunshine Away” gives us back our sun, the faithful anchor Jack Pearson, but it also takes away any of the tolerance we may still have for Randal and Beth’s predicament.

With two episodes left in Season 3, who knows if This Is Us will finish on a high note but there’s no way this show can stoop any lower than Randall’s voicemail did.

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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