‘This Is Us’ Recap: You Say It’s Your Birthday

Warning: This recap of the “Three Sentences” episode of This Is Us contains spoilers.

So you say it’s your birthday? It’s my (and her and his) birthday too. This week’s This Is Us looked back to that traumatizing moment when parents realize their kids are growing up too fast and may not need them much longer. In the present day, Kate went to fat camp, Randall helped William achieve a lifelong dream, and Toby schooled Kevin on romantic gestures in order to get his soulmate back. And that soulmate, it turned out, was definitely, 100 percent, not the person you thought it was.

JACK AND REBECCA
A montage of home videos of the Big Three plus dad’s birthdays past revealed their celebratory traditions — a three-layer cake, rounds of pin the tail on the donkey, a homemade banner, and a gift-wrap fight. The last shots are from the kids’ ninth birthdays, and the storytelling resumes on the eve of their 10th in 1990, with Jack begging Rebecca to let him get the kids a dog.

“Fine, and then get them a new mommy to walk it,” she jokes.

“Do you trust my judgment, or do you want interview these women?” he teases back, and the whole thing is so adorkable that, of course, these lovebirds get all hot and bothered.

But sexy time is interrupted when the twins march in and demand a family meeting to discuss their desire for separate shindigs this year. “We are too old for donkeys and banners,” Kevin says, before announcing that he wants a Princess Bride-themed party, even though the movie freaked him out. Kate wants Madonna, because she and her new bestie, Sophie, love her. Randall, who gets summoned, doesn’t care either way, but he goes along with the new plan. He also informs his parents about a school rule stating that the entire class must be invited if you have a party. (That policy seems too forward-thinking for 1990, but we’ll let it slide, given that it is a school for advanced students.)

So being the top-notch ‘rents that they are, Jack and Rebecca go all-out to make the fetes perfect. While Jack is making Madonna gloves, he watches the aforementioned videos and gets bummed that the times are a-changin.’ “We’re probably never going to play pin the tail on the donkey again.” Practical Rebecca responds, “This whole thing is really sweet, but in less than 12 hours we’re going to have 45 kids here for three different parties, so a little less reminiscing and a little bit more bedazzling.”

As she starts to walk away, he counters, “What if we had another kid? They aren’t going to be kids much longer. They are not going to need us anymore.”

She turns around in shock. “We can barely take care of the three we do have. Do you remember what happened the last time we tried to have a kid? We came home with three we can barely take care of. You are the love of my life, and our kids are my everything. That’s it. I’m done having kids.” He figures he’ll try for the puppy again, but she shoots that down too.

They’re sure the parties are a hit until they go out back and realize only three people have shown up for Randall’s event and two are his pool playdates. He didn’t tell his parents that he knew most of his classmates wouldn’t show to keep them from getting upset. Mostly, they don’t get why other kids don’t like their “sweet, smart, actually funny, not just little-kid-funny” son. They figure the kids who didn’t show are “racist bastards” but don’t have time to dwell on it because they need to poach kids from the other parties. Unsuccessful, Rebecca tries to comfort Randall by sugarcoating the situation, but Randall knows what’s what. “No. They didn’t come because they’re not my friends. I don’t care. I have three really good friends. That’s a lot, and they all came to my party.” He reassures her that he loves his school, and his teachers, and his one friend there who is co-authoring a book of mazes.

The conversation with the coolest kid she knows leaves Rebecca reconsidering Jack’s proposal, so she informs him that she is open to a kid-No. 4 conversation. “I know that we can’t take credit for his genes, but we raised him. He’s this incredible little person. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to shape another.” Their makeout sesh is interrupted yet again by a child.

When they realize all the Madonnas except Kate are at Kevin’s party, Jack swoops in to give her one of his prize pick-me-up chats. He refutes her claim that everyone likes Kevin more than her, tells her the theme was just too cool for 10-year-olds, and even gets a lesson on how to vogue. She still says she’d like to be alone for a while. The moment crushes his desire to add to the brood, and he tells Rebecca at the end of the day, when they are dead tired: “The talks don’t work anymore. I couldn’t make Kate feel better, and that’s my thing. I tried, and it didn’t stick.”

Rebecca agrees, saying that the talks will only get more difficult, and no, they still aren’t getting that dog. Realizing the kids are having a wrapping-paper fight downstairs is just what they need to lift their spirits.

KATE
When Kate postpones (and perhaps cancels) her gastric bypass in the wake of Toby’s terrifying surgery, her doctor suggests a monthlong immersive weight-loss experience in the Adirondacks with no distractions or temptations. Or, as Kate calls it, “fat camp.”

Toby is so on board with her going granola that he drives Kate to camp. “We have the rest of our lives to spend together. Or at least the rest of mine. I had a heart attack at 40, so I’m going first, obvi,” he says cheerfully. “This is an incredible opportunity, and I want you to do it for you.” For his part, he’s gonna hang in NYC, even though he knows no one, because the doctor has advised against traveling for at least two weeks.

Once at camp, the counselor explains that it isn’t a “typical weight-loss program trying to provide a quick cosmetic fix.” It focuses on tackling issues that lead to the weight. When Kevin calls, she describes the place as like “a cult — or Whole Foods.” But typically, Kevin just wants to talk about his girl drama. Kate asks her bro to courtesy-hang with her beau. He whines, “Are you serious? I call to get help and I gotta end up doing something nice?”

A horse whisperer overhears her chat and wants to know if it was a boyfriend on the other end. He’s pleased when she says no. She corrects him and mentions that she does have a fiancé. “We’ll see,” he says cheekily.

From the beginning, she is not thrilled to be birding, drumming, or meditating. She calls Toby to pick her up, but the whisperer grabs the phone and hangs it up because her voice is annoying the horses and him. “I am not going to be insulted by the fat-camp horse guy. I need to get the hell up out of this place,” she retorts.

He calls her bluff. “Good. This place is pointless. [People] come here, learn to roast Brussels sprouts, and go home thinking they’re transformed. They’re the same. It’s a joke. People don’t change. That’s why you are quitting.”

The standoff sends Kate back to drumming class, where she’s instructed to pound out her feelings. She recalls trigger moments, like seeing her mom’s small label, the note with a pig on it, the empty birthday party, and suddenly her dad’s funeral. (It’s our first look at the funeral, and it caught us off guard. Interesting to note: Jack looked basically the same as he did in the episode and was still sporting the ‘stache. Later, we get a close-up of the kids at the service, and they appear to be in high school.) She beats the sticks until she screams, shaking her head “no” when the trainer asks if she’s all right.

She returns to the stables to thank the whisperer for “being a dick,” because it helped her realize there was stuff she’d been avoiding that she needed to deal with. He is still in a-hole mode. “I wasn’t being a dick. I am a dick. That said, I’m glad you are staying, because I think you are sexy as hell. I’m in cabin 13 when you’re ready. You don’t see it yet but this is happening.”

She retorts, “Oh, but it’s not.” (She didn’t seem totally sure to us.)

RANDALL
When William enters the kitchen in a great mood, feeling better than he has in months, and asks for help putting songs on an iPod he borrowed from the kids, Randall has to defer to Beth about how to explain his mood. Beth recognizes this as a “chemo boost”; the same thing happened to her dad after he stopped treatment.

At work, Randall walks into a meeting to find someone named Sanjay — a colleague he apparently knows and clearly dislikes. His boss says the company is bringing in Sanjay to land a new wind-farm client. Randall explains that he was planning to throw his hat in the ring and feels he deserves a shot at landing the client himself. His boss agrees and suggests that they both put together a derivative by the end of the week. Randall makes a countersuggestion the next morning. “May the best derivative win. God, what we do would be a terrible reality show,” he scoffs.

William shows up unexpectedly at Randall’s office and asks if he would like to go shopping. “I don’t mean to bother you, but it is such a nice day out, and I don’t know how many of those I got left.”

Randall, who planned to work through lunch, can’t argue with that logic, and thus begins the seemingly never-ending search for sunglasses and the perfect egg cream. Eventually he asks his son to pull into a parking lot and tells a story about the record store he frequented as a youngster and the supercool owner who would roll up in his fancy car wearing sunglasses, pumping the music, and drinking his favorite drink every Saturday. Turns out being that guy even for a day is high on his bucket list, yet he’d never owned a car and doesn’t know how to drive. His son’s stress melts away when he sees an opportunity to make his dying dad’s dream come true in the parking lot.

KEVIN
Sloane declares “small talk” and “pretending everything is good” off limits, because she overheard Kevin call her “the girl equivalent of wearing a seatbelt in a cab” to Olivia. “We work together,” she snaps. “That’s it. Let’s come in, rehearse the play, and get out.”

Kevin makes good on his promise to his sister and takes Toby out on the town. Toby is thrilled because he’s never spent a whole day with a famous person before, because Kevin knows the rope girl’s name, and because other people at the bar look like “Westworld hosts.” But all Kevin can talk about are his lady problems. He is still flip-flopping between Olivia, who was dark and intoxicating, and Sloane, who was adorable and intelligent. Toby relents. “We could just talk about your feelings. You had two amazing women, and you let them both go. Lucky for you, I am the king of romantic grand gestures,” he says. “While you were out seducing women with your master-race bone structure and perfect man-bod, I was logging two decades doing nice things for women so they’d fall for me. I have seen every romantic comedy ever made, so pick your girl and [I’ll] help you win her back.”

When Kevin still waffles, Toby explains that romantic gestures that big only work on the right girl, “the love of your life.” Then he waxes poetic about Notting Hill. “You have 30 seconds to win her back. One shot, three sentences. What are those sentences, and who are you saying them to?”

Kevin jets to some house, driven by his vision, and standing at the door is Olivia. Wait, no — actually it is some other blonde we’ve never seen before. (Except the kicker is, we have. More on that below.) Kevin launches into his speech. “Before you say anything, there are three sentences I need to say to you: I was head over heels in love with you the moment I saw you. I never should have let you get away. It’s like you were part of me, like you were my arm, and when I lost you, it was like I lost my arm … like I’ve been walking around without an arm for over a decade, comma, I really want my arm back, you know, cuz I never stopped thinking about it, comma, not ever, parentheses, you look amazing, by the way, end parentheses, period.”

After he gets creative with grammar, he asks for her thoughts. “Kevin, my ex-husband, who I haven’t seen in 12 years, just shows up at my doorstep unannounced. I’m not exactly sure what you want me to say?”

When she won’t invite him in, he gets her to agree to meeting up, and Sophie — yes, that Sophie from the Madonna days — texts to ask where while he is still in a cab. He reflects back on those momentous birthday parties. He is sitting next to her watching The Princess Bride when Jack calls him over to ask him to suggest that she go back to Kate’s party, since she is Kate’s best friend. His earnest little face looks up at his father and gushes, “I can’t dad. I love her.”

This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on NBC. Watch clips and full episodes of This is Us free on Yahoo View.