First, a quick note: English isn’t my first language. I understand it perfectly, but writing long texts is still difficult for me, so I used ChatGPT to help me translate and organize my thoughts so I could express exactly what I meant. The opinions and personal experiences are completely my own.
Now, with that out of the way… 😂
I got so attached to This Is Us that I devoured the entire show in 10 days.
During those 10 days, I avoided TikTok as much as possible because I was terrified of spoilers, and I’m SO glad I did because it wouldn’t have been the same experience otherwise.
After finishing the show and crying an entire ocean of tears, I finally went back to the terrifying world of TikTok… only to find people calling Rebecca the biggest villain of the show and Kate the most unbearable character.
My first thought was: Did these people watch the same show I did? 😂
So I came looking for a This Is Us subreddit, found you guys, and wanted to share some of my thoughts about the show as a whole. Maybe later I’ll make separate posts about each of the five main Pearsons — Jack, Rebecca, Kevin, Kate and Randall — because if I start going into everything I think about each of them right now, nobody is making it to the end of this post. 😂
Also, I’m genuinely open to discussing any of this with people who completely disagree with me. I don’t expect everyone to interpret the show the same way. As long as we respect each other’s opinions, I think that’s what makes these discussions interesting.
So… I LOVED this show.
To me, This Is Us is about love, trauma, family, overcoming difficult things and, above all, growth.
Throughout all six seasons, I didn’t see villains. I saw human beings.
I saw adults make mistakes and live with the consequences. I saw people genuinely apologize and try to repair the damage they’d caused. I saw people learn to forgive without letting that hurt define their relationships forever. I saw people learn that asking for help isn’t a weakness and that hiding everything you feel doesn’t necessarily make you stronger.
And when I say I didn’t see villains, I don’t mean that everything they did was excusable. Some of these characters did very wrong things and deeply hurt the people they loved. To me, trauma can explain someone’s behavior, but it doesn’t erase their responsibility for their choices.
Some characters made more mistakes than others. Some suffered more than others. But above all, I saw an imperfect family, and somehow those imperfections were also part of what made them beautiful.
I saw a mother raising her children in the 80s and 90s, trying to do what she thought was best with the knowledge and tools she had at the time. That context helps me understand some of Rebecca’s decisions, but it doesn’t automatically make them right. She made mistakes, some of them serious ones, and part of what I loved about her character was watching her acknowledge some of them.
I saw a father who deeply loved his family while carrying his own trauma and struggling with alcoholism. Jack wasn’t perfect either. He hurt people too, but he eventually recognized that he needed help when he realized he could lose his marriage and his family.
And I saw three siblings, each carrying their own trauma and sometimes having completely different memories and experiences of the same childhood, slowly learn to listen to each other, apologize and, most importantly, show up for each other.
Maybe this show affected me so much because, for completely different reasons, I saw parts of myself in Kate, Kevin and Randall.
I related deeply to Kate when it came to her weight. That’s also why I understand some of the criticism Rebecca gets in that part of the story. The scene at the pool with the T-shirt, for example, hurt. I’ve experienced similar feelings myself, so I know how much certain words or actions can affect a child.
But I still couldn’t look at Rebecca and simply see a “bad mother.”
I saw a mother who was worried about her daughter’s weight and eating habits and didn’t always handle that concern in the right way. There were absolutely things she could and should have done differently. At the same time, we also saw Jack take a different approach, often closer to “let her eat, she’s just a kid.”
I’m a mother now, so that part of the story hits me differently. I struggle with obesity myself and I’m currently preparing for bariatric surgery. My son also has a tendency to gain weight, and I find myself trying to navigate that difficult balance between teaching healthy habits and setting limits without making him feel ashamed of his body or as though food is a punishment.
It’s easy to judge a mother from the outside. It’s much harder to be in that position asking yourself: How do I protect my child’s health without hurting his relationship with food or with his own body?
That doesn’t mean Rebecca handled everything correctly. She didn’t. It just means that, to me, those mistakes don’t erase all the times she tried to make Kate feel loved, beautiful and enough.
I related to Kevin for a completely different reason: his difficulty asking for help.
That need to solve everything yourself, pretend you’re fine and only admit you need someone when everything is already falling apart is something I understand far too well. As the oldest of three siblings, I grew up with the idea that I had to be “the strong one,” the one who could solve problems without needing help.
Then you become an adult and realize that comes with a price. Sometimes saying “I’m not okay” feels almost embarrassing because you’re afraid people will judge you or you’ll stop being the strong person everyone expects you to be.
One of my favorite parts of Kevin’s growth was watching him realize that asking for help didn’t make him weak.
And then there’s Randall.
I related to him especially when it came to family secrets. Finding out as an adult that your mother knew who your biological father was and hid that from you your entire life is an enormous thing to process. I also started discovering family secrets as an adult that still affect me today.
So I understand that need to go back and try to make sense of everything: Who knew? Why did they hide it? What would have happened if I’d known earlier? How much did it shape who I became?
But I also loved watching Randall realize that he couldn’t solve everything by himself. I’m glad that both he and I understood that seeing a therapist doesn’t mean you’re weak or incapable of handling your own life. Sometimes we need help making sense of what we’re carrying, especially if we don’t want our own trauma to affect how we show up for our children.
And maybe that’s exactly why I became so attached to this show.
I wasn’t just watching the Pearsons. Sometimes I recognized my own feelings in them. Other times I was furious with their decisions. There were characters I defended in one episode and wanted to shake in the next. 😂
And I think that’s what This Is Us did so well.
It didn’t show me a perfect family.
It showed me imperfect people who loved each other. People who sometimes hurt each other even while loving each other. People carrying trauma from their parents and trying not to pass it down to their children. People who made mistakes, learned, made more mistakes, asked for help, forgave and kept growing.
When I finished the last episode, after six seasons and an entire ocean of tears, there was really only one thing left in my head:
Yes. This is family.
