‘This Is Us’ Season 3, Episode 3, Recap: The Jack-Rebecca Story

Last night, This Is Us aired it’s third episode “Katie Girls” which focused primarily on how Rebecca and Jack became a couple. 

The third episode of This Is Us picked up where the premiere ended, which is with Jack driving to Rebecca’s house after their first date, only to see another man on her doorstep greeting her with flowers. “Katie Girls” begins with clips of Rebecca’s coming of age, including how she grew up with her mother being a traditional ‘50s housewife who cooked and cleaned while her father came home after work and sat on the couch. While observing her mother as a teenager, Rebecca realized that she didn’t want that life, she then ends up doing woodshop with boys, where she meets Alan, who was the suitor at her door. 

As an adult, Rebecca invites Alan to her home, and it’s become very clear that they have history. It turns out that they had dated for three years and he had even asked her to move to London with him, but Rebecca turned him down. According to Rebecca’s list, Alan is good on paper, he is independent, he respects her career and passions, and he doesn’t seem traditional. As the episode continues, Rebecca reunites with Alan’s parents, and Alan offers to move her out of Pittsburg and into New York where he promises to help her develop as a singer, and Rebecca likes the idea. 

Meanwhile, Jack leaves Rebecca’s house and heads home after discovering Alan. He then witnesses his father scolding his mother and decides to pack her things and get her away. His mother insists that he take her to her friend Cheryl’s house, but only after picking up a coffee. As Jack is buying coffee, he runs into Rebecca who is out buying champagne to celebrate her move to New York. They spend time talking about their dreams and then they part ways with the sense that this wouldn’t be the last time that they spoke. 

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Rebecca then returns to Alan’s family and has a conversation with Alan’s mother, who she considered to be sort of a role model in terms of the type of women she wants to be. Alan’s mother tells Rebecca about the rarity of falling for a man who supports you, and Rebecca acknowledges this but still has Jack in the back of her head. 

Rebecca decides that Alan is her past, not her future, so she visits Jack and as she watches him clean the dishes she can see that the roles were reversed from what she saw growing up. She gets up and starts washing with him, and they both see that they’re in it together. 

Beyond the Jack-Rebecca storyline, the rest of the episode is set up to for the rest of the season. In the present-day, “Katie Girls” picks up from last week’s episode which ended with everyone at the movie premiere. The movie screening ends and there’s a thunder of applause from the crowd, and Kevin’s family is seen in tears. Kevin is then left to go on interviews to promote the movie and his role, which includes an interview with Terry Gross on NPR in which Zoe also joins. As Kevin becomes pressed to relate to his father’s time in Vietnam, he later discovers that he doesn’t know much about it. “It’s weird, I wouldn’t ask him any questions at all,” Kevin tells Zoe. Then he begins to map out his father’s service and commits to learning more, and Zoe ensures him that she will stand by his side. 

Randall is seen still reeling from Kate telling Kevin that she was the only one who could “pass on” a piece of their dad. Eventually, Randall calls out Kate for not adopting and Kate snaps saying “how dare you throw adoption in my face right now, and how dare you make me defend wanting this.” Randall then feels bad about calling her out but struggles to apologize. He then makes the decision to fly out of LA to support Kate during her IVF surgery, which has the whole family anxious. When Randall arrives at the hospital, he bonds with Toby over their shared mental struggles. 

The show then continues and the audience discovers that Kate is struggling to clear the anesthesia. Within Kate’s dream, she is reluctant to not wake up because she doesn’t want to leave her father again, “stay here,” teen Kate says. “he’s here.” Kate is tempted, but eventually snaps herself out of it and decides that she is ready to take the next steps in her life. She then wakes up and learns that the procedure had gone well. She and Randall then have a heart-to-heart, but later Randall is called back home and learns that Chichi’s daughter Sky was violently beaten near the rec center, and he promises Chichi that he will do something about it.  

During the episode, Beth also gets fired from her job. In a flashback to when Randall had his breakdown, Williams tells Beth that there will come a time when she’ll need him. Beth discovers that this is that time. As Randall returns home, he tells Beth that he is considering running against Brown for City Council, but she stops him and tells him that she had been fired and a range of emotions registers on across his face.

Watch an episode highlight below.