Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers from the This Is Us episode “ There .”
This Is Us fans were thrilled over the possibility of another big three birth as Kevin’s (Justin Hartley) fiancée Madison (Caitlin Thompson) and Kate’s (Chrissy Metz) surrogate Ellie (Annie Funke) simultaneously readied themselves to welcome their children into the world.
“What??? Another big three birth? For the twins? How, how do you always find a way to make us all cry?” questioned one follower of the show’s writers.
“We have to wait for next week?! Three babies — the twins and Kate’s adopted daughter,” penned a second viewer.
Kevin, the central figure of this episode, realized he was much more like his father than he ever knew.
Shooting a movie in Vancouver and awaiting a big scene with Robert DeNiro, he called Kate, who revealed that her surrogate Annie was induced into labor. He also learned that Madison headed to the hospital with what she believed to be preterm Braxton Hicks contractions. Fearing the worst, Kevin walked off the set of his film and rushed to the airport. He enlisted his mother Rebecca (Mandy Moore) and her husband Miguel (Jon Huertas) to book a flight.
Throughout his car ride, This Is Us shared flashback moments in young Kevin and Jack’s lives to connect the dots between father and son.
Jack was a baseball-playing teenager traumatized by his dad’s reactions to the game. If it went well, his car ride home was happy. If his team lost, Stanley would drink heavily and make him miserable.
During a football training weekend, Jack pushed his son to continue playing even though it caused him stress. Jack expressed shame at his actions and believed he had become Stanley. Kevin told Jack he was much better than his grandfather. Jack insisted that when he grew up, his son would be an even better parent.
Kevin continued his race to the airport. He encountered a car that previously had cut him off, now in a ditch on the side of the road. He found a bleeding man. He took off his jacket and wrapped it around the man’s leg, and unknowingly dropped his license on the side of the road. He drove the unknown man to the hospital.
“He was just there. Always. My dad was the most there person that ever lived. Everything that I do, I do with his voice in my head,” he said of Jack.
After dropping him off, he arrived at the airport and made it to the TSA check-in and realized he did not have his license.
Kevin told the agent that not making it to his child’s birth would break him, and he needed to be there for his family the way his dad always was. Randall and Beth, en route from New Orleans to Philadelphia, called Madison. She feared being alone during this time without Kevin and Kate. They stayed on the phone with her.
“This will break ME if Kevin doesn’t make it in time,” shared an Instagram commenter.
“She better let him on that flight!” penned a viewer of the TSA agent’s response to Kevin’s desperation.