'This Is Us' - An Emotional Roller Coaster

Kevin to his worried teenage niece: "You know this whole idea of not knowing who you are deep down inside, that's my life story. But I will tell you one thing that I have learnt. I don't think we figure out exactly who we are all at once. I think it happens over a long period of time, like, piece by piece you know!

Take me for instance. A couple of years ago, I get close with your dad(with whom he had a strained relationship since childhood). And I find a piece of myself. And then when I meet your aunt (his girl friend), I find another piece of myself. honey that's how it works. I think we go through this life slowly but surely collecting these little pieces of ourselves that we can't live without, until, eventually we have enough of them to where we... we feel WHOLE." (Episode 18, Season 3)

In 2017, when I watched Khubsoorat (2014), I started admiring Fawad Khan for his charm and watched a couple of interviews of him on YouTube. In one of the interviews, he was asked a question, "Recent show that you binge watched" in a rapid fire round to which he answered "This Is Us". I immediately googled it and read the plot but didn't attempt to watch as I was too lazy to binge an entire series to know the story. It was only in 2019 again, ‘This Is Us’ popped up again on amazon prime. Accidentally I started watching it and was mind-blown just after 3 episodes. Why 'This Is Us' makes us very emotional, relateable, makes us think and makes us embrace the beauty of life, death, pain, addiction, uncertainities, fights, insecurities and many other issues which are always considered negative things and are supposed to be suppressed or brushed away?

Superficially, this is the story of the journey of three siblings and their struggles to get along with life. To give an introduction, Kevin and Kate are twins born to Jack and Rebecca and Randall is their third son who was adopted and of Afro-American origin. Kevin, who is an actor and who looks all sorted out struggles a lot with his addiction of alcohol (which runs in his genes), unstable relationships and commitment issues etc. Kate, who is twin sister of Kevin struggles with obesity since childhood and develops a insecurity and cold attitude towards her mom, Rebecca, in an attempt to live up to her (who is just perfect). Randall, who is super intelligent and has a good job, wife and two beautiful kids, struggles with his continuous quest in search of his biological father, his perfectionism as a dad, husband, son and a dreamer of many great things. One life line to all the three siblings was their dad JACK. Jack is the most wonderful father and husband one could ever imagine. Despite his troubling childhood, alchohol issues and other past stories, he just works on being a perfect father and husband. He gives up on his dream of construction for his family and settles down for a desk job. Jack's death when the siblings were in their teenage shakes the family and seems like it haunts them all through their lives. In fact, Jack's death doesn't just haunt the siblings but it haunts us too. Every minute while watching the show, we will hate the fact that Jack died.

'This is us' beautifully shifts between the past and present of the stories of all the characters in the show. The shifts and the stories are so important as we realize how childhood, parenthood and old patterns define who we are in the present. Every message in the show is subtle and meaningful. We learn how to sort out a fight after watching them fight and patch up. We learn how to live with differences after watching the characters get along. We learn how to love beyond limits. We also realize no matter how good of a parent we are, blame on us comes very easy. But one thing that takes us a life time is to be like Jack and Rebecca. They are a crazy couple and make us fall in love with them every single time they are on screen.

The writers' brilliance, the actors' versatility and the musician's magic surely makes us cry. For me, two men who evidently stand out are Milo Ventimiglia who played the character of Jack Pearson and Siddhartha Khosala, music director of the series. It cannot be explained in words. In the funeral scene of Jack, the sadness due to death of Jack coupled with the soul stirring background music by Siddharth Khosla makes us sob endlessly and I am not kidding. I never bothered to change my phone ringtone which basically was set to a default ringtone and 99% of the times is on silent. After 8 years of buying my smart phone, I changed my ringtone to "Jack's theme music" :D To me, each and every character is a lesson to learn, each and every dialogue is worth remembering.

Hence, if you are a bit emotional like me and if you don't know what to do during your lock down, you can surely watch "This Is Us" and I bet you will not be disappointed. Here are some beautiful quotes from 'This Is Us'. And yes, all thanks to Fawad Khan :P :D