“His baby’s name is Jack his baby after me. I mean, my God, Jack has to roll in the grave around him.
This is us it is a show about the family, but it is even more a show about repression. It’s the fatal flaw of the Pearson clan. And no character better reflects that repression than Uncle Nicky – the beloved younger brother that Jack withdrew from his life once their interconnected war traumas became too much to bear. While This is us it is often a show of tears, the sadness of Uncle Nicky’s story exists on a different level, both because it lasted 50 years and because there is no hope of reconciliation between the “famous Pittsburgh Pearson brothers.” At least not literally. However, on a spiritual level, “One Small Step” is one of the most hopeful in Uncle Nicky’s ongoing saga. As Neil Armstrong’s famous quote from the moon landing, a small step can also be a huge leap.
“A small step” is This is us in the full character study mode, which is where the show often does its best job. While I saw Nicky dragged along at past Pearson events, this is the first time he has taken the initiative to join the family himself. And most of this episode takes place in a moment of memory, from the moment Kevin says “I can’t believe you flew across the country to meet our children. It’s unbelievable, “Nicky replied,” It was nothing. ” During that break, Nicky returns to how much it took courage to get to his first flight in 1971. “A Small Step” highlights not only the logistical and emotional details of that trip, but also two other cases in which Nicky he repressed his hopes and dreamed of connectivity and stayed with what he knew in return.
Which makes Uncle Nicky such a compelling player This is us The universe is how Michael Angarano and Griffin Dunne work in tandem to shape a character who feels completely cohesive, even though he has gone through such a massive evolution throughout his life. And “A small step” puts this evolution in front and in the center. There’s 21-year-old Nicky, a space nerd with a huge heart. There’s Nicky in the late 1920s, the psychologically tormented veterinarian, who is starting to get stuck in his pattern of self-destructive isolation, but who still has at least some hope that things can change. And there is now Nicky, a grumpy old man who takes the bold step of trying to find his way back to the gentler soul he used to.
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While the Vietnam War is obviously the massive turning point in Nicky’s life, “One Small Step” also highlights the continuities of his personality. All three versions of Nicky are scared to hope for something better for themselves; he prefers to keep his dreams and plans a secret so as not to disappoint anyone if his feet get cold. Unlike Jack – who represses negative emotions to focus on positive ones – Nicky’s repression is manifested by the tendency to put his life on hold. While Jack has a “proud and determined energy”, Nicky, 21, is cautious, thoughtful and a little withdrawn. That’s why it’s so appropriate with free photographer Sally (Genevieve Angelson). Her confident but gentle attitude gives her room to step out of her comfort zone while still feeling loved and supported. But when Sally asks Nicky to take the big step of moving with her to California, his confidence tightens. It is easier to convince him that his parents need him at home more than he needs to start an independent life.
After the war, Nicky’s natural penchant for self-doubt became tangled in complete self-hatred. He copes by shrinking his world even further: the trailer, the drink, and the occasional phone call from an old war friend offering an invitation he refuses. “One Small Step” complements us a little more from the time between Nicky returning from Vietnam and when Jack paid a tense visit to his brother’s trailer in 1992 (as seen in the third season episode “Songbird Road: Part One”.) However, in the mid-1970s, they close had another meeting. One of Nicky was too scared to continue, and Jack was nowhere to accept either.
“Deep down, don’t you think he would be proud of you?” Cassidy (hello Jennifer Morrison!) Asks Nicky today when she calls her in a panic from Kevin’s house. Rebecca said something similar back in season three, when he told Nicky that he thought Jack’s sober journey would make him reconnect with his younger brother. But even if Cassidy and Rebecca are right, I think they also underestimate the magnitude of Jack’s deeply repressive series. Jack’s discussion with his former army commander, Lieutenant Sheehan (Scott Michael Campbell), reaffirms his decision to bury his war experiences. To keep the lie that he was just a mechanic and that Nicky died abroad, rather than burden Rebecca with the more complicated reality. Jack begins to propose more confidently than ever that repression is the right way – a coping mechanism that will shape his family for decades to come.
In many ways, Jack wiping Nicky is the original sin of the Pearson family, one that affected Rebecca and the Big Three without them even realizing it. There is such terrible sadness that Jack and Nicky never reconciled while Jack was alive. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that this season’s theme is healing – characterized by the slow thawing of Randall and Kevin’s breakup. Just as confronting Marc helped Kate heal her self-worth problems and find out about her birth mother, it helped Randall heal his identity problems, meeting his niece and nephew. helps Nicky heal his problems with self-confidence. Nicky finally makes the trip to California that he never took with Sally, just like he did the amendments with Kevin that he never made with Jack. And now Uncle Nicky becomes the figure of the grandfather for the grandchildren that his brother does not live.
In recent seasons, Uncle Nicky has disappeared This is us“The least hopeful character to the most hopeful. His story is a beautiful description of intergenerational healing and a well-earned celebration of the fact that it is never too late for someone to return to life. The last 10 minutes of this episode, in particular, are some of the most exciting This is us ever delivered. Dunne knows how to modulate the behavior of Nicky’s grumpy old man, so that the jokes about Zoom and John Grisham brochures blend perfectly with his new emotional vulnerability. The idea of leaving his routine and reconnecting with his family was once as impossible as walking on the moon. But, as Nicky tells Franny and her nephew, “One day I’ve never been to the moon … and the next day, we go on it. The impossible has become possible, too. ”
Lost remarks
- Young Jack tells Nicky that if a girl he liked asked him to go to California, he would leave in an instant. And I saw Jack do just that in the third season episode, “Sometimes.”
- I’m a little confused about how time passes this season, but Uncle Nicky is officially our first This is us character to receive the vaccine! Two of them, as he continues to point out.
- Nicky first talked about Sally in the fourth season episode, “Give the money.” After the war, she bought the trailer in hopes of starting a new life with it. But since she wasn’t home, when he stopped to catch her, he decided she didn’t have to be and left. Given that we know Nicky wears a wedding ring in flash-forward timeline, could there still be hope for those two crazy kids to make it work in the end?
- It’s super nice to see Cassidy again in this episode! It’s a great film for Nicky, and Jennifer Morrison and Griffin Dunne have a wonderful friendship chemistry together. Also, when I last saw Cassidy, she was on her way to reconciliation with her husband, but in that sense episode, she is clearly shown in bed.
- Between the future baptism of Nick and Franny and the shooting of the young Nicky (jokingly) who makes the sign of the cross, I am now very curious about the religious origin of the Pearson family.
- For the record, Jack is a Leo who entirely parts. (UPDATE: It seems that Jack is actually a Virgin and I will leave it to those who know astrology better than me to tell if the traces or not.)