‘This Is Us’ brings back the lemon in a full-circle moment

Remember back in the pilot of This Is Us (Tuesdays, 9 p.m. ET, CTV), when Dr. K told Jack that sometimes life hands you the most sour lemons and you’ve just gotta figure out how to make something resembling lemonade?It’s kind of hard not to remember it. Not only was that Jack’s major life-changing moment when he decided to adopt Randall at the hospital (giving us the show we know and love, BTW), but lemons have factored into the series in small, subtle ways ever since. Heck, a lemon was even the standard emoji that would pop up when you typed in the This Is Us hashtag on Twitter for a while there in season two.Well lemons made a comeback in Tuesday night’s episode, "Flip a Coin," and we’re obsessed. It happened during the college-kids flashback, when Rebecca went to the parents’ weekend at Randall’s school and Rebecca decided sitting with Beth and her mom, Carol, at lunch was a good idea. (You know, even though Beth told Randall not to call her anymore.) But hey, sometimes moms know best and Rebecca needed her kids to have a little happiness in their lives already.Anyhow, when they sat down Randall—without saying a word—put his lemon on Beth’s plate as he started talking about what he might do with his life. It was the smallest gesture and really none of us knew what it meant until later, when Beth asked Randall why he gave it to her. It turns out he remembered that she had ordered Coke with lemon on their date, and when he sat down at lunch he noticed she had a Coke but no lemon.

Lemons casually making an appearance in tonight's episode... What's that Dr. K said again?

"...you took the sourest lemon that life has to offer and turned it into something resembling lemonade." #ThisIsUs— Mandy Moore (@TheMandyMoore) November 22, 2017

It sounds small, sweet and slightly ridiculous, but we all know that when you’re dating it’s those little things that matter. Well that and parental disapproval, which also seems to get the attention of teen hormones. Luckily Randall had both going for him that day and Beth planted a big old kiss on his lips. That’s right guys—Beth and Randall officially started up because of a lemon. We can only imagine the love with which the writers set that one up.Obviously this show gets us because we’re suckers for little callbacks like that, but the episode was about so much more than citrus. Kevin had another stellar showcase as he settled into life with Nicky and Cassie, making the makeshift family we were pumped for last week. Rebecca decided it was time to move on from mourning and maybe get into an apartment. (Kevin randomly marrying Sophie probably threw a dent in that plan, huh?) Kate and Toby attempted to give Jack some normalcy through a music class, which was total foreshadowing of his eventual music career. And Randall finally landed in Carol’s good books when he devised a plan to save Beth’s dead-possum-soaked grand opening and moved the entire thing outside.

Randall’s got Carol’s official stamp of approval and he’s feeling GOOD. #ThisIsUs pic.twitter.com/ZB4ji1zk9X

— This Is Us (@NBCThisisUs) October 16, 2019

Sounds happy, right? Except there was one other ominous hint of things to come. Remember when Deja brought Malik to meet Randall and he and Beth decided to squash that since he’s two years older with a six-month-old? If this episode taught us anything it’s that kids are usually going to do the exact opposite of what their parents want, so Randall’s firm stance may not be the best route. It’s definitely going to be a dark road for the fam-jam if they can’t get on the same page and quickly, but since we’re still holding out hope for Malik’s parents to meet Beth and Randall, we’re choosing to be optimistic.For now anyway. We still don’t know what’s going on with Malik’s shady storyline involving that drug dealer (or whoever he is) and we definitely don’t want Deja near any of that stuff after what happened to her mom. But, that’s another day and another episode. For now we’re going to sit back with our lemonade and revel in all of the good stuff that went down, and enjoy our brief reprieve from that tissue box.

 

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Don't wake the baby. ? #ThisIsUs | ?: @asanteblackk

A post shared by This Is Us (@nbcthisisus) on Sep 30, 2019 at 10:30am PDT

For now anyway. We still don’t know what’s going on with Malik’s shady storyline involving that drug dealer (or whoever he is) and we definitely don’t want Deja near any of that stuff after what happened to her mom. But, that’s another day and another episode.For now we’re going to sit back with our lemonade and revel in all of the good stuff that went down, and enjoy our brief reprieve from that tissue box.This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on CTV.