Mushrooms sure are a hell of a drug.
While we weren't loving the presence of Kevin's non-girlfriend's horrible friends as the Pearson siblings took one last trip to their family cabin, we have to thank them for being there, and for bringing along a smoothie full of magic mushrooms.
We also have to thank the health-obsessed Randall for drinking most of that smoothie, which then sent him and us on an emotional trip we don't think we were ready to take by hallucinating a young version of his dead father, allowing Sterling K. Brown and Milo Ventimiglia to share the screen for the first time.
Randall had understandably not recovered from discovering that his mother had hidden his biological father from him ever since he was born, and he spent most of the episode making a list of all the ways she ruined his life. Meanwhile, we learned that Randall spent a lot of time asking random black people whether they could roll their tongues, thinking that since the trait was hereditary, maybe he could track his parents down that way.
Rebecca refused to tell him the truth, fearing she'd lose her son, and Jack did his best to be the best father he could possibly be for Randall.
He continued to be that best father ever even as a gutter-fixing hallucination, and showed Randall how scared and determined Rebecca was when it came to her marriage and her family. When Randall finally went to confront his mother, he only said it must have been incredibly lonely to keep that secret for so long, and then left.
"No, not yet," he said when she tried to hug him.
Hopefully, that "yet" means there's a reconciliation in the future for Randall and Rebecca, because whether or not her keeping William away from Randall was a mistake, we can't take this pain.
What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments!
This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on NBC.