It won't be wrong to say that this is the most crucial episode of the season. So obviously, this has a huge responsibility even before its first scene. This is because it can define Randall's arc in the forthcoming episodes. So does it live up to its expectations, let us check it out...
This is a proper Randall centric episode as part of this year's big three centric chapters. After the call with Hai, Beth and Randall travel to New Orleans to meet him, where we get to see Laurel's past and her struggles to meet the expectations of her parents. Other plots are also there to fit this surprise mom's story to the first four seasons.
This kind of episode is hard to write as we travel with an entirely new character throughout an entire episode. Even though the episode tries to give a good backstory to Laurel it kinda falls short. This becomes a problem for a show which has set its bar so high. As a result of this, I couldn't get into the episode and felt kinda zoomed out throughout most of its proceedings. This has nothing to do with the performances as it was good as always.
The show has excelled in the past when they dealt with an almost similar storyline. Take "The Strangers" as an example which not only introduced us to a new set of characters but also worked perfectly well. But this time around they couldn't capture the same magic. This can be due to the fact that this surprise mother character seemed unnecessary from the beginning of the season.
These flaws overshadow a fine acting performance by Sterling K Brown in the final scene. That was a very touching scene and was very good. The one thing that redeems this episode in a big way is that we might get to see a peaceful Randall in the forthcoming episodes.
Episode Rating: B-
Little Things:
Another character who participated in the Vietnam War has a larger impact on the Big Three's story
This episode reminds me of "The Bells" from GoT. I am well aware that there is no single similarity between these episodes
Let us hope that the next week's Kevin centric episode is better than this one...
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