YMMV / This Is Us

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Kate and Toby's relationship zigzags this. Is Toby an emotionally manipulative borderline stalker who doesn't respect Kate's boundaries, or is Kate unstable and pushes away her terrific boyfriend who loves her unconditionally? Could be a little bit of both.
    • This comes up a lot in Season 6, as fans are very divided between siding with Kate and Toby when their marriage implodes, which is clearly what the writers were going for.
  • Is Randall truly trying to be a good person, or is he doing things for his own ego and selfish needs? Another popular theory is that Randall is Bipolar. Season 3 leans hard into this, as the residents of William's neighborhood are not appreciative at all of his attempts to swoop in and become their Daddy Warbucks without actually taking the time to understand their lives. He also seems to be willing to even risk his marriage over a campaign that he is almost flat out told is impossible to win at this rate.
  • The AV Club review of "The Last Seven Weeks" has the writer state that he's gone full Death of the Author and is now watching the show as the tragic story of how three siblings' unrealistic idolization of their father has caused them to become extremely emotionally unhealthy in their adulthood.
• Anvilicious: Some fear the show is starting to veer in this direction as of season five, with its repeated discussions of then-current events like the murder of George Floyd or the COVID-19 pandemic. The latter was especially problematic because the pandemic storyline was very inconsistent; characters would wear or forego masks seemingly randomly (likely because some scenes were filmed before the situation worsened enough for mandatory mask laws to become commonplace, but still), and many scenes of group activities and family get-togethers happened exactly how one would expect them to in a non-pandemic year, except for occasional lines of forced-sounding dialogue about isolating, getting vaccinated, and testing negative. The show wound up completely dropping the COVID subplot for the next season, which led to mixed reactions—some viewers thought it was the right move, and others thought that the transition from a COVID-filled world to a post-COVID world was too sharp and awkward.
• Award Snub:
  • Justin Hartley did not make the Emmy lineup for Season 2, despite all the love for his heartbreaking turn in "Number One". He then was snubbed again the next year while Chris Sullivan got a surprise nod in their shared category, even though he had a smaller, less showy role. Even when Hartley was arguably the largest, most central role of Season 5, he still couldn't crack the supporting category, which Sullivan did again. Making the lack of recognition even more noticeable is that, he's the only one of the five core Pearsons not to be nominated for an Emmy.
  • Susan Kelechi Watson missed out on an Emmy nomination for Season 3, even though Beth took center stage that year in what was deemed the best of her always great work on the show.
  • A few thought this trope was in play when Mandy Moore wasn't nominated until Season 3, and then went back to being snubbed again the following year. Especially bad in most people's eyes was her snub for Season 6, her most acclaimed year on the show.
  • Griffin Dunne was initially expected to receive a guest actor nomination for his acclaimed A Day in the Limelight during Season 5. However, he was inexplicably submitted as a supporting actor, losing out on the nomination.
• Arc Fatigue: Kevin's love life. After multiple episodes teasing it, he gets together with Olivia, only for it to quickly end. He then rebounds with Sloane, but before too long that's over as well. Then he starts back up again with his ex-wife Sophie, but they split partway through Season 2. Kevin then manages to maintain a relationship with Zoe throughout all of Season 3 until they break up in the finale. Season 4 sets up a relationship between him and Cassidy, but they go their separate ways before officially dating. Then the season ends with him committing to being with Madison after getting her pregnant, and the next season ends on their wedding. Except Madison leaves him on the day of, and he starts the final season still not even close to settling down, with many fans frustrated at how much time has been devoted to a plot that keeps getting undone over and over.
  • It gets worse in Season 6, when after 11 episodes of going back and forth with Madison and being jealous of her new boyfriend, Madison is revealed to have married said boyfriend and has another child with him. Kevin once again begins dating aimlessly as in Season 1, ultimately spending time with Sophie, Cassidy, and the wedding singer at Kate's wedding, with a whole episode devoted to the time he spent with each of the three. And after all that time, he ultimately gets together with Sophie, who was seen as the most obvious choice, which makes waiting nearly the whole show for this to happen feel more anticlimactic.
• Ass Pull:
  • Season 2 reveals out of nowhere that William followed Rebecca home after her visit in 1989 and thus knew where the family lived, and Randall himself has known this since early in the first season, which seems like it would have led to things playing out quite a bit differently.
  • Beth's past as a ballerina. It definitely seems like Deja's interest in dance would have caused this to come up.
  • Beth's second career is entirely pulled out of someone's ass. She hasn't trained in 20 years and has never taught, but she goes from having no immersion or involvement in the dance industry to teaching five days a week.
  • Nicky having survived the war and living into the present day seems to have been made up as the show went along. Jack in shown in Season 2 to remember Nicky fondly and to express sadness that he is no longer alive. Had the brothers really had a falling out in the 1970s, it is unlikely that Jack would experience such sentimental nostalgia upon remembrance of Nicky.
  • The Season 5 premiere reveals that Randall's biological mother just randomly came back to life literally seconds after William left to drop him at the fire station. Needless to say, there was absolutely zero indication that this was ever in the cards over the previous four years.
  • In Season 6, Randall becomes a Senator in a flashforward five years into the future, with no indication of how he managed to win said election (he had told Rebecca in the present day he was thinking about running, but we saw him take no other action toward this goal).
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Beth is this, some fans hate her attutide and personality towards Randall. Others find her endearing and amusing with her sass towards Randall.
  • Jack is this to some, many people love his kind actions and grand gestures, others find the overhype and character shilling of him beyond annoying. There's also the matter of his role in later seasons, with some fans criticizing the show for still shoehorning in loads of flashbacks and new stories from the past so he can stay in the main cast despite being long dead. Other fans, even ones who will acknowledge that many of these scenes are unneeded, will defend them though on account of wanting to see more of one of the show's most beloved characters.
  • Deja is this big time. Some people like the focus on her and the more difficult upbringing she had while others hate her , find her bitchy, annoying and ungrateful and would rather the show focus on the main characters instead.
  • Toby has detractors for asking Kate to spend more time on him rather than focus on herself. However, he also has his share of fans due to his many romantic and caring moments directed towards Kate, as well as his sense of humor.
  • George, the Pearsons' neighbor who gave them the faulty Crock Pot that ultimately burned their house down. He's been called The Scrappy for this, as from the way some fans talk, you'd think he walked up to Jack and shot him in the head. Others are more forgiving of George since it was an old Crock Pot when he gave it to them, and it only caused a fire almost 20 years later. So is it George's fault or Jack's for not replacing it years ago (or, at the very least, unplugging it at night)? Either way, George's defenders will note that he meant well by the Pearsons, and he warned them of the one faulty part of the Crock Pot.
  • Kate is viewed by some fans as an overly whiney brat always lashing out at others. Others find her to be an good person whose insecurity may get the better of her at times, but usually does the right thing eventually.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Not so much anymore, but when the show was just starting it became infamous for the pilot having a brief glimpse of Milo Ventimiglia's butt. Blake Stadnik continues the tradition in the Season 4 premiere.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Beth and William getting high on marijuana in “The Best Washing Machine in the World.” It’s never mentioned before or since that episode that Beth dabbled in recreational drugs, and it’s hardly believable that the incredibly straight-laced Randall would be okay with having weed in his house.
  • Several future jokes would reveal that Beth is a lot more casual about pot and the culture than your average suburban housewife, though jury is still out on Randall. Besides joking that Blue Hawaiian was his favourite strain of weed, Beth is seen smoking pot with Zoe at her childhood home in Season 3. However, the moment with Beth and William still stands out even now, especially because of how the show tended to lean a lot more comedic on Season 1.
• Broken Base: Chris Sullivan is not actually overweight and wears prosthetics to play Toby, which angers some fans as taking a role from an actual overweight actor with limited career prospects. Chrissy Metz has stated she has no problem with it, as he really did have weight problems in the past and knows full well what it's like.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • For anyone who'd started to grow tired of the show's endless sentimentality, Randall getting repeatedly smacked in the face with his Wrong Genre Savvy in Season 3 is a big highlight, and a welcome sign that the crew does have some self-awareness about how high-handed they can come off.
  • The whole portrayal of Jack Damon in Season 4. Rather than the endless Wangst you'd probably expect by now from this show adding a major blind character, he's portrayed as having long since come to terms with his disability and having a happy and successful life.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Sad as it is for Kevin, it’s hard not to chuckle when he seems to meet the perfect woman, only to find out she’s married and only went out with him because he was her “hall pass,” i.e. the famous person who it’s okay to cheat on your spouse with if you ever actually meet them.
• Designated Hero:
  • Jack, although it's a possible meta-example. First he comes across like this to viewers, with his rousing speeches and unconditional love of his children making him seem like the best TV dad of all time, even though some of his advice and choices aren't always correct. As the series goes on, we see more nuance; his approach is sometimes contrasted with Rebecca's to show that he's not always correct, he is extremely repressive, and his approaches are often seen to have consequences.
    • Kate's memory of the "sequin fight" is a good example of this; she remembers Jack giving them a carefree, sitcom-like memory, when in reality he was overcompensating and trying to cover up a serious depressive episode.
    • Also deconstructed by Rebecca, who admits in the second season episode "The Fifth Wheel" that she doesn't like to tarnish the family's memory of Jack by focusing on his negative aspects, even though there were many.
  • Randall becomes this at times as well; in the first season he had such a rough go that it was hard to criticize a lot of the choices he made over the next few years. But the way he handled the building he and Beth purchased, as well as his city council run, shows him to be short-sighted and a little self-aggrandizing, much of which is often chalked up to good intentions or trauma response. Eventually, though, the show does demonstrate that he is indeed in the wrong for what he does.
• Designated Villain:
  • Miguel is this at first; no viewers like that he married his best friend's widow, and his actions, especially in the first season, are often viewed as insidious, and it takes a long time for anyone to begin viewing him as what he really is: a kind and thoughtful grandpa who provides well for his wife.
  • Solomon Brown might not be a great guy – he did indeed have a DUI and paid media to bury the story – but his constituency actually does feel heard and served by Sol Brown, and there's nothing to indicate that he's a callous councillor. While he is not always effective at fulfilling promises, he does demonstrate that politics is largely about playing the game and negotiating with the right people – something Randall learns he also has to do in the fourth season. It's also worth noting that Randall wins the election largely on the power of the Korean constituency, which hadn't previously voted a lot before, and not the very community he believed he could help better than Sol.
• Die for Our Ship: Phillip gets a lot of hate from fans who wanted Kate and Toby to stay together. Didn't help that viewers only got to see a bit of him and Kate as a couple in contrast to Toby being with her for nearly the whole series' run.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Nicky has quickly become a fan-favourite, despite his gruff exterior, with both Griffin Dunne and Michael Angarano being praised for their portrayal of a broken, yet very quirky man.
  • Madison, who was initially expected to be a throwaway character meant to piss off Kate, became a surprising fan-favourite after being more fleshed out in the second season, to the point where in the third season's "The Waiting Room," fans and reviewers alike noted that she (along with Miguel) were the two most sane and likeable people in the ensemble.
  • Miguel, despite initially being a Scrappy both in-universe and for fans, has gradually won over the hearts of fans for his good-natured ways.
  • Gregory, Kate and Toby's neighbour and stroke survivor. Helps that his role was created specifically for Timothy Omundson after his difficult stroke recovery.
  • Dr. Nathan Katowski is quite beloved for being an overall great guy who delivered Kevin and Kate, gave Jack an iconic speech to help him move on from the third triplet's stillbirth, and being a highly sympathetic figure in his own right.
• Genius Bonus: The painting that Rebecca is so fascinated by in "New York, New York, New York" (John Singer Sargent's Portrait of Madame X) was made in the 19th century and was quite controversial at the time for being such an "explicit" depiction of the female form, despite seeming completely tame now ^*and in fact had to be censored after too many complaints; originally one of the straps on her dress was hanging off her shoulder, but Sargent covered it and moved the strap to its proper place. The painted-over line can be seen in properly-positioned lighting. Thus, it fits perfectly with Rebecca's life story stuck as an old-fashioned housewife despite her dreams of something bigger, due to the time she lived in.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Most viewers regard "Her" as the series finale and "Us" as a post-series epilogue.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • At the same time Ron Cephas Jones was playing someone with stomach cancer on this show, he appeared in Luke Cage, in which Charles Bradley made a cameo appearance. Just a few days later, Bradley revealed he had stomach cancer, from which he ultimately died in 2017.
  • "The 20's" was forced to remove a scene where Kevin is invited to a party held by Kevin Spacey, when Anthony Rapp's accusation that Spacey had molested him at a party came just a few days earlier.
• He Really Can Act: Justin Hartley had a few critics when the show started, but by Season 2 he was widely considered to be giving an excellent performance, with his work in "Number One" especially wowing audiences.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Kevin's line in the season two premiere (filmed months in advance) about how the Kardashians "multiply like Gremlins" is particularly amusing considering that in the days leading up to the episode airing, both Kylie Jenner and Khloe Kardashian were announced to be pregnant. In addition, Kim Kardashian's third child is also on the way via surrogate.
  • Mandy Moore has been noted to look uncannily like Diane Keaton in her aged makeup, especially the less severe 2008 version. This gives major props to the casting director of Because I Said So, where Keaton played Moore's mother.
  • In Black Panther, Sterling K. Brown is a father who dies while his son is still very young, with consequences that very much make the Pearsons look like they're whining over nothing. The fact that Brown's character in Black Panther was killed by his brother can make Kevin's picking on Randall seem pathetic in comparison.
• Hollywood Pudgy: Marin's daughter is actually not that fat, but she's treated as such.
• I Knew It!:
  • While most viewers didn't recognize the twist ending, some were able to figure out that Randall had to be somehow related to the others because of the whole birthday concept and the fact that he's the only main character of color among the predominantly white cast. It's the fact that Jack and Rebecca are their parents and lived during a different time period that caught everyone.
  • After the Wham Shot of Miguel and Rebecca, most viewers were already guessing that Jack was dead, especially after a line William said in the pilot appeared to have referenced Jack in the past tense. Episode 5 confirmed that he did pass away and Kate keeps his ashes on her mantle.
  • Quite a few fans called that the reason Kate blames herself for her father’s death was because he stayed in the burning house to save her dog rather than escaping with the others.
  • Most fan communities guessed that Kevin would end up with Sophie in the end.
  • No one was surprised when Miguel was out-lived by Rebecca despite being much healthier than her. There's Truth in Television in this since most able-bodied caregivers for Alzheimer's and Dementia patients end up declining physically very rapidly while giving care, since they tend to neglect themselves, as Miguel does.
• Informed Wrongness:
  • In “Moonshadow,” it is pretty clear that the writers wanted the viewers to take Rebecca’s side in her big argument with Jack. While Jack is portrayed as a drunken, jealous asshole, Rebecca was firmly established as a put-upon housewife who sacrificed her dreams for the misery of raising a family. Rebecca (and the writers) seemed to forget that Ben was the one who ruined everything when he made a pass at her, and that she was ready to leave Cleveland before Jack even showed up.
  • Although they were pretty tactless about it and their timing was terrible, Toby’s parents raised valid points about Kate in “The Wedding.”
  • While Rebecca's decision to keep William's identity from Randall for so long was very clearly damaging to Randall and not the correct choice, she not only fully believed she was making the right choice at the time, but was also potentially fending off a Pandora's box of legal issues. Randall was legally adopted, but William never legally renounced or contested his parental rights. If William wanted to pursue a DNA test and possibly a court case, it could drag the Pearsons and their still-very-young son through a complex legal battle.
  • Randall is portrayed as making the correct decision for not going public with the tip about Sol Brown, and decides to win the "right way" and "honest way" by continuing to just shake hands and work hard. No one seems to argue with him that driving drunk and paying media off to bury the story is an extremely bad thing to do if you're anyone, let alone a public figure whose salary is paid by taxes. This wasn't some superficial scandal about Brown's private affairs; this involved multiple stakeholders and was a dangerous act. Yet Randall acts as though pushing this publicly would be a low move for him, and he's better off taking the high road – and the show seems to agree with him.
• It Was His Sled: Anybody who has heard anything about the show will probably not be very surprised by the twist at the end of the pilot episode. As time goes by and the show becomes more and more ingrained into American TV culture, it’s likely that the story of Jack’s death will eventually become common knowledge as well.
• Memetic Loser: Crock Pots, after it was revealed that one started the fire that killed Jack. Many fans said they were going to throw theirs out, which Dan Fogelman felt quite guilty about and quickly stated it wasn't meant as any kind of Take That!, as they made sure to emphasize that it was a very old one that Jack and Rebecca never bothered to fix.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The reveal that M. Night Shyamalan would be playing a role in Season 4 caused a lot of joking speculation about which of his cameo characters he'd be playing, with his tendency to play people who make problems for his films' protagonists offering a ton of material.
  • After the unusually straightforward cliffhanger ending of Season 5, fans had a ton of fun coming up with ridiculously contrived ways it's actually not showing that in five years, Kate will have divorced Toby and is now marrying her boss, like the show would usually do.
• Misaimed Fandom: Some fans believed that Kate and Toby's divorce was a very negative point for the show that derailed the entire sixth season and made the show unwatchable, since they view the show as being a positive show about a large and complicated but ultimately happy family. What they seemed to ignore was not only that the episode was all about how Kate and Toby become better people when they're apart – and by the finale have become extremely effective co-parents and good friends – but also that the show has never pushed traditional family structures. It showed positive examples of healthy second marriages, integrating birth parents into adoptive families, blended families, co-parenting and more.
• Narm:
  • Every time Rebecca talks about "the Tom Hanks movie" in the Season 2 premiere. It's pretty clearly written this way to obfuscate the exact year the scenes take place in, and comes off like she somehow doesn't know the movie's name. As the show goes on, the writers become more confident with explicitly identifying pop culture events and movements that associate the time with a particular year, like Rebecca's references to Emeril Legasse or Kate wanting to see Practical Magic in theatres.
  • The kids being nicknamed after the order they were born. Especially since as adults they have exactly the complexes you'd think they would from literally being called Number 1, Number 2, and Number 3 all their lives, which the show completely ignores. Extra-ironic because Season 5 eventually reveals that Randall might be up to two days older than his siblings. This fortunately goes away after the second season.
  • The entire episode "The Fifth Wheel" is quite jarringly meta on a level the show has never come close to anywhere else, with the Pearsons laying into each other about all the stuff the fans have been complaining about, while their significant others talk about what it's like to literally be supporting characters (and seriously shaft Chewbacca in their Star Wars metaphor for the situation). It finally becomes impossible to take seriously when Randall says he wishes people could see their whole childhood step by step.
  • For some, the end of "Clooney," where after Rebecca asks, "Did we forget something at the mall?" there is an ominous shot of a battery-less smoke detector.
  • The sheer amount of Chekhovs Guns involved in Jack's death, giving the impression that the universe itself just did not want him to still be breathing.
  • Alot of the grand speeches can come off as this. Instead of being serious or heartwarming, it comes off as cheesy and over the top. Jack is the most frequent offender.
  • Toby's happy dance when he found out Kate was pregnant in the coffee store comes off as cringy.
  • The part of Kevin’s toast at Kate’s wedding where the camera focused on each Pearson exhaling was very melodramatic at best.
  • "Vietnam," which is told is reverse order, has Nicky say halfway through that maybe people's life stories would make more sense in reverse. It just comes off as bizarre that the writers felt the need to spell out their own rather simple technique like no one in the audience would get it otherwise.
  • The sheer Fridge Logic involved with Randall's financial situation in Season 3. Beth is laid off after a year of being the family's sole breadwinner, so Randall hires her for his city council campaign...apparently with them just passing their last few dollars back and forth until it runs out.
    • For what it's worth, it's highly unlikely that Randall and Beth would be living on "their last few dollars." Beth spent 12 years in architecture and Randall has spent about a decade as a partner at an investment firm, meaning they've not only likely saved a lot, but have also invested wisely. Additionally, Beth's boss mentioned a severance package, which even modestly would be about half a year's salary. While they would have likely had to adjust slightly, it's actually expected that they probably would have been privileged enough to both take some time without having active income. And, most campaigns have fundraising for exactly this reason – to be able to pay campaign staff.
  • The writers show a downright cartoonish non-understanding of the Internet when Deja's highly personal essay is posted online without her permission, and the episode acts like its being taken down after the entire school has already read it somehow solves the problem.
  • Randall and Beth have a dramatic, intense argument about how one of them needs to sacrifice their dream so the kids won't be left on their own all day...while they're both on the other side of the country with no explanation of who's watching the kids, and why this obviously very trustworthy person can't do the job more.
  • The Season 4 trailer, which attempts to sell the addition of a bunch of new characters as some huge, shocking twist on par with the biggest the show's ever had. And one of them being played by M. Night Shyamalan is so insane it kind of loops around to being genius.
  • The reveal in the Season 5 premiere that Laurel had survived her heroin overdose was to many fans one big shocking backstory twist too many, especially given its similarity to Nicky still being alive. Even Dan Fogelman himself was well aware of how goofy it could come off, and wasted no time assuring people this was the very last time the show would reveal someone wasn't actually dead, and people could stop with the jokes expecting Jack to show up and shout "Surprise!".
  • Tess is grounded over a Youtube video where she and a friend rap about their problems in school, calling their teachers out by name for regularly misgendering the non-binary friend and touching Tess' hair. The video doesn't come off anywhere near as bad as would make their reactions seem justified, especially since the show being on network TV means there's no cursing in it, yet Beth still calls the video "profane."
  • The promo for "There" actually tries to scare us into thinking Kevin might die in a car accident, despite our already having seen him in the future.
  • The integration of the COVID-19 pandemic in Season 5 is very inconsistently applied, and occasionally just outright ignored if the story requires it (or was already entrapped into it by flashforwards, as the Big Three's 40th birthday was). They don't even seem to try to make anyone's masks fit properly. By the sixth season, COVID is all-but done away with in a way most people probably wish it could be, with only one mention of a character "trying to give himself COVID" and a brief reference to Zoom school. There aren't even background characters wearing masks, including a scene in which Kevin goes to the hospital. Fortunately, halfway through the season we fast-forward to 2026 and there's no concern about COVID ever again.
  • Phillip's story about his blind ex-wife, who left him after struggling with infertility, seems like a normal, sad story... until the story ends with him revealing that she got in a car accident on her taxi ride, which is such extreme tragedy porn it's almost as though someone wrote a parody This Is Us plot.
  • The show's insistence that "make lemons out of lemonade" is this profound, impactful, memorable thing. It borders on Narm Charm when Dr. K. says it, because he's a folksy old man, but in the penultimate episode when it's revealed that Jack gave that same advice to another man on the night he died and it became a family motto – one his kids talk about decades later – it goes hard into narm. In fairness, the man's children do call it a "greeting card platitude," but the fact that it became something "dad always says" is just too silly.
• Narm Charm:
  • All three of the child Pearsons can fall into this from time to time. They have some cheesy lines, but they are adorable enough to pull them off in a way that doesn't detract from the show.
  • While the therapy scene in the “Fifth Wheel” is quite meta it still does address some of the misgivings and shortcomings fans have had about the show and it’s characters and the fact the characters themselves are calling each other out makes it a little satisfying.
  • Mr. Rogers talking to Randall as Daniel Tiger and encouraging him to discuss his feelings. Rogers is perhaps the one person in history where it's 100% believable he really would do something like this upon seeing an unhappy child alone, and it's one of the show's most heartwarming moments.
  • While it's highly conspicuous that as time moves forward in the show, Jack Damon goes from being a dark-haired, olive-skinned baby to a blonde-haired toddler, to a slightly chubby, dark-haired child, to a light-haired, thin pre-teen and finally to a slim, light-haired grown-up (not to mention all the actors who played Jack at various ages in the garage music flash-forward sequence), the fact that the show chose to limit itself because it felt casting a genuinely blind actor was more important was admirable and made many viewers and disability advocates happy.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The Pearson house beginning to burn down in the final moments of "That'll Be The Day". The episode fades out just as the flames begin to make their way upstairs where Jack, Rebecca, Randall, and Kate are sleeping.
  • Jack's time in Vietnam goes full-tilt into War Is Hell, even bringing on Tim O'Brien, famous for his semi-autobiographical stories about the war. It includes the likes of a soldier getting his foot blown off, a man under Jack's command senselessly dying when he steps on a mine while playing catch, and an uneasy trip with a local who ends up admitting he's "sometimes" Viet Cong.
  • Randall discovers a man with a knife has broken into his home in the middle of the night, complete with shots of all his sleeping kids.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Pam Grier as Deja's great-grandmother, an object lesson in how to create a fully realized character with just a few minutes of screen time.
  • Jane Kaczmerak (who is really in two scenes) was revered for her small arc as the mother of Rebecca's high school boyfriend and her impassioned conversation with Rebecca about chasing her passions, even if it means breaking her son's heart.
  • Chi McBride as Laurel's emotionally abusive father.
  • Joshua Malina as a man Kevin saves from a car accident, who gives him advice about fatherhood.
• Paranoia Fuel: The ending of “That’ll Be The Day.” A kitchen appliance turns itself on, shorts out, and bursts into flames. Sleep tight.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Kevin right now has won over a good amount of supporters after basically risking sabotaging his career to be there for Randall when he suffers a nervous breakdown. As up to this point he was still viewed as the most selfish sibling out of the three. Him risking so much just to be there for his brother gave him a good amount of character development and supporters.
  • Toby has won over some people in season 2 after the miscarriage plot and him calling out Kate on her selfish behavior. It helps that he also toned down the entitled, boundary-crossing behaviour that turned a lot of fans off him in Season 1.
  • Miguel has safely become this due to becoming more and more likeable both in the 90s scenes and the present. While his marrying of Rebecca initially seems insidious, he eventually begins to come across as more of a goofy grandpa who takes care of Rebecca the best he can. It also helps that his stepkids have begun to respect him a bit more. It's also worth noting that his rescuing from the Scrappy heap comes as the mythology surrounding Jack, the world's greatest father, has started to crumble.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Kate gets a disproportionate amount of hatred compared to her brothers, husband and parents, despite none of them being saints. Yes, Kate is shown to be selfish throughout the series and yes, she isn't blameless in her fights with Toby. But she's frequently been identified as the "worst character." Other discretions in the family include drunk driving, racial microaggressions, infidelity, hiding the identity of a birth parent, leading everyone to believe your brother is dead, disrupting and uprooting your family's life for a new job, manipulating your mother into a clinical trial she didn't want to do, telling your brother their father died ashamed of him... the list goes on. It's worth noting that a lot of the criticisms of Kate also bring up her weight, which shouldn't have anything to do with how good a person she is.
  • George, the Pearsons' neighbor who gave them the faulty Crock Pot that ultimately burned their house down. From the way some fans talk, you'd think he walked up to Jack and shot him in the head. It was an old Crock Pot when he gave it to them, and it caused a fire almost 20 years later
  • Miguel at first due to the sudden reveal that he married his best friend's wife, which caused fans to be convinced this all around Nice Guy was actually a dastardly creep. By the end of the series though, this view faded away entirely as more details came forward making it clear he didn't try to steal Rebecca, he was a genuinely good friend to Jack, and their courtship being shown to happen much later in a very sweet manner.
• The Scrappy:
  • Olivia, for her bitchy, arrogant attitude, and excluding a few moments, being quite awful to Kevin and his family. Even when she's apparently bettered herself and has an opportunity to be Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, she then ruins it by responding in a highly rude manner to Kevin when he decides to stay with Sloan and do the play with her, even though he's completely justified in those choices.
  • Nobody likes Miguel because he married Rebecca after Jack's death as well having made fawning comments about her to Jack while being married himself. Since the circumstances of Jack's death and the remarriage have yet to be explained, viewers are still holding negative views about him for the comments and the leering he did at his secretary in front of Jack. He eventually even gets a very meta line about how weird it is how little the fact that he married his best friend's widow gets brought up. However, for many he got Rescued from the Scrappy Heap and became an Ensemble Dark Horse.
  • Duke, the "fat camp" counselor, is also unpopular in his first appearance because his blatant advances on Kate gives off the appearance that he's sexually harassing her and preying on an emotionally vulnerable woman. Luckily, after a few episodes it's confirmed that we were never actually supposed to like him, no matter how much the promos played up the "love triangle."
  • Phillip. When he's not being ignored entirely, he's generally disliked, particularly by people who believed Kate and Toby is their OTP. Much of it also has to do with him being a Flat Character who didn't get any of the development people were expecting from the fifth season, with his role consisting of an extremely rushed romance followed by mostly just standing in the background of scenes with the actually developed Pearsons.
• Seasonal Rot: Seasons 3 through 5 were not as well received as the first two seasons, with the main complaint being that many episodes were heavy on "filler" material that didn't advance the broader storyline. Examples of this include flashbacks to the Big 3's childhood that were little more than cute stories, heavy emphasis on Randall's identity struggles that seemed to just lay out what viewers already knew about the character, and repeatedly introducing love interests for Kevin that inevitably ended badly. Season 6 could be seen as a subversion as it was generally well received. With that being said, there were several important plot points that got very little exploration (Kate's divorce and remarriage, Randall becoming a national political figure, Kevin's reunion with Sophie), leading viewers to further lament the lack of substance in the previous seasons when such consequential stories seemed to be crammed in at the very end.
• Signature Scene: Dr. Katowski's heartfelt speech to Jack after Rebecca loses one of the triplets which helped set the show's standard for making viewers cry just as often as it made them smile.
• Strangled by the Red String:
  • Kevin and Zoe. We get about five seconds of them meeting at Kate's wedding, and by the third season premiere, they've already been secretly seeing each other. Because we miss a lot of their early courtship, it seems jarring that throughout the entire season, most of their conflicts come from the fact that they barely know each other. Kevin and Zoe are close enough that they'll fly to Vietnam together, but also seemingly know nothing about one another, with matters such as Zoe's past and Kevin wanting kids while Zoe does not driving wedges between them because apparently as a couple they don't discuss things until they become a problem. The worst part is, Zoe realizes they can't reconcile their different desires for the future and breaks up with Kevin, and she's only mentioned once during the fourth season – jarring, since she's Tess, Annie and Deja's aunt. So it feels like Zoe was only introduced for the same of being in a relationship with Kevin and teaching him about himself, being that the relationship was so under-developed in the crucial early stages.
  • Also, Kate and Phillip in Season 6. We learn in the Season 5 finale that they will be married once Kate's marriage to Toby falls apart, but the only development their relationship gets is in Episode 12, which the main focus of is the breakdown of Kate and Toby's marriage.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Though Jack and William's deaths are regarded as two of the show's finest moments, some have said they occurred too early in the timeline and that the show struggled to include them afterwards.
    • In Jack's case, he stayed a main character, but unable to properly appear in any stories after the kids' high school years, many different earlier time points would then pop up mainly or exclusively to focus on him. These stories were originally well received but would eventually become more divisive with criticism that they were no longer adding anything new or important and just existed so that one of the leads doesn't have to leave the show.
    • In William's case, with far less to link him to any other characters of note, and only spending a short amount of time in the company of the main cast, his role would go on to become significantly smaller after Season 1, appearing less and less until he's barely in the show at all.
  • Chris Geere (Phillip) was marketed as a main cast member in the sixth season of the show, after viewers found out that Kate and Phillip would eventually marry. He also had a small subplot in the first episode of the season. Then his character all-but disappeared until the episode in which Kate and Toby divorce, and there was only a few short scenes in which we learn anything about Phillip's life at all. By the finale, Phillip fits well into the family and is a nice presence within it, but he truly doesn't do anything for the whole season other than be sweet and supportive for Kate and her kids.
  • Randall's children were largely written out of the sixth season just as they were starting to get older and have more interesting plots on their own, particularly Déja and Tess. The writers have confirmed that they were largely victims of the awkward Time Skip which made casting too difficult. As a result, there's no continuation of the arc of Tess exploring her sexuality, we don't know how Déja's relationship with Shauna healed (if at all) or why she went into medicine, and Annie, who is mostly a Static Character due to her relatively young age, doesn't really ever get to be a character with much autonomy despite being there from episode one.
  • Gregory, Kate and Toby's neighbor who became a good friend to Kate and bonded with Jack, seemingly teaching Kate about living life as a disabled person. There was tension introduced when Kate decided to call Gregory from the family retreat instead of Toby, making it seem as though Gregory might be the one toward whom Kate gravitates when things go south with Toby two years down the line. He's only seen twice in the fifth season (justified both in-universe and IRL – a stroke victim like Gregory and his actor, Timothy Omundson, would be at higher risk during the height of COVID) but does seemingly integrate back into the Pearson fold once restrictions are lifted. He's not seen at all during the sixth season, although Toby mentions in him in a way that indicates that he still has a relationship with them, thinking Jack may have gone to his house. As Gregory is gradually written out, Kate instead gravitates toward the entirely new (and not exactly universally adored) character of Phillip.
  • Yvette and her boys are shown to be very good friends to Randall and the Pearson's, and Randall is especially close with her older son, Keith. After Randall decides not to go to Howard, Keith is a non-factor in Randall's adult life (although we do see him in Randall's fantasy sequence of what would happen if he went to Howard). While plenty of friends do drift apart around this age, it would be nice to know that Randall actually had some friends who aren't his siblings or Jae-Won.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Because of the Time Skip in Season 6, we find out that the Pearsons, aside from Kevin, all seemingly have incredibly different lives and are generally much happier, but we don't get to see any of those journeys.
  • Randall is now a senator, Beth is a successful administrator at a dance conservatory, Deja and Tess are thriving in their professional lives and Deja has gotten back together with Malik, and we saw none of the drama or excitement of how that played out.
  • After going through great pains to even get her BA and then pulling away from her career to focus on parenting young Jack, by the time Miguel dies Kate has also earned a Masters in Education and is designing music curriculums at a state level, and even meeting with international stakeholders by the finale.
  • And, even though he's still working as an actor (back on The Manny, ironically), Kevin has started Big Three Homes, which turns out to be a non-profit giving veterans opportunities to work as homebuilders. It's teased in the Season 5 finale, so we expect it to play a big part in Kevin's life, but it's mainly background noise.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • Beth makes one great point after another about how wrong-headed Randall's running for city council is, while he acts exceptionally condescending and dismissive in response...and the storyline ends with her admitting she should have just shut up and blindly followed his every whim. Then Randall has the audacity to tell her to Stay in the Kitchen and give up on her own dreams because he won't have any time for the kids himself, and it's honestly very hard to tell if we're supposed to be for or against it.
  • This is the tone of most conflicts between Beth and Randall throughout the third season. While "R&B" is supposed to paint a picture of Randall being an overbearing and single-minded individual who "consumes" Beth and everyone around him, you can also see it as Beth mistaking being confrontational for being strong – like waking up with Randall to micromanage him changing Tess's diaper, then blasting him for waking up to change the diaper and being a martyr. Beth is complicit in the dynamic between her and Randall, and while the episode is supposed to show 20 years of Randall "consuming" his partner, it highlights the complexity of their relationship.
  • There's actually a ton of parallels between the relationship between Randall and Beth and that between him and his mother. In Season 4, we see the ways in which Randall and Rebecca, following Jack's death, feed into each other's worst tendencies. Randall seemingly can't leave Rebecca alone and looks out for her constantly, but even though Rebecca says out loud she doesn't want Randall's help, she's so reliant on him that the unspoken truth seems to be that she actually needs his help a lot. It creates a very difficult dynamic once Randall is in his thirties, and it's easy to say "Rebecca is at fault for leaning on him" and "Randall is at fault for being so overbearing," but really, they both end up sympathetic.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Kevin abandoning the premiere of his play to be there for Randall during the latter's nervous breakdown is written to make Kevin appear as a selfless big brother. While the show accomplished that, the deed also made Kevin come off as very unprofessional. Plus, we're apparently just supposed to overlook the huge amount of other people he screwed over in the process, including Sloane, who was nervous about the production to begin with.
  • Randall is crushed to hear Kate called her IVF treatments the only way to pass on Jack's legacy, and calls her out for not considering just adopting a kid who badly needs a family, to which Kate retorts that he has no idea how badly she's wanted a biological child all her life and how hard it was to lose her last chance. However, many fans are still firmly on Randall's side as her statement also dismissed his own kids as a legitimate part of the family, which goes completely unacknowledged.
  • Kate gets it again when she tells her mother about Tess being gay without her permission, a huge no-no in the LGBT community which the show basically sweeps under the rug.
  • Many fans took issue with Randall and Beth's reaction to Tess' coming out to them, with them never actually saying it's okay to be gay, and making no move to hug her or any other kind of physical contact she clearly needs in the moment. It can easily come off as them actually being homophobic but trying to clamp it down.
  • Randall is this throughout his campaign as he repeatedly chooses his campaign over his family and when Beth rightfully calls him out on this he dismisses her complaints as jealousy and basically downright insults her about her not being able to pursue a job. And even once he wins he expects Beth to drop her Dream Job so she can basically take care of the girls (something she was already doing during Randall’s campaign) while he is councilman.
  • Beth and Randall's reactions to the video Tess and her friend made comes off as disproportionately harsh given the "profanity" was rather tame (even within the limitations of network TV). Additionally, when hearing out their reasons for having made it, show no sympathy for Tess being made uncomfortable by a teacher. When Tess describes her teacher repeatedly touching her hair, they only ask wether she'd told her to stop, as though it were another student being irritating and not an adult crossing a boundary (and, given that Tess says she had only done it to other Black students, committing a potential microaggression on top of that). They end up coming off as stunningly uncaring as a result.
  • Beth's repeated misgendering of Tess' partner Alex is apparently supposed to be accidental as she struggles to grasp the concept of non-binary genders, but it happens so often (and with dialogue implying that she's been persistently doing it for months) that it honestly comes off as deliberate. However, the show does end up focusing on how it negatively impacts Tess, and Tess is allowed to say her piece on how Beth's lack of understanding makes her feel less than, so it does seem that the show isn't entirely on Beth's side.
• The Un-Twist: Inevitably became an Enforced Trope when the story of Jack’s death was finally revealed. For over a year it had been billed by the creators as an event so unbelievable and shocking that no fan could guess what happened in their wildest dreams. It turned out that what actually happened was a pretty common fan theory (Jack made it out of the fire, but died from complications afterwards).
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The puppet for Kate's prematurely born baby Jack is unnervingly realistic.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Mostly averted – the show is surprisingly good at picking up threads most assumed were long forgotten – like Beth and Randall's home invasion which was followed up on two seasons later, or Miguel's relationship with his kids. However, a few stand out, particularly threads brought up in Season 5:
  • The fact that Randall and Beth own property in New Orleans, a farmhouse that belonged to his birth mother's family, and also has a new quasi-family member in Hai, Laurel's partner at the time of her death.
  • Also in the fifth season, Beth announces that Mama C will be staying with the family "indefinitely." We only see her integration into the house once after that, as she helps Beth navigate Tess's new relationship, but nothing else ever comes of it, and we never see her again. When Malik and Deja have their awkward dinner at Beth and Randall's in the sixth season, it seems clear Beth's mother is no longer living there.
    • It's possible that Mama C went back to DC because of work – a big part of her character is that she refuses to retire and is still actively working as a principal throughout most of the series. Reasonably she could have done a good deal of work from home at Randall and Beth's or even taken a sabbatical until COVID died down a little, and then gone back to DC prior to the start of the new school year.
  • In the final two episodes, Déja excitedly tells Randall he's going to be a grandfather, and he's overjoyed. The show also has a prop pamphlet for Rebecca's funeral that acknowledges all her grandchildren, including Déja. What neither acknowledge is that Déja, who has seemingly been back with Malik for a while, is already a stepmother to Janelle. Sure, it might not quite be the same as Déja being pregnant for the first time, especially because Janelle was already a year old when she and Malik met and she has a biological mother with whom she presumably spends time, but she and Déja have been integrated into one another's lives for quite some time now and Malik is an extremely devoted father even at 16. Considering the show has a history of being very positive about blended families and step-parents – particularly given the send-off Miguel had just had – it feels strange and conspicuous to simply leave Janelle unmentioned.
  • What happened to Audio, Kate and Toby's dog? He is still part of their lives when they have Jack, but by Jack's first birthday, he's not seen or mentioned. By the pandemic season, it seems official that Audio no longer exists, and he ceases to be a factor at all.
• The Woobie: Randall. His father died, his biological father is dying, and his mother knew all along that his biological father was alive and kept him away, and his siblings are too absorbed in their own matters to care about him.
  • After the episode of “Number One” Kevin himself is a close second when it is revealed all the self doubts he has about himself and the fact that because he is the oldest and from other peoples perspective the “perfect one” no one other than Kate sees just how lost he is.
• Wangst: Kate is this with her constant woe is me attutide, complaining and self pity party. It became a real problem in season 2 and 3 much to fans annoyance.

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