‘This Is Us’ explored the difficulties parents of disabled children face. There’s also hope.
I’ve been a “This Is Us” fan since the show’s beginning and have watched this final season with all the bittersweet feelings of knowing that these very real,
I’ve been a “This Is Us” fan since the show’s beginning and have watched this final season with all the bittersweet feelings of knowing that these very real, very flawed, very striving human characters whom I’ve become attached to over the last six years would soon take their leave. I prepared to watch the series finale on Tuesday by clearing my calendar for the night and having tissues on hand.
I was moved by all of the characters’ growth this season, but there was one major plot line that hit particularly close to home: the unraveling of the marriage between Kate (Chrissy Metz) and Toby (Chris Sullivan).
Series creator Dan Fogelman has spoken about why he included this plot line, citing that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce and that, while painful, he wanted to illuminate what could be “human, and its own way, beautiful” about divorce. He’s achieved that goal through stellar writing and the phenomenal, emotionally connected acting of Metz and Sullivan.
I recognized the fights portrayed between Kate and Toby from our own struggles in those early years.
And yet, as a mother of a child with a disability, I desperately hoped that this storyline might have had a different ending, one in which Kate and Toby manage the pressures of how to best parent their child Jack, who is blind, together. That would tell a story that doesn’t get told often enough: A disability diagnosis for your child doesn't mean that you’re headed toward divorce.
Rating: 5