Nicky’s heart-wrenching trip of a lifetime is peak ‘This Is Us’

When Uncle Nicky (Griffin Dunne) showed up on Kevin’s doorstep on last week’s episode of This Is Us (Tuesdays, 9 pET on CTV), you knew things were going to take a twist. 

What you probably didn’t know was that the writers were planning an epic flashback episode revolving around the character during his time after the war. And you definitely didn’t know that it would be the most emotional episode of the season. 

It all started with a Zoom

When Kevin (Justin Hartley) told Nicky that he and Madison (Caitlin Thompson) had named the boy twin after him, it was a sweet but throwaway moment since there was so much else going on in the episode.

But in Nicky’s corner of the world, that moment meant everything to him. In fact, it basically changed his life.

This week’s episode opened with Nicky apologizing for just showing up the way he did, but he’d been vaccinated against coronavirus and figured since he’d been invited to the baptism (via a zoom link, but whatever) that it would be okay. 

Naturally Kevin was in shock, but ecstatic that he had family there to see his new babes, and it was only mildly awkward when Nicky’s way of introducing himself to Madison was by pointing out how tiny she is and saying that twins must have done a number on her. 

Don’t get the guy wrong, he had every good intention. And it was a big deal that he flew across the country to meet the babies, even if he insisted that “it was nothing.” In the subsequent flashbacks, everyone saw just how not “nothing” it actually was. 

Over the months, Nicky had leaned on Cassidy (Jennifer Morrison) for help, figured out how to use Amazon, crafted gorgeous hand-made snow globes for the babies, and got his vaccinations among other things. And then there was actually boarding the plane (after his beautiful globes were confiscated and he accidentally smashed them), not to mention the flight itself—his first since 1971. It was actually a huge, giant deal for a guy who wouldn’t even really leave his trailer until he met Kevin. 

Digging into the past

“One Small Step” went all-out with the moon theme, both literally and figuratively. Baby Nicky had moon sheets, and both twins starred up at a space-inspired mobile, for example. But in the past storylines viewers also saw Nicky (played by Michael Angarano) have plenty of interactions with the moon. 

He grappled with leaving his family after watching the moon landing, and he fell in love with a fellow moon-loving hippie who worked with him at the vet’s. Reaching the moon has always been something Nicky wanted, in a figurative sense, and that was played out in the heartbreaking flashbacks. 

Before Vietnam, the guy was worried about what would happen to his mom if he left her alone with his alcoholic, abusive father. And even though Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) was making a hard case for his brother to leave home, it wasn’t until Nicky met Sally (Genevieve Angelson) that he seriously considered doing it. 

But Nicky has always been scared to take risks, and leaving home (even with a sweet new suitcase from Jack) just wasn’t a thing he could bring himself to do in the end. So he broke Sally’s heart, and suddenly all of the amazing adventures at Woodstock and beyond were no longer accessible to Nicky.

Later, in the storyline that took place post-Vietnam, viewers saw once again how hard it was for Nicky to reach out to his big brother and explain what actually happened that fateful day on the water, when that young boy was accidentally killed. 

That moment broke Nicky, and that has never been more clear than when Jack was asking his former boss for advice on marrying Rebecca (Mandy Moore). The guy explained how anyone who survived that war needed to focus on the good and leave the bad behind.

“Their bodies are here but their minds are over there,” he said, nodding at some of the other men at the get-together. “The trick is to not let yourself get lost in it, relive the same horror show over and over.”

Finding his way to the moon

Flash to Nicky, out in his car in the parking lot, trying to work up enough courage to speak to his brother. Viewers knew the pair never reconnected after the war incident, but no one knew just how close they had come to a potential reunion that night in the parking lot. 

What would have happened if Nicky had just spoken one word or, better yet, said what he came there to say? It was so sad to know that because Nicky couldn’t bring himself to talk to Jack, he wound up spending the next 50 years alone, hating himself. That’s why, when he went through all of those steps to get on a plane and get to his grandnephew and grandniece, it was such a huge, huge deal. 

That’s also why he was so quick to want to flee after arriving, and Kevin started talking about going to the dog park and spending time together. As Cassidy pointed out, Nicky had been so long without love, he didn’t know how to handle it coming in at him hot.

But one thing he and Kevin do have in common is that they’d spent most of their lives wondering if they’d ever be able to earn a dead man’s approval. Now maybe that they have each other though, everything can be okay.

So Nicky stayed, and gave the awkward gift of John Grisham to two newborns (at least there was a Salisbury steak photo of Jack and Nicky to go with it?). More importantly, he finally did the impossible after only dreaming about it for so long—he found his family and accepted love.

As he said at the end of the episode in that award-worthy monologue, those babies are his moon. One day, people had never been on the moon and the next day, they were walking on it. Just like Nicky had never gotten over his baggage until one day he took that one small step. The impossible became possible, and suddenly there was hope.

There’s still a lot of stuff to unpack, but here’s hoping Nicky and his relic of a suitcase are able to work through it all with family by his side.

Watch This Is Us Tuesdays at 9 pET on CTV and catch up here.

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