Let’s Discuss ‘This Is Us’: The Special Friend
His life and ... well, I won't spoil it
What did our This Is Us family know, and when did they know it? That is the question everyone is wondering re: the Supreme Court likely overturning Roe v. Wade. The family has not mentioned it, even though they live in the future, and even though one of them is a senator who intends to be president. So we are left only to wonder.
Also, I’m not sure how to say this, but, ah … Mother’s special friend died. It happened in the future, though, so it’s possible we’re all dead by that point as well. Let’s see.
HAS MOTHER DIED?
She hasn’t. But she has a full-time nurse now, after her Special Friend caught her dancing in the snow and, in an attempt to get her inside, fell and severely bruised his back. I should be honest with you — neither of them are doing particularly well, in the post-present. (And remember the present is actually a few years from today; this is some amount of time beyond that.) If you’d like to say goodbye, now (or later) would be the time.
Unless you’re too late? Or unless you actually never have to say goodbye. All time exists simultaneously, here — now more than ever — and I’m not sure how block universe theory works, but I do know that when you Google it the computer says “our universe might be a giant four-dimensional block of spacetime, containing all the things that ever happened and will happen in our traditional perception of time.” And I know that Mother’s Special Friend is dead. But I also know that he is alive.
TELL ME … WHAT DOES THIS SAY OF OUR MORTALITY?
I don’t know. Are we in general alive, or are we in general dead, in terms of time? We spend more “time” dead than alive, so that’s a point for dead, but maybe it’s more true that the fact we have existed at all means we have existed and will exist forever.
DOES THAT MEAN MOTHER IS CHEATING ON DEAD FATHER WITH SPECIAL FRIEND?
Technically yes.
HORRIBLE WOMAN!
Okay, cool it, Jesus. Let Mother have her friend.
IF I MUST. … TELL ME, HOW DOES HE DIE?
I think something with his heart. But in this episode we learned all about his life, from moving to Pittsburgh from Puerto Rico as a boy, to getting a job and a fancy car that his dad resented, to reconnecting with Mother via Facebook and starting their illicit elderly romance. Ahhh, we certainly know Special Friend a bit better now, don’t we? Just in time to scatter his ashes in front of the apple tree we’re supposed to find meaningful even though this is the first time we’ve ever heard of it.
UNLESS WE THINK TIME IS A BLOCK.
Right, unless we think time is a block.
IN WHICH CASE MOTHER’S SPECIAL FRIEND IS STILL ALIVE.
I guess.
AND CHEATING WITH HIS BEST FRIEND’S WIFE. MOTHER!
Okay relax.
Next week: God, who knows.
