“His name is Jack’s son his child after me. I mean, God, Jack must be rolling in his grave around that. ”
It’s us it’s a program about the family, but it’s even more so about repression. It is the fatal flaw of the Pearson clan. And no character better reflects this repression than Uncle Nicky, the beloved little brother Jack cut out of his life once his interconnected war traumas became too much. While It’s us it is often a show of tears, the sadness of Uncle Nicky’s story exists on a different level, both because it has lasted 50 years and because there is no hope of reconciliation between the “famous Pittsburgh Pearson brothers”. At least not on a literal level. However, on a spiritual level, “One Small Step” is one of the most hopeful episodes in the Uncle Nicky saga. As Neil Armstrong’s famous quote about the lunar landing says, a small step can also be a giant leap.
“One small step” is It’s us in full character study mode, which is where the show often does its best job. While we saw Nicky dragged at Pearson events in the past, this is the first time she has taken the initiative to join the family. And most of this episode takes place in a flashback, from the moment Kevin says, “I can’t believe you flew across the country to meet our kids. It’s amazing, ”the moment Nicky replies,“ It was nothing. ”During that pause, Nicky recalls the amount of courage it took to get his first flight since 1971.“ A Small Step ”puts revealed not only the logistical and emotional details of this trip, but also two other cases in which Nicky repressed his hopes and dreams of connectivity and stayed with what he knew.
What makes Uncle Nicky such a compelling player in the It’s us The universe is the way Michael Angarano and Griffin Dunne work in tandem to shape a character who feels fully cohesive, even as he has gone through such a massive evolution throughout his life. And “One Small Step” puts that evolution at the forefront. There’s Nicky, 21, the soft-spoken, giant-hearted space nerd. There’s Nicky in the late 1920s, the psychologically tormented vet who begins to lock himself into his pattern of self-destructive isolation, but who has at least some hope that things can change. And there’s the current Nicky, a grumpy old man who takes the bold step of trying to find his way to the softer soul he used to be.
G / O Media may receive a commission
While the Vietnam War is obviously the massive turning point in Nicky’s life, “One Small Step” also highlights the continuities of her personality. The three versions of Nicky are afraid to expect anything better for them; they prefer to keep their dreams and plans a secret so as not to disappoint anyone if they catch a cold. Unlike Jack – who represses negative emotions to focus on positive ones – Nicky’s repression is manifested in the inclination to let life stand still. While Jack has a “proud, determined energy,” Nicky, 21, is cautious, thoughtful, and a little withdrawn. That’s why he’s so well related to spirit photographer Sally (Genevieve Angelson). Her confident but gentle hippie demeanor gives her room to step out of her comfort zone while feeling loved and supported. But when Sally asks Nicky to take the big step to move to California with her, her confidence doubles. It’s easier to convince yourself that your parents need you at home more than you need to start an independent life.
After the war, Nicky’s natural penchant for self-doubt becomes total self-hatred. He is confronted by further reducing his world: his trailer, his alcoholic drink, and the occasional phone call from an old war friend who offers him an invitation he refuses. “One Small Step” takes us a little more time between when Nicky returned from Vietnam and when Jack paid a tense visit to his brother’s trailer in 1992 (as seen in the third season episode) “Songbird Road: Part One”.) Sometime in the mid-1970s, however almost had another meeting. One of Nicky was too scared to follow him and Jack was nowhere to be accepted either.
“After all, don’t you think I’d be proud of you?” Cassidy (hello Jennifer Morrison!) Asks current Nicky when he calls her in a panic from Kevin’s house. Rebecca said something similar to the third season, when he told Nicky that he believed Jack’s sobriety journey would have led him to reunite with his little brother. But even if Cassidy and Rebecca are right, I think they also underestimate the scope of Jack’s deeply repressive streak. Jack’s chat with his former army commander, Lieutenant Sheehan (Scott Michael Campbell), reaffirms his decision to bury his experiences in the war. To keep the lie that he was just a mechanic and that Nicky died abroad, instead of charging Rebecca with the most complicated reality. Jack sets out to propose with more confidence than ever that repression is the right path: a coping mechanism that will shape his family for decades to come.
In many ways, Jack erasing Nicky is the original sin of the Pearson family, which affected Rebecca and the Big Three without them even realizing it. There is such a deep sadness that Jack and Nicky never reconciled while Jack was alive. But it’s also becoming increasingly clear that this season’s theme is healing, as is characterized by the slow thawing of Randall and Kevin’s fracture. Just as confronting Marc helped Kate heal her problems with her self-esteem and getting to know her birth mother helped Randall heal her identity problems, meeting her niece and his nephew helps Nicky cure his problems safely. Nicky finally makes the trip to California that he never did with Sally, in the same way he made the amendments with Kevin that he never did with Jack. And now Uncle Nicky becomes the figure of the grandson of the grandchildren that his brother does not live to meet.
In recent seasons, Uncle Nicky has left It’s us‘The least hopeful character to the most hopeful. Its story is a beautiful description of intergenerational healing and a well-earned celebration of the fact that it is never too late for someone to change their life. The last ten minutes of this episode, in particular, are some of the most moving It’s us has never delivered. Dunne knows how to modulate Nicky’s old, grumpy behavior so that the jokes about Zoom and John Grisham’s paperbacks combine perfectly with his new emotional vulnerability. The idea of abandoning the routine and reconnecting with his family was once as impossible as walking the moon. But, as Nicky explains to Franny and her nephew of the same name: “One day we had never been to the moon … and the next day, we walked there. The impossible became possible, like that.”
Lost observations
- Young Jack tells Nicky that if a girl he liked asked him to go to California, he would have left with a heartbeat. And we saw Jack do this in the third episode of the season, “Sometimes”.
- I’m a little confused about how the weather is going this season, but Uncle Nicky is officially our first It’s us character to get the vaccine! Two of them, as he continues to point out.
- Nicky first talked about Sally in the fourth season episode, “Throw a coin.” After the war, she bought her trailer in hopes of starting a new life with it. But since she wasn’t home when he happened to surprise her, he decided it shouldn’t be and left. Given that we know Nicky wears a wedding ring on the flash-forward timeline, can there still be hope for these two crazy kids to end up making it work?
- It’s great to have Cassidy back in this episode. She’s a great foil for Nicky, and Jennifer Morrison and Griffin Dunne have a lovely chemistry of friendship together. Also, when we last saw Cassidy, she was on her way to reconciling with her husband, but in that episode, she is shown in bed alone.
- Between Nick and Franny’s upcoming baptism and the shot of young Nicky (jokingly) making the sign of the cross, I’m now very curious about the Pearson family’s religious background.
- To put it bluntly, Jack is a Leo, who totally tracks. (UPDATE: Apparently, Jack is actually a Virgin, and I will leave it in the hands of someone who knows astrology better than I do, to say whether or not this follows up).