For weeks, the cast and producers of This Is Us have been teasing tonight’s episode as a game-changer, and now we know why. After a season of anticipation, Kate finally gave birth to her son, who she (unsurprisingly) named Jack. The wait is over!
Actually, waiting was pretty much the theme of this entire episode. Appropriately titled “The Waiting Room,” most of the 41 minutes was spent watching Rebecca, Miguel, Beth, Randall, Kevin, Zoe, and even Madison waiting in the hospital as Kate goes into premature labor. The waiting room was basically a character in itself—which makes sense, given the episode was written in an actual hospital waiting room. “Bekah Brunstetter [the writer] wanted to get all those weird little details that came across in the script by actually putting herself in the real situation,” This Is Us executive producer and co-showrunner Isaac Aptaker says.
But much of the episode doesn’t involve Kate as much as it centers on each character’s own crossroads in life. Rebecca and Miguel contemplate moving cross-country to be closer to Kate and the baby. Beth fears giving up her new teaching job to suit her family’s needs. Kevin continues drinking…and lying to Zoe about it.
Ultimately, Kate and Toby’s son is born 10-12 weeks premature. While he—and the rest of the family—prepare for a tough fight ahead, executive producers/co-showrunners Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger fill us in on what’s to come, and how tonight’s episode came to be.
Glamour: Kate and Toby’s baby looks extremely lifelike, but it’s very difficult to film with a baby so tiny. How did you manage those scenes?
Isaac Aptaker: We brought in a very talented team of artists that create incredibly lifelike, accurate-to-size premature babies that are operated by a variety of animatronic and puppeteering devices. It’s great for our actors, because it’s not done afterward on computers. They’re able to look at this baby, which really looks like a baby, and emote off it.
The baby was born at 28 weeks. What can you say about any physical or developmental delays?
IA: We don’t want to give anything away, but when we’re telling a story like this we are aware of how sensitive it is and how triggering it can be. We know many people have dealt with experiences like this, so we’re trying to be realistic and sensitive to that. Nothing is going to be drawn out just for TV’s sake. There’s going to be lots of answers coming very, very quickly, and we’re just trying to respectfully and accurately tell something that isn’t seen enough on TV, in our opinion, because of how many people it affects.
What kind of team did you bring in to make sure you were accurately telling this story?
IA: My girlfriend’s aunt runs a NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) in Pennsylvania and has a ton of information to offer on this. She got on the phone with us for hours and answered all of our questions. Then, on the day we filmed those scenes, we had medical technicians and consultants. We also wanted to hear the personal stories, so we brought in a couple of moms we knew personally who gave birth prematurely to hear what it was like, emotionally and anecdotally for them.
NBC
Kate and Toby name the baby Jack. Will we see Rebecca’s reaction?
IA: We actually don’t see the immediate reaction because of how the timing works in next week’s episode, but I think we can assume that Kate checked in with Rebecca before she made it official, and Rebecca feels really good about it.
“Instead of going down this maddening distraction spiral, the best thing to do is simply acknowledge that mental distraction is the price we pay for having brains,” Marin says. “If you notice your brain starting to wander, acknowledge that you’re thinking about something different, then gently bring your attention back to the present moment.” Just call it mindfulness for sex.
A lot of women struggle with feeling unworthy of time or attention when it comes to their sexual pleasure, says Marin. But sometimes, orgasms take work, especially when you’re first learning to orgasm or having your first orgasms with a partner. That is more than okay—there’s no time limit for your orgasm.
The more practice you have (with a partner or solo), the easier orgasms will come, says Marin. But in the meantime, focus more on reminding yourself that “you deserve that time and effort,” she says.
If you don’t orgasm during intercourse, don’t sweat it—that’s totally normal. Only about a quarter of women regularly orgasm during intercourse, according to Lloyd’s analysis, and when they do, it’s probably because their clitoris is being stimulated simultaneously.
But can you learn to orgasm from penetration? “The reality is that penetration itself doesn’t create enough stimulation for the vast majority of women to reach orgasm.” Marin says. “Female orgasm is all about the clitoris, but the clitoris doesn’t get a ton of stimulation during intercourse.”
That doesn’t mean it’s not possible. “I like to make the distinction between orgasming from intercourse and orgasming during intercourse,” Marin says. “To increase your chances of orgasming during intercourse, Marin recommends touching your clitoris, having your partner touch it, using toys, or trying a position like the Coital Alignment Technique that allows for clitoral stimulation.
Many women feel vaginal orgasms are somehow “better” than clitoral orgasms, or even as if a clitoral orgasm doesn’t really “count” as much. This isn’t a real distinction, says O’Reilly; whichever feels more natural and pleasurable for you is all that matters.
In fact, it’s hard to tell if there’s really a difference between the two types of orgasms. “Orgasms do not fit neatly into categories based on a particular technique or body part,” O’Reilly explains. “The clitoral complex is not only located in close proximity to the vaginal canal, but parts of it actually surround the vagina, making it difficult to isolate the exact source of pleasure and orgasm.”
If you do orgasm through penetration, those orgasms may or may not feel different from clitoral ones. It’s possible that they will because different nerves are being stimulated, says O’Reilly. But if you only orgasm clitorally, that doesn’t mean you’re experiencing less pleasure than someone who orgasms through penetration.
Nope, but a lot of women don’t discuss it. “We teach women to be ashamed and embarrassed of female orgasm, so a lot of women don’t feel comfortable being honest about their orgasmic struggles,” Marin says. “There are so many women out there who haven’t yet orgasmed.”
First, remember that you’re in good company. And second, remember that an orgasm drought likely won’t last forever.
Suzannah Weiss is a writer and editor covering sex and wellness. Follow her @suzannahweiss.
Isaac Aptaker: Tim brought us the idea of grenade fishing, which was something he saw a lot of the guys do in his experience. So it didn’t feel like too big of a leap of the imagination to see how it could go terribly wrong.
Before we get to what happened in Vietnam, the episode starts with Kevin and Randall already having told Rebecca and Kate about Nicky. Talk about the decision not to show their immediate reaction to Nicky being alive.
IA: Oh, interesting. This has been so much Kevin’s story for the season; he’s been the one on this quest to reconnect with his father by learning about this part of his life, so it felt like he was front and center here and we could have him filling in the family as a catch up.
EB: But we’re definitely going to be delving into the reactions more, especially Rebecca’s as the season continues to play out.
Nicky had no idea that Jack died. For someone who wanted so badly to talk to his brother, why didn’t Nicky try to track him down again in the remaining six or seven years of Jack’s life?
EB: I think that interaction we see between the two of them was sort of the end of Nicky following Jack and sort of the progress of Jack’s life. I think it was obviously an extremely loaded and extremely painful interaction for the both of them, and I think there was something about learning about Jack’s life and the future that he went on to have that hurt so much that Nicky sort of let it go at that point.
IA: I don’t think Nicky was big on Facebook or anything. [Laughs] He’s not the kind of guy that is going to get that kind of news all that readily. He’d have to really seek it out, and like Elizabeth said, that was sort of the end point there of him wanting any answers.
You mean he’s not like Miguel where he’s finding people on social media?
IA: Yeah, I don’t think he has like 1,000 friends or anything. Maybe Nicky loves Instagram. [Laughs]
It makes sense that Jack didn’t want Nicky around his kids, but it’s still infuriating that he wouldn’t allow him to explain. Do you want viewers to be upset with Jack right now?
EB: I definitely think it’s OK to feel like it was a very complicated decision and to feel frustrated by him. He has a lot of really upstanding qualities, but he’s also human. He’s limited in some ways. I think we’ve seen there is a part of Jack that sees everything in black and white, and this part of his life exists in such a terrible gray area that for whatever reason it was just too painful for him to figure out how to make it work with his present day life. We tried to show that’s what’s interesting about Kevin making a different decision than his father and trying to do better as the next generation carrying on a piece of this story.
NBC/Ron Batzdorff
IA: I think that Kevin moment [at the end] shows that even though Jack may not have made the right decision in the moment, he was able to raise kids who do one better than him, which I think is the ultimate goal.
Right. Because it’s like, why drive all the way out there if you’re not going to hear what your brother has to say?
IA: Right, I think that’s fair. I think it also speaks to how Jack compartmentalizes his life. He’s not able as a person to reopen that chapter, and he doesn’t want to take in any new information because it was so painful; the only way he could function in the world was to bottle up and plow ahead.
Welcome back, This Is Us! Season three kicked off last night with a ton of new storylines. Kate and Toby want a baby, but have fertility issues; Beth and Randall discover Zoey and Kevin are an item; Jack and Rebecca have an awkward first date at a carnival; Deja decides she’s ready to be adopted by the Pearsons. But in true This Is Us fashion it’s what happened in the last few minutes that has everyone talking. (Spoilers ahead.)
In a flash-forward scene, we saw future Randall and Tess hesitant to see the unnamed woman from the season two finale. While there’s still no word on who that is, future Toby made his first appearance—without future Kate. (Uh, can someone find future Kate ASAP?) And just when it looked like Jack and Rebecca’s love story was about to begin, things were complicated by the surprise arrival of a blonde-haired mystery man.
Naturally, all of this put the fan theories in overdrive. So at the show’s premiere event in Hollywood, we asked creator Dan Fogelman and executive producers and co-showrunners Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger our most burning questions. Turns out, you’ll get answers sooner than you think.
What is going on with future Kate?
At the end of last night’s episode, viewers saw an older, more distinguished-looking Toby (Chris Sullivan) lying in bed without Kate at his side. Then older Randall calls Toby from Tess’s social work facility and asks if he’s “coming down.” He says, “She wants you there, Toby.” So it’s gotta be Kate, right?
“I think it’s totally open to interpretation,” Berger says. “Kate could be in the next room [with Toby], or they could not be together, or something could have happened to her. It’s left mysterious on purpose.” OK, but that perfectly-made opposite side of the bed sure did not look like someone was living there with Toby. “He’s very neat in the future,” Aptaker jokes. “But that does not feel like a bedroom where someone, a partner, is sharing it with Toby.”
Whoever the mystery woman is, when will we get an answer?
While Aptaker tells Glamour that “it’s anyone’s guess who ‘her’ is,” he, Fogelman, and the rest of the writers are conscious not to drag it on for too long. That said, you shouldn’t rule “anyone off the list” of who “her” could be. “Throughout this year, we’re going to be giving more and more answers and ruling people out,” Aptaker promises.
How did Kate’s PCOS (Polycistic Ovarian Syndrome) diagnosis come about?
The syndrome, which is a hormonal disorder common among women of reproductive age, was talked about in the writers’ room for quite some time before the start of the season. “We choose to tackle issues that are going on in our lives, of people we know, and what’s something that people are going through that nobody’s talking about,” Berger says. “[PCOS] felt like it organically felt with Kate’s storyline.”
“We have a mostly female staff, and a lot of people in that age are having kids, so when we started talking about what it could be [that Kate would have PCOS] came up a lot,” Aptaker adds. “Once we started to hear that it’s common, then we brought in doctors and said, ‘What does the reality of this look like? And how do we get it right?’ We showed this episode to a fertility doctor, and he was like, ‘Thank you. Nobody is doing this, and it’s so common. I see it everyday.”
PHOTO: Ron Batzdorff/NBC
Will Deja’s biological father return for future episodes?
At the moment, no. “In this particular episode, her interactions with him were really about closure,” Berger says. “I don’t think she went there with the intention of striking up a relationship, but she’s young and life is long.” So, don’t rule anything out.
Is Zoey really that bad for Kevin?
According to Beth she is, but Aptaker says it’s more complicated than that: “There’s darkness and drama to her story, and she’s a very complicated woman.” Berger adds, “For Beth to warn Kevin like that, she must know something really complex has taken place [in Zoey’s past].” In the meantime, though, their relationship will grow, as Zoey and Kevin have their upcoming trip to Vietnam. “Kevin is doing really well for the first time in his life and should probably [be focused on other things than love],” Justin Hartley (Kevin) says, “but when it comes to matters of the heart, what are you going to do?”
Beth and Randall aren’t really going to split up, are they?
During the panel, Fogelman said that Randall’s story this season “will go in a surprising direction,” and he’s going to put Beth and Randall “through some stuff.” Um, what kind of stuff? Berger wouldn’t elaborate except to say that “even the strongest of couples go through difficult chapters. We are going to find them in one of those moments where they truly are tested.”
Who’s this new guy that Rebecca is kissing?
It’s Weeds star Hunter Parrish! As for his character, all we know is that he’s a blonde-haired, mustached dude who isn’t Jack. “I don’t want to say how much we’re going to see him,” Aptaker says, “but we’re going to pick right back up where we left off in episode three.”
While Parrish’s character will obviously factor into Jack and Rebecca’s early timeline, Berger says you’ll still see plenty of romance between the future Mr. and Mrs. Pearson. “Their chemistry is so palpable, and you’ll see more of that electricity this season.” In fact, Fogelman teased an upcoming scene that is so “wildly romantic,” it gives off Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore vibes a la Ghost.
What’s going to happen next week?
Get ready for the return of William. “Ron [Cephas Jones] is back, and we see him in a new period of his life that we haven’t spent that much time in,” Aptaker says. He also confirmed that it has something to do with this picture Fogelman tweeted in August:
You like drama? Stories with strong female voices? Shade in spades? Then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings are the show for you—oh, also because they’ll directly, and significantly, affect your life. Unfortunately, this bit of must-see TV airs when most everyone’s working or watching their kids, so we’ll be here to recap each day of these monumentally important proceedings.
Here’s the good news about Brett Kavanaugh, who looks likely to be the country’s next Supreme Court justice: He is great on carpool duty! Also, probably an attentive listener at parent-teacher conferences! This much, we have been told.
All week, during his confirmation hearings, Kavanaugh was painted as the nice guy. We heard about his commitment to hiring and mentoring women, his standing volunteer date at a local soup kitchen, and his passion for coaching girls’ basketball. All week, Republican senators, Kavanaugh’s colleagues, and the judge’s own unfailingly polite demeanor reminded us: This is a normal man. This is the dad next door.
The theme reached its saturation point today, when Rebecca Taibleson, a former clerk of Kavanaugh’s, pointed out that he’s a “regular at his local bar, where he’s partial to a Budweiser and a hamburger.”
I like beer and hamburgers and nice people. After watching over 30 hours of Kavanaugh-TV, I am thoroughly sold on the fact that he is a hoot at a neighborhood BBQ.
PHOTO: Drew Angerer
But here’s the bad news for anyone concerned about reproductive freedom, unchecked presidential power, or common sense gun reform: He refused to address his views on any of them. I heard his jump shot extolled this week, but based on what I’ve seen, it’s nothing compared to his duck. He dodged just about every opportunity to say something of substance.
Perhaps the most bizarre example of this: Kavanaugh repeatedly name-checked four landmark Supreme Court decisions, calling them “the four greatest moments in Supreme Court history.” But whenever someone asked him if these personal faves of his were “correctly decided,” he refused to say. Great, but not correct? Sounds like a MAGA hat went to law school.
Is there a protocol-related reason that might make Kavanaugh feel unable to confirm that something he just said is great is great? Maybe. But is it possible that this is all comical, tragic shadiness? I’m just a regular gal who likes Budweiser and beer, so what do I know?
And that’s not the only question I have. As a result of this weeklong shade brigade—brought to you by your own taxes, by the way—I still have several questions about Brett Kavanaugh, and you should too.
What was the point of all that relentless branding of Kavanaugh this week? Being nice to women and following precedent is to Kavanaugh as Calabasas is to Kim Kardashian—in other words, essential to his new brand. This was driven home hard all week. In the short term, this was likely meant to pacify whichever American women aren’t protesting his nomination yet. But it has a second, long-term purpose. If Kavanaugh gets on the Court, and casts ice-cold votes against women’s health interests, he’ll want us to remember that as a dude, he actually loves women. Awesome, cool. I’ll think of him fondly when I have to smuggle my birth control in from Toronto.
But wait—does he always follow precedent? If you ask him, abso-frickin’-lutely! (Frickin’ is for sure as crass as this guy gets.) But if you ask other knowledgeable parties: Not so much, especially when it comes to matters of same-sex marriage and abortion. When questioned on both topics, Kavanaugh repeatedly referenced specific decisions as the legal last word on the subjects—even though there were more recent cases expanding or clarifying the Court’s opinion on them. If that sounds complicated, you can read more about it here—but suffice to say that Kavanaugh has a curious habit of deferring to cases that happen to match his conservative beliefs, rather than the most current rulings. Convenient.
So, with that in mind—would he vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, or not? Judiciary Committee members tried, to no avail, to get a straight answer from him all week. Ten million times, Kavanaugh referred to Roe as “settled law”—though, characteristically, he would not say whether he believed it was correctly decided—and for some time, that chorus of “precedent on precedent” seemed, on its face, reassuring. But while Kavanaugh’s poker face never broke down, his show of sureness on the matter did. First, a leaked email from his time working in the White House seemed to indicate that Kavanaugh doesn’t really think Roe is all that airtight. Then, in what felt like perhaps the loudest indication of his own personal views from the entire proceedings, Kavanaugh referred to various kinds of contraception as “abortion-inducing drugs.” And perhaps that’s no big deal! Happens to all of us, right? We wake up, panicked, and we text our best friends, “Oh shit! Forgot to take my abortion last night!” Could be an honest mistake. Who knows.
Okay, so—what could this guy have possibly told Senator Susan Collins (R—Maine), a key vote in his confirmation and a firm advocate of choice, to reassure her that he won’t gut abortion rights? Hard to say. If you’re a Maine resident and want to talk it over with someone from her staff, call (202) 224-2523 and press 0 to be connected.
Does Kavanaugh really believe that a sitting president can’t be investigated or indicted? Kavanaugh went out of his way to say that “no one is above the law,” and reiterated over and over the importance of an “independent judiciary,” but he evaded all Trump-related questions under the guise of wanting to “stay three zip codes away” from political matters. Fine.
What should concern us here is the same thing that’s concerned us since it was announced that Kavanaugh would be the Supreme Court nominee: Despite what his pals and coworkers would have us believe, he’s not coming into this nomination with a reputation for measuredness. On this issue, he’s coming in as a potential presidential appointee, culled from a short list of options, and what seemed to set him apart from everyone else was his stated belief that presidents shouldn’t have their days interrupted by investigations. Kavanaugh had the opportunity this week to assuage the country’s collective raised eyebrow on that one by firmly asserting that he wouldn’t let presidential power go unchecked. He simply didn’t do it. He wouldn’t tell the committee whether he’d recuse himself in Trump-related matters.
Furthermore, as Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D—Rhode Island) pointed out, he may have chosen his words carefully to create an “escape hatch” that would allow him to spare President Trump from having to appear before a grand jury by differentiating those circumstances from ones that eventually led to President Richard Nixon handing over the infamous Watergate tapes. Clever.
How good of a friend would Kavanaugh be to the NRA? Uh, BFF-level, it seems. Claiming a blind loyalty to precedent once again, Kavanaugh more or less confirmed that he would be unlikely to vote for the regulation of semiautomatic weapons or the future regulation of 3-D printed weapons. He hinted at his personal ideas about how to deal with America’s mass-shooting crisis when he talked about his daughters’ (private) school: “They do a lot of things now that are different than they did just a few years ago in terms of trying to harden the school and make it safer for everyone.”
Wasn’t there something in the mix about him doing something sketchy with emails?Yes, though the implications are unclear. In the early 2000s, while he was working in the Bush administration, Kavanaugh was the recipient of some strategy intel on several Democratic congresspersons. As he testified this week, he didn’t know that the information had been stolen in a hack of the congresspersons’ emails. But Kavanaugh’s emails from back then—which leaked this week—make that theory seem kinda hard to believe. Much of the information that was passed on to Kavanaugh was still labeled “not for disclosure”—meaning that he wants us to believe he saw that and thought, “Well, shucks, I guess the Dems didn’t want anyone outside their office to see this except for me, a guy working in a Republican White House. Two points!” And, um, the subject heading of this one is literally “spying.” Anyway, seeing as double standards don’t exist, I’m sure we’ll be hearing cries of “But his emails!” any second now.
Lastly: Why was Kavanaugh taking notes with a Sharpie all week? Sir! What do you have against the other side of the paper?
Megan Angelo writes about TV and is the author of the novel Followers, which will be published in 2019.
Brace yourselves, Television Academy: Lindsay Lohan is coming. The Lawyer.com legend is expanding her empire with a new MTV reality show, Lohan Beach Club (working title), that’s set to air in 2019, according to Deadline.
The Vanderpump Rules–esque docuseries will take viewers behind the scenes of Lohan’s burgeoning business empire, which includes the launch of her very own hot spot in Mykonos, Greece, called Lohan Beach House. It will be the actress’s third property in Greece, following the Lohan Nightclub in Athens and the Lohan Beach House Rhodes in the city of Rhodes.
MTV dropped the first teaser of Lohan Beach Club on Monday (July 30); it’s only 17 seconds, but the Emmys, Golden Globes, and Pulitzer Prize committees are already shaking in their boots. “Pack your bags, MTV, we’re going to Mykonos,” Lohan says in a deadpan voice. She then rips off her sunglasses and looks to the right as if to say, “Life-Size 2 is jumping out, and so am I!”
PHOTO: MTV
“I’ve joined the MTV family, and I’m Lindsay Lohan,” she says, humbly, as if we somehow forgot about the time she canceled the entertainment industry with her breathtaking performance in Herbie: Fully Loaded.
Transformed? So am I. I also have roughly 2,000 questions, including but not limited to:
Will Dina Lohan make a cameo and explain, in detail, why we need a Mean Girls 3?
Is Ali Lohan going to show up at the club launch and do a surprise performance of “All the Way Around”?
Which celebrities from Lohan’s past will make an appearance? Aaron Carter? Hilary Duff? Her Just My Luck costar Chris Pine? Paris Hilton? (OK, probably not Paris Hilton.)
Are we going to see the “Wear the same shoes” Instagram drama play out? (See below for details. Basically, two of Lohan’s employees at the Lohan Beach House Rhodes weren’t wearing the same shoes one day, and she…wasn’t happy.)
