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'This Is Us' Season 2 Episode 13 Recap: So We Finally Learned How That Fire Started


Tonight’s This Is Us revealed something major: the cause of that fire. I know you’re anxious to find out what it is, so let’s get right to the recap. Brace yourselves for this one.

We open with two random older people cleaning out their garage. They’re selling their house, and the wife wants the husband to get rid of his junk. How they are connected to the Pearsons is a mystery at this point, but let’s check in with our usual players…

’90s Pearson Family

It’s Super Bowl Sunday in the Pearson household, and it’s obvious shit’s about to hit the fan. Jack is on the fence about starting his own business and also feeling temptation to drink again, which is why he built a huge wooden entertainment system to watch the big game. Randall’s having a girl over, Alison, to watch the Super Bowl, but he ditches before kickoff to catch a movie with her. I’d be annoyed if Kevin did that, but Randall can do no wrong in my eyes.

Speaking of Teenage Kevin, he’s being his usual horrible self about Super Bowl Sunday and college, scowling and copping attitude and making side-part Rebecca frown. Teenage Kate is in the final rounds of admission for Berklee and has to record an audition tape. Jack wants to film it on camera, but Kate’s like, “I’d rather die.” Same, girl. Geez, the tension’s already building, and I’m shook. No good can happen on Super Bowl Sunday! Teenage Kate implores Jack to stop talking about how beautiful she is because she doesn’t see herself that way. Oof. The takeaway from these scenes thus far is that Jack’s really pissing off his kids.

Teenage Sophie gets into NYU, and Teen Kevin’s mad about it. It causes him and his parents to get into a huge fight about college, and he literally says, “I was supposed to end up in the Super Bowl, not watch it, like you guys.” What. A. Monster. He storms out and goes to Sophie’s. If you’re keeping tabs, that makes two Pearson kids who’ve ditched Super Bowl Sunday thus far.

Oh no: Now Kate‘s ditching the Super Bowl, too. It’s now just Rebecca and Jack in the house. Jack asks Rebecca to be his partner in the home-flipping business he wants to start. (This would be the precursor to him owning a construction company.) She agrees, and they have vivid fantasies about their post-kids life with this new business. Their first clients are an older man and woman who have a one-family household. (Are these the same older people from the top of the episode, perhaps?) Holy shit. I’m bawling, because I know Jack’s about to die…but Rebecca doesn’t! They have sex. I’m terrified. Oh my God. Oh my God. These are genuine emotions I’m feeling. For This Is Us!

Kevin calls and apologizes to Rebecca, but says he doesn’t want to talk to Jack and doesn’t want to come home. Instead, he suggests that he and Sophie go to a “party in the woods.” Oh no. This is why you never go outdoors!

Adult Kevin and Randall

Randall is in way over his head with renovating William’s old apartment building, and Beth tells him this when they go meet the tenants. He agrees to all of these minor repairs and ends up being there for hours. Kevin’s there, too; he calls Randall to make amends post the DUI-Tess debacle and winds up helping him with the repairs. A group of women gather and watch sweaty Kevin knock down a wall, and I relate to that on a spiritual level. Randall thinks he’s doing a good job, but then a bunch of roaches come out of one of the walls he fixed. Whatever, I’d still let him rewire my entire apartment.

Kevin’s all into these renovations because he wants to stay sober. He and Randall have an intense, emotional conversation about how Jack’s been gone longer than they had him. It’s touching. Kevin was also wearing a tank top during this scene, so I’m pleased. Kevin alludes there are some people he won’t be able to make amends with, but hopefully he and Randall can make up. I hate when they fight, TBH. Randall has to send all the tenants to temporary housing while they spray the building for roaches. Beth reads him for filth for screwing up their gig so quickly because of course she does. I love her so much.

Cut to Adult Kevin going to Adult Sophie’s and talking about his addiction. She says the amends he wants from him is to just let her remember the times their relationship was good. She forgives him, but it’s clear this is the end of their time together. Kevin goes back to Randall’s apartment and finds a package addressed to him. In it is his father’s necklace—the one he left at that woman Charlotte’s house when he was drunk. He now can cross Charlotte and Sophie’s name off the list of people he wants to make amends with. There’s only one person left: His father. Oh boy.

Adult Kate

Kate thinks Toby’s watching porn on his computer, but he’s actually flipping through pics of dogs. He wants a dog, but knows that dogs are a “sensitive issue” for Kate. (Remember, Kate’s teenage dog played some kind of hand in The Fire.) But Kate decides to go behind Toby’s back and look for a dog, anyway. And she finds one! She starts the process to adopt it but backs out at the last minute, breaking down in tears at the animal shelter and literally apologizing to the dog. She then storms out. Kate ends up changing her mind, though, and getting the dog—despite the fact it will constantly remind her of Jack. What. The. Hell. Is. About. To. Happen?

The Fire

Everything from this episode led up to the final 10 minutes. Here’s what happened:

Kate’s listening to her Berklee audio tape, loud with headphones on. Randall is back from his date with Alison, and he tells Jack that they kissed. Jack starts doing dishes and putting food away. He then leaves a note on Kevin’s door saying he loves him and that he owes him and Rebecca an apology. Keep in mind that Kevin is now the only kid who isn’t at home.

The older man and woman from the beginning were actually Rebecca and Jack’s old neighbors. When they moved, they gifted Rebecca and Jack with a faulty crockpot. Jack turns off the crockpot when he’s cooking after the Super Bowl, but it accidentally turns back on in the middle of the night and causes a terrible, all-encompassing fire. The fire slowly but steadily starts moving up the stairs.

And that’s where the episode leaves us. Literally that’s it. I need an ambulance.

Parting thoughts: The next episode airs after the Super Bowl, and the teaser says “all our questions will be answered.” ? ? ?

Related Stories:

A Devastating This Is Us Theory Explains Why Kevin Can’t Talk About Jack’s Death

A This Is Us Fan Theory Blames Jack’s Death on the Washing Machine, and It’s Actually Convincing



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Activist Tarana Burke Started the "Me Too" Movement 10 Years Ago


PHOTO: Courtesy of subject

Tarana Burke

While thousands of stories of sexual harassment and assault have flooded Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram in recent days, the #MeToo social movement did not, in fact, originate this past weekend. Instead, it goes back a decade—and was originated by activist Tarana Burke.

Burke, who also founded the youth organization Just Be Inc. and is now a program director at Girls for Gender Equity, started the “Me Too” campaign in 2007 to help sexual assault survivors in underprivileged communities. These were women who did not have access to rape crisis centers or counseling and as a survivor of sexual violence herself, Burke wanted to create opportunities for women to heal. As Burke told Democracy Now, the mission of the movement is “empowerment through empathy” and her goal was to bring “messages and words and encouragement to survivors of sexual violence where other people wouldn’t be talking about it.”

The phrase quickly became a trending topic after actress Alyssa Milano encouraged others to speak out and tag their posts with the #MeToo hashtag. While Burke told Ebony that it was “powerful” to see “Me Too” take off, she wants people to know that her movement goes beyond this viral moment.

“It wasn’t built to be a viral campaign or a hashtag that is here today and forgotten tomorrow,” Burke said. “It was a catchphrase to be used from survivor to survivor to let folks know that they were not alone and that a movement for radical healing was happening and possible.”

She added: “What’s happening now is powerful and I salute it and the women who have disclosed but the power of using ‘me too’ has always been in the fact that it can be a conversation starter or the whole conversation—but it was us talking to us.”

As the hashtag took off on Sunday night, Burke shared her thoughts on Twitter and reinforced that “Me Too” is more than a hashtag.

On Monday, Milano tweeted that she had been made aware of Burke’s creation of the “Me Too” movement and shared Burke’s story. However, the trending topic—and the initial credit to Milano as being its first champion—revealed yet another pervasive issue. As noted by the Huffington Post, “Feminist movements are often whitewashed when they’re brought into mainstream conversations.”

“In this instance, the celebrities who popularized the hashtag didn’t take a moment to see if there was work already being done, but they also were trying to make a larger point,” Burke told Ebony. “I don’t fault them for that part, I don’t think it was intentional but somehow sisters still managed to get diminished or erased in these situations. A slew of people raised their voices so that that didn’t happen.”

And just as Burke said, plenty of women took to Twitter to share their support for “Me Too” and thank her for starting such an important conversation.



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This 20-Year-Old Entrepreneur Started Aunt Flow to Help Women Get Period Products


It’s been less than a year since Claire Coder launched Aunt Flow in November 2016, and there’s been a lot going on since: the company, which sells and donates menstrual products in a buy-one-give-one fashion similar to TOMS, has grown from selling tampons and pads to consumers to getting connected with businesses. It’s part of Coder’s larger mission to make sure everyone who gets a period also has access to free products right in their office bathroom—and, in this case, 100-percent cotton, FDA-regulated, hypoallergenic, and biodegradable free products. (The tampons, it should be noted, are sans applicator—common enough in Europe, and they generate 58 percent less waste, Coder says.)

First things first, though: you better not call them “feminine products” or refer to the category as “feminine hygiene” around Coder. A huge part of her business concept is normalizing the conversation around periods and making it inclusive to a wide range of gender identities. Like the “#JustSayPeriod” campaign by cycle-tracking app Clue, Aunt Flow is all about getting rid of euphemisms. (“Tampons” and “pads” are the preferred terms.) There’s also the recognition that it’s not just cisgender women who get periods: transmen and people who don’t identify as one gender get them, too—so the company has eliminated the gendered pronouns of “her” and “she” from their materials.

As far as why periods, of all things, are her passion, she has a compelling narrative: “Growing up, my mom would talk to me about how many women she would serve—she’s a therapist—who would come to her groups wearing plastic bags or dirty socks when they were flowing,” she told me last December, soon after she started up. “I didn’t understand why. At my house, we always had a stock.” But for people receiving food stamps or WIC assistance, running to Walgreens isn’t financially an option with the cost of getting your period so high—and their assistance doesn’t cover menstrual products. Plus, she says, many organizations that provide tampons to those in need only have enough for two tampons per person per month.

“Craziness,” Coder told me. “I knew I wanted to create a sustainable solution to this problem.”

As of last week, Coder is bringing tampons to the “every-menstruator” (a term she coined to cover everyone who gets a period). The pivot to targeting businesses and organizations has seen her calling upon CEOs—men and women alike—to persuade them to make her tampons and pads available for free in company restrooms. After all, who among us hasn’t been caught out at work when our period strikes unexpectedly—whether it’s due to post-pregnancy spotting, adjusting to a new method birth control, or just switching purses from the night before and forgetting to throw a tampon in?

“I was inspired to start the business because I was at an event and I got my period,” she says. “There were no tampons. It was one of those events where there’s only men—a tech event—and you don’t feel comfortable asking for a tampon. So I had to leave the event early.”

When Coder approaches CEOs to praise the wonders of having free products available to their employees, she approaches it from a language they’ll understand: money—and in a way that totally gets rid of the “we don’t have budget for that” argument. According to research she commissioned with like-minded organization Free the Tampons, it costs more in time for a company to have an employee leave the office and go buy tampons if they’re out than it costs for the company to stock them for free.

But the CEOs that are the most receptive isn’t who you might think: instead of men being the ones to shy away from the idea, they’re the ones embracing it. “Our biggest supporters are typically male high executives,” Coder says. “We call them our flow bros.”

“Whenever we’re talking to men, what we’ve noticed is that these men have never had the opportunity to ask questions, to talk about menstruation in a comfortable environment,” she adds. “Ever since middle school they were separated from the conversation and put in separate heath courses.”

Instead—and surprisingly—it’s women who aren’t up for free tampons for all.

Why? Coder’s theory is this: “Women have been told their whole lives: don’t talk about menstruation. Carry your own supplies—it’s up to you. So female executives have said to me, ‘I have personally have had an experience that was personally embarrassing, but I learned from it: now I carry things with me all the time.’ It’s a really sad system where women have been told over and over again: don’t talk about it; be prepared; it’s your responsibility.”

According to data from Free the Tampons, almost two-thirds of younger women somewhat or strongly agree with the idea of free menstrual products. Conversely, only 33 percent of women 55-plus do. Fifty-five percent of women in that older age group strongly believe that it’s a women’s personal responsibility to be prepared. And yet, according to more data from the organization, a whopping 86 percent of women have had their period strike when they weren’t prepared for it.

She acknowledges that of course it’s someone’s responsibility to have the supplies they might need. “But at the same time bathrooms are not created equal: you don’t carry around toilet paper all the time.” And for people on their periods, menstrual supplies are, in fact, as basic as toilet paper.

“That doesn’t mean there haven’t been great female advocates for the company, but when we look at ratio of our supporters, it’s really been men who have backed us and supported us,” she says. “We haven’t done enough research on understanding why this is, but we always joke if a man turned us down he’d look like a douchebag. Or continuing the patriarchy, right?”

There’s more to come as Coder continues trying to sell companies on the idea that every menstruator should have access to free tampons and pads: to date, they’ve sold enough product that they’ll be donating, in TOMS fashion, 60,000 menstrual products to organizations around the U.S., she says. And, after all, she’s not even 21. But when she finally hits the age when she can “talk about it over drinks” with potential clients (that’s February 27, by the way), you better believe she’ll be ready.



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It's About Time You Started Acting Like a Lady


As women smash glass ceilings and elbow their way into the boys clubs, the perception of what it means to be a lady has shifted. Where the parameters of what’s ladylike used to be stifling (“A lady wears pearls and pours her husband’s coffee.”), modern women have taken back the word lady, redefining it to encompass everything that comes with the territory of being smart or savvy or stylish. Or all of the above. A lady can still wear pearls or serve up a mean cold brew—do what makes you happy—but she’s just as likely to box as she is to bake. She can be fierce on a stage or in the boardroom or on the dance floor. Or when she’s walking down the street. Whatever “being a lady” means to you, Glamour and H&M embrace it and we celebrate it. By all means, be a lady on your terms, like the five modern ladies that follow. The new rule is: There are no rules.



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