By Matt Mueller Culture Editor Published Nov 22, 2017 at 11:56 AM

For about 45 minutes of "Number Two" – the second of the "This Is Us" solo episodes focused on individual members of the Big Three, this time on Kate – my face was shockingly dry, my Kleenex still nicely fresh, folded and free of tears. It was undoubtedly tragic, but more quietly affecting than overtly, aggressively emotional – and I couldn't mean that in a more complimentary way.

I'll be honest: Going into this episode, I was more than a little concerned – and not just for Kate and Toby's relationship. The ads promoting Tuesday's story as A Very Special Episode brought back horrified memories of when A Very Special Episode meant "ER" or "Third Watch" was killing off a cast member or driving a tank down the middle of Downtown Chicago every week because they'd run out of actually good ideas and were instead relying on desperate emotional stunts. And "This Is Us" is rarely one to tap on the emotional gas when it can slam on the pedal instead. So the fact that "This Is Us" was handling a topic as sensitive as a miscarriage with tact, focusing on the smaller emotional tolls rather than the big dramatic moments was impressive and appreciated.

And it only made the final 15 minutes even more of a god damn tear-soaked monsoon. Safe to say that Kleenex at the ready did not survive the episode ... nor did the entire box. 

Still using the Big Three's first baby steps as the connective tissue, "Number Two" moves over to Kate, happily talking to her own baby as she pops prenatal vitamins – and devastating the audience since we know how this story ends. Toby, surprising no one, is in Toby Mode, joking about having to make gross Shamrock Shakes from hell for Kate and why her pee is green (see: the former). But even Toby can't joke through what happens next: Offscreen, we hear a clatter from the bathroom of a shower curtain giving out and Kate yell for help, before smash-cutting to the two at the hospital being coldly told they've lost the child and their current options.

It's a classic less is more situation; instead of relying on theatrical hysterics, the episode underplays the moment and makes it all the more impactful as a cruel sudden shock, leaving Kate in heartbroken resignation (her earlier speech about trying to reign in her sense of hope echoing as even more brutal) and Toby in stunned silence. 

Less than 12 hours later, Toby is still locked in stunned silence, while Kate is already trying to move forward, taking a singing gig in the middle of the day. Toby, never one to hold his emotions in, wants to talk about what's happened to them and process their feelings and thoughts, but Kate doesn't want to address it. In most recaps, this would be where I enter into one of my classic Toby Time screeds about how he falls back into controlling mode, insisting on how Kate should be feeling or reacting rather than merely asking how she feels. But considering what the character's going through, I'll give him a pass this week. There's a better way for Toby to ask Kate if she's truly OK after what they've gone through, one that sounds more empathetic (what the show wants Toby to be) than possessive (how Toby often comes off), but if there was ever a time to be messy and imprecise with one's words and emotions, this would be it. 

Instead of talking things out, Toby throws out the fateful shower curtain, but while one horrible reminder is gone, another is just en route: the baby bath they ordered – and that was the reason why Kate had gone to measure the bathtub in the first place. So Toby does the most logical thing ... which is obviously tracking the package to the call center, haranguing the poor worker there and finding the package before it can arrive on their doorstep. There's the Toby I remember dousing himself with coffee "Flashdance"-style in a Starbucks. It's not a particularly bad plot line, but it's one of the few things that doesn't quite land right this episode, too broad to be particularly sad but also too serious and sad to play as goofily exasperating. In an episode that went smaller than expected rather than big, Toby's exhausting quest seems a little out-of-scale. But at least that one delivery guy has a nice baby bath to give his sister now. 

Meanwhile, Kate's gig is going well until a young child dancing for her mom ruins her distraction and brings back all of the pain (the actual moment is fleetingly and silently shown in a quick and very effective flashback leaving the show in the middle of the set and heading to eat her feelings at a nearby Chinese buffet, unable to call Toby. She ends up losing her appetite, though, and returning home to yet another fight with Toby – complete with a very powerful speech from him about how he may not have had the physical experience of this tragedy, and will never be able to understand that pain, he was still invested and still feels the emotion wound of their loss.

Yes, Toby not only had a dramatic moment, but it landed and felt right – honest and concerned, rather than contrived and controlling. That's worth tears in its own right. 

But you'll want to save those tear ducts, because you'll need them for the following final 15 minutes. Kate wanders around her empty apartment (Toby left for some post-speech air) when there's a knock at the door. It's not Toby or Kevin or Randall or another baby bath landing at their door in a cruel twist of UPS-delivered fate. It's her mother. And after a lifetime (or at least a season and a half) of testy feelings, distrust, disappointment and hurt – chronicled through flashbacks to their teen years at the same time as Kevin's episode, applying for a music school behind Rebecca's back in the hopes of not letting down her mother if it fell through – Kate falls sobbing into her mother's arms. 

And dear read, the floodgates opened. Pro-tip: Don't watch this episode with your mom in the room unless you have a passionate desire to lose your entire body's water weight through through your tear ducts. 

The sprinklers didn't turn off for the entire final few scenes either – even the part where Mandy Moore cracking at an innocent grocery shopper for STEALING HER ONIONS! Not only did this moment feel incredibly earned over the course of not only this episode but this show, finally repairing some sense of their fractured relationship, but the resulting conversation was a powerful moment: two women talking honestly and openly about their emotions after losing a child, not in trite soundbites or inspirational fodder but truly about how they felt and how they coped. True mother-daughter relationships are rare enough to find in entertainment. A real conversation about a topic as difficult as miscarriage? Led by women at that? Even more scarce. It was truly a moment, the kind that "This Is Us" prides itself on – and earned the sobs it proudly sells. 

Even Toby's return couldn't harsh my tear-soaked buzz. In fact, the eye faucets just kept running as Rebecca left to give them space to talk and to open up, and the two very simply talked – and decided they wanted to try again for a child, just not now. And as a final beautiful metaphorical button for the episode, the two put the shower curtain and rod back up, repairing and moving forward together from their heartbreak with hope and DAMMIT HOW DID MY KEYBOARD GET SO WET WHY AM I CRYING AGAIN?! (but also ... they got a new curtain right? Because that thing was in the legit trash, and I just want to make sure we have catharsis but also stay cleanly). 

Thankfully, there wasn't some new devastating twist to cap this episode, but next week, we'll have Randall's solo episode, and judging by the preview, that's sure to be a heartbreaker too. But as far as Very Special Episodes go, Kate's truly earned that designation. 

This Is Sadness Rankings

I don't know, why don't you ask my computer keyboard, which no longer works because I poured an Atlantic Ocean of tears on it just thinking about last night's episode? I give it a Precious Sobbing Embodiment Of Sadness From "Inside Out":

So like a 9.5 out of 10. 

Matt Mueller Culture Editor

As much as it is a gigantic cliché to say that one has always had a passion for film, Matt Mueller has always had a passion for film. Whether it was bringing in the latest movie reviews for his first grade show-and-tell or writing film reviews for the St. Norbert College Times as a high school student, Matt is way too obsessed with movies for his own good.

When he's not writing about the latest blockbuster or talking much too glowingly about "Piranha 3D," Matt can probably be found watching literally any sport (minus cricket) or working at - get this - a local movie theater. Or watching a movie. Yeah, he's probably watching a movie.