Titled “The Hill,” this episode marks the second in a trilogy each focused on a member of the Big Three. Last week’s episode, “The Guitar Man,” saw Kevin (JustinHartley) heading to Pennsylvania to oversee the early work on the dream cabin he’s building for his mom—and gaining new clarity on friendship and fatherhood through two flashbacks to the local pool. “The Hill” returns to those same two flashbacks, fleshing them out from Kate’s point of view, while in the present day, she and husband Toby (Chris Sullivan) head to San Francisco for the weekend in an effort to reconnect as a couple. Directed by Mandy Moore, “The Hill” is the ninth episode of the final season of This Is Us, and takes a big step toward revealing the issues that will likely lead to Kate and Toby’s eventual split. Here’s everything we learned in This Is Us Season 6 episode 9, “The Hill.”
Do Kate and Toby get a divorce on This Is Us?
Rebecca’s recent directive to her kids to “be fearless” seems to hit Kate especially hard. As she and Toby pack the car to leave the Pennsylvania cabin, she suggests coming with him to San Francisco for the weekend because “we can’t sustain this.” And by “this,” we know she means the long-distance marriage where Toby works in San Francisco four days a week while his family lives in L.A. Eagerly anticipating the weekend, Kate goes about her week in a good mood, taking her kids to the park, teaching her students at the music school, throwing her colleague a retirement party. At home, she packs her suitcases and has a movie night with Madison (Caitlin Thompson), and confides to her best friend that sometimes she misses “Old Toby,” before he lost all the weight and got better clothes and a better job. To emphasize the point, after Toby calls to inform her that he can’t pick her up at the airport after all due to a rescheduled meeting, she talks to Old Toby in the mirror (a shaved Chris Sullivan, back in the controversial fat suit of previous seasons), who reassures her that she’ll still have a good time since “I will be with you.”
Will Kate and Toby move to San Francisco on This Is Us?
At Toby’s San Francisco apartment, Kate and Toby toast with champagne, then rush to the bedroom for some long-awaited quality time. But immediately afterward—before the “sexy” vegan barbecue has even arrived—Toby has to duck out for a “quick” work call with Tokyo. “I’m always down for a little Netflix and chill,” Old Toby says from the bed beside Kate, before giving himself a tour of the room and making fun of all of Toby’s possessions. Which, considering Old Toby is a figment of Kate’s imagination, is really Kate having all of those snarky thoughts about Toby herself. The following morning, Toby outlines his elaborate plans for them for the day—including a cocktail party for his boss—but when Toby notices Kate’s reaction is less than enthused, she admits that she was hoping for more of an old fashioned “KaToby day,” where they didn’t make plans and just did whatever felt right in the moment. So instead of following Toby’s agenda, they catch a cable car, visit Pier 39—where Toby takes another work call—and eventually walk through a neighborhood where Toby shows Kate a house he’d like to consider buying so that they can all live together as a family. Once again, Kate looks a bit dismayed rather than excited, and tells Toby that this feels “overwhelming.” Toby assures her they have “plenty of time” to think about it, since the owners aren’t even accepting offers until… “the day after tomorrow.” Unsurprisingly, Kate doesn’t seem to view their two-day window as quite the extended mulling-over period Toby seems to think it is. And something tells us that even if she had more than two days to consider it, she’s still not going to be eager to move to San Francisco. But the boss’ cocktail party is still on the agenda, of course, and although it isn’t far away, Toby insists on catching a Lyft since the walk would be all uphill. From Kate’s expression, we can surmise that she’s the one he thinks can’t handle the hill. At the party, Kate mingles with Toby’s coworkers, who are all very nice, even if their job descriptions are a little incomprehensible. But while Toby is arguing fantasy basketball picks with his coworkers, his boss Amir (Aly Mawji) lets slip to Kate how grateful he is that Toby “turned down the job offer in L.A.” in order to stick with the company in San Francisco. This is the first we’re hearing about an L.A. offer, and from the look on Kate’s face, we assume that’s the case for her too.
Why do Kate and Toby split on This Is Us?
After taking some alone time outside to process with Old Toby, Kate finds the real Toby and demands that they leave the party immediately. But before they make it out the door, she confronts him about the job offer, which he says was for a job he applied for before he got the one he has, and that the offer wasn’t even slightly competitive once it came in. Still, Kate is angry that Toby made the decision without even discussing it with her, since it affects their whole family. Back at Toby’s apartment, they’re finally able to let out all the frustrations they’ve both been bottling up. Kate is appalled that Toby would want to uproot their family when she has spent so much time teaching their blind son how to navigate their house and neighborhood so that he feels comfortable. Toby, on the other hand, is frustrated that Kate hasn’t considered the massive costs that could come with giving Jack all of the specialized education and care he may need to be able to eventually do things like live independently or attend college, which Toby says they can’t afford without a high-paying job. But then it turns personal, with Kate pushing Toby to admit he’s happier in San Francisco, and Toby shooting back that as his wife, shouldn’t she want him to be happy? She admits that she misses the old Toby, which Toby finds offensive, since he reveals that the version of himself that she first met was “miserable and insecure and self-loathing,” and that all the goofiness and loudness that Kate says she misses and fell in love with was a coping mechanism. That the real Old Toby was so unhappy that eventually, if he hadn’t changed, he would’ve “jumped off a bridge… making a joke at his own expense.” Toby then lets his true feelings about their weekend show, asking Kate why she had to FaceTime the kids every 20 minutes throughout the day and why she canceled all of his carefully made plans, saying that she too has changed. He says it used to feel like just the two of them “against the world,” whereas now she doesn’t even seem to really enjoy his company. He believes that she too is happier now, the “fully realized version of [her]self,” being a great mom and teacher and living with her brother, and that her husband isn’t even necessary in that picture. Kate admits that he’s largely right. “I love my life. I’m really, really happy… except for the one thing that’s making me really, really sad.” Over coffee the following morning, Toby concedes that they should’ve talked about the L.A. offer, even though it wasn’t good. He also reveals that for most of his life, he’s felt “desperate to feel valued at [his] job,” and that for the first time, in this job, he feels his worth. And he believes Kate has figured out hers as well. But “there are real-world logistics at play here,” and that’s why he needs her to “get on board” with moving to San Francisco. “It is the only option.” Instead of responding, Kate decides to go take a walk. Outside, faced with the steep hills of San Francisco, she points herself uphill and puts one foot in front of the other until she reaches the top. Once there, she calls… not Toby, but Philip (ChrisGeere), who she asks to consider her for the open full-time position at the school. So while Kate and Toby haven’t officially split yet, Toby’s demand that Kate move to San Francisco with the kids can’t help but feel like an ultimatum, and one that Kate’s clearly not inclined to take if she just threw her hat in the ring for a full-time job in L.A. If this isn’t the straw that breaks the camel’s back, the poor camel is at least under severe strain by now, and we doubt it can last much longer.
What happens next week on This Is Us?
When the third episode of the Big Three trilogy, titled “Every Version of You,” airs on March 29, 2022, it will be time for Randall (Sterling K. Brown) to take the spotlight. The synopsis for This Is Us Season 6 episode 10 reads, “Randall and Rebecca embark on a road trip and reflect on their past.” If it follows the structure of Kevin and Kate’s episodes, we expect “Every Version of You” to revisit those two pool memories while focusing mainly on a story in the present day. Last we left off with Randall, his political star is on the rise even as tensions mount between him and Déjà (Lyric Ross), who is determined to move to Boston with her college boyfriend, Malik (Asante Blackk). Could the road trip be to Boston to talk to Déjà and Malik, or are Randall and Rebecca headed elsewhere? If they’re reflecting on their past, does that mean we might be on the verge of learning something else about Randall’s birth parents? And what was with that weird comment Kevin made about Rebecca in a bathing suit? Guess we’ll have to wait until next week to find out. It’s hard watching Kate and Toby grow apart. Here are 50 relationship tips to help couples stick together.
