This Is Us Season 6 Episode 8 review: What is Kevin's big plan? 

As This is Us gears up towards its finale episode, it brings the Big Three trilogy to viewers. These are the three final episodes where each Pearson sibling will get their own spotlight episode. Episode 8 was Kevin's turn to take center stage.

The recently released episode of This is Us does not follow a linear pattern of storytelling. It is interspaced with flashbacks from the siblings' childhood and young adult years. The episode is titled The Guitar Man, and is written by Kevin Falls and Jake Schnesel.

---

Did Kevin manage to get out of the shallow end at the end of This is Us?

In this episode of This is Us, Kevin sets out to re-examine his own life, reflecting on his success as a parent and in life in general. The flashbacks of the episode focus on three time frames. These are when the siblings were kids, when they were young adults and in the present day when all three are settled in their lives.

The episode shows flashbacks of Jack and Rebecca bringing the Big Three to the community pool for the first day of summer. Kevin, being a child, wants to dive off the jumping board but cannot since he doesn't know how to swim.

So Jack takes Kevin to the shallow end to teach him, but Kevin does not pass his father's swimming test. This upset him, and he runs away, only to be found by his mother who tells him he is exactly like his dad.

Skipping forward to ’90s Thanksgiving, Kate and Randall follow Kevin to the same deserted community pool. They find Kevin spiralling and broken due to his split from Spohie due to his infidelity. He tells his siblings that he feels he doesn't belong in the deep end because he is stupid and shallow. This is an allusion to the pool incident in the first flashback.

Fast forward again to the present day, we find Kevin juggling his work and his twins as he struggles through life. Even though we see Kevin struggling to handle the kids initially, he eventually gets a grip and learns to become a great father. The entire episode is a self reflection of Kevin as is no longer in the shallow end. He has grown as a person.

---

Kevin decides to live his best life

After vowing to live his best life for Rebecca, Kevin prepares to head to the cabin with the twins. He decides to do it alone, which surprises his co-workers and siblings who underestimate his capacity as a father. They seem to turn out to be correct as the flight was indeed chaotic, with Kevin failing to handle the two babies.

After arriving at the cabin, Kevin learns there's been a setback with the construction of the house. Annoyed by the delay, he rudly confronts Cassidy, who was overseeing the construction. He later apologizes for his behavior when he learns what set the construction back.

Later that night, Kevin gets a call from the hospital telling him Cassidy was in an accident. Nicky and Kevin rush to the hospital to find a badly injured Cassidy.

Cassidy's military job in Afghanistan, which involved lying for information, now comes back to haunt her. The accident happens probably under the effect of the trauma she is burdened with.

Kevin learns that the only way he can help her is by being there for her, as explained to him by Nicky. He does that silently while Cassidy, in the aftermath of the accident, pours her heart out to him about her war trauma.

When Cassidy gets back from the hospital, Kevin reveals his big plan. He wants to start a construction firm like his father dreamed of, and employ war veterans for the construction teams. This is where the Big Three Construction logos he was sketching earlier come into play. At the end of the episode of This is Us, Kevin returns home a better and more capable person.

---

This Is Us will air its next episode on March 22, 2022. The upcoming episode 9 will focus on Kate's story.