WARNING: The following contains spoilers for This Is Us Season 6, Episode 7, “Taboo,” which aired Tuesday, March 8 on NBC.
This Is Us has always done a great job tying different timelines together with common themes and concepts, and the show isn’t always flashy when it does so. Season 6, Episode 7, “Taboo” (read the full recap) includes four different timelines, strung together by a very special sugar pie that is the dessert at various Thanksgiving dinners. The more subtle connection that pays off at the end of the episode is the history of disordered eating that’s reflected in the pie.
Kate’s arc throughout the series has featured an exploration into her own disordered eating. The series starts with her on yet another weight loss journey, miserable and battling with her own body image. However, as she’s grown emotionally in Season 6, so has her relationship to herself and her body. In this episode, she demonstrates how she has broken her binge eating and shame cycle at the Pearson Thanksgiving. What is extra significant about this victory is that she’s not just broken it for herself — she’s ended the line of disordered eating she inherited from her mother and grandmother.
Rebecca’s mother Janet doesn’t eat the famous sugar pie with the coveted secret ingredient. The dessert is a baking staple she prides herself on making, but she doesn’t allow herself the indulgence. She passes that onto her daughter by serving her a smaller slice of pie than anyone else, even as a little girl. Rebecca grew up watching her mother deny herself joy and exclude herself from a shared experience as a result of her misguided attempt to apply morality to food. She doesn’t allow herself to indulge in “bad” foods that may lead to weight gain.
When Rebecca is planning her wedding, Janet’s biggest advice is to lose weight and focus on her diet. This obsession with weight and food actually impairs her relationship with her daughter. When Rebecca ends up snapping at her mom and lashing out, her form of rebellion is eating some of that sugar pie. Food becomes an act of anger and again carries a negative connotation.
However, in the present, Kate is raising her kids with more of a neutral approach to food. She tells Toby that she has put a lot of thought and care into organizing meals for their kids in an effort to avoid raising them to repeat her history of shame and binge eating. She’s teaching moderation and removing shame from the equation. While that’s a big victory for the woman who was once eating so restrictively she had to put sticky notes all over her kitchen, it’s another point of contention in her already rocky marriage.
Toby body-shames Kate and himself in front of the family over Thanksgiving dinner when he explains he doesn’t want his kids to grow up to be fat, and he believes that’s a real risk for Jack. It comes off like his version of Lexi’s play from Euphoria. Toby later explains to Kate that it was his intention to protect Jack from the shame and bullying that he experienced growing up in a larger body. Both he and Kate have the best for their children at heart, but thus far they’ve been unable to reconcile their different approaches to parenting.
Kate may have won the battle over her inherited disordered eating cycle, but that victory came at the cost of more trouble in her marriage, which seems beyond saving. It’s a shame that her hard-fought victory comes at such a high price. However, Kate should still be proud of her development and hopefully this loss won’t hinder the growth she’s seen in leaps and bounds during This Is Us‘ final season.
Tune in to NBC on Tuesdays for the final season of This Is Us to learn more about Kate and Toby’s failing relationship.
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