'This Is Us' Season 2 Episode 8 Recap: We Need to Talk About Kevin

Now he's drunkenly ranting at the poor maid cleaning his hotel room. (Oh yeah, Kevin's staying at a hotel, even though he lives in Los Angeles. What is he, 2008 Lindsay Lohan?)

Oh my God, Kevin's so out of it he doesn't even know what day it is: He's supposed to attend an alumni event for his high school the next day and completely forgot about it. Nevertheless, he begrudgingly agrees to go, and the maid makes a joke about how the people at the alumni event should clean him too. New favorite character.

Now Kevin's back East and in an Uber making inappropriate comments about pain killers. He stops by the old Pearson house and gets emotional, but it reads as creepy when the guy who now lives there comes outside and is like, "WTF are you doing on my lawn?" It's very clear Kevin has unresolved issues with his father/childhood/that mysterious fire.

We're now in front of the high school. Kevin's downing more pills and looking despondent. He mistakes one of the students for young Sophie and creepily stares at her. Then he walks the high school halls like a legitimate weirdo. My only defense of Kevin is this: People keep insulting his damn beard, and they need to stop. Beards are fine! I stan beards!

There's a shrine to Teenage Kevin in the high school—something I feel happens in TV shows and movies but never in real life. Like, did your high school have a random trophy case filled with photos of some kid who graduated in 2003? Nope! Because that's weird!

And yup, Kevin's going to get wine drunk at this alumni event honoring him. Not just wine drunk: He starts talking with a woman, Charlotte, at the event and asks her for her wine. Then he pours his old glass of wine into his new glass like a 23-year-old nabbing a stranger's beer at a bar. Charlotte, who we learn is another alumni being honored and who hardcore crushed on Kevin in high school, looks at him horrified.

Yikes, he has to give a speech, apparently, and his old football coach (who's a silver fox, low key) introduces him. Kevin pictures his father giving him the award, which is genuinely heartbreaking. He gives a very depressing, sweaty speech about how he's not worthy of the honor and basically demands people stop clapping for him. He abruptly walks off, which causes people to applaud even more. Ugh.

Now Kevin is lamenting about how he's always felt pressure to be "number one" (an unsurprising tie-in to that baby walking scene). He drinks wine straight out of the bottle on his old football field. This is all getting old very fast.

Oof, this is just sad: Kevin, completely alone, starts playing football on the field and weaving in remarks about how he can't go four hours without having Vicodin. Turns out, he's actually telling the story of when he hurt his knee in high school, and (surprise) it was at the game Jack and Randall missed. He's now crying—sobbing, actually—on the field and recounting his failed marriage to Sophie and burying Jack. He straight-up admits to screwing up his life multiple times—quitting The Manny, cheating on Sophie, etc.—but never facing any real consequences. People idolize him even when he tells them he's garbage.