As Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) wisely told his daughter in the past, “even things that we like can be bad for us, sweetheart.” AndThis Is Usfans should be worried: Our Katie Girl may be headed for trouble with her boyfriend Marc (Austin Abrams).
Not only did he body-shame her when she reached for his box of chocolates and was unable to control his rage in front of Rebecca (Mandy Moore) during their coffee meet-up, but he also kicked Kate out of his car mid-drive to the Pearson cabin and left her stranded, cold and alone. Before he eventually found her and took her to the cabin, Kate frantically called her mother, who rushed to the cabin with sons Kevin and Randall, fearing for her daughter’s safety.
“I know that being in a toxic relationship can really just make you blame yourself at times when it’s not actually you, it’s the other person,” the 22-year-old actress says. “Marc’s own insecurities about himself are why he’s controlling. He’s projecting onto Kate.”
“The issue everyone focuses on is her weight. The weight is really the collateral damage from the actual problems which were losing your father, being in an abusive relationship and feeling put down because of that,” she continues. “That’s when people turn to coping mechanisms such as overeating or different things. Although it’s really painful, it’s important to show that being overweight is not all that there is to focus on Kate. There are reasons behind that. Peeling back the layers, getting into why and how this all came to be, I think is, although sad, very rewarding and interesting for the viewers. It gives you more of a full picture of the character.”
Ron Batzdorff/NBC
Describing Kate and Marc’s love affair as “abusive,” the star teases that her character goes through a lot of ups and downs (perhaps more of the latter). “Abusive doesn’t always have to be physical at all. I think that there’s emotional, verbal and mental, there are all types of abuse,” she says. “I don’t really categorize one above the other, but we can definitely see in this episode some verbal and mental abuse that Kate goes through.”
Furthermore, Zeile reminds fans to recall adult Kate and Rebecca’s discovery of throwback photos from a past family dinner during which Marc showed up unannounced. “I wanted to believe so badly that you kids were happy, I didn’t see what was happening,” the matriarch said, to which Kate unnervingly responded: “I didn’t see it either.”
“That’s 25 years later and Kate’s reaction is still so visceral. You can see the pain that she and Rebecca share. So obviously this whole experience is an important landmark in her life. I think that has a lot to do with it being her first boyfriend. Her first experience, her first definition of what she thinks love is, is with him,” Zeile says.
So if Jack were still alive, would Kate be dating a guy like Marc? Zeile thinks not.
“Jack was a very honorable man and he set the bar really high for what Kate should expect of a man. Maybe that’s part of the reason that she doesn’t really open up to her family at first about any struggles going on with Marc and is a little to herself, because maybe she deep down knows that this isn’t someone that Jack would have approved of,” she predicts.
When it comes to Marc’s rage-filled reactions, Zeile says Kate is “choosing not to see the bad,” adding, “Sometimes you want to protect the other person because you love them. You keep their secrets for them and you don’t want to disclose to other people because then you’re kind of pulling back the curtain. You shouldn’t feel ashamed about being mistreated. It’s not anything that you’re doing. It’s not your fault.”
This Is Usairs Tuesdays (at 9 p.m. ET) on NBC.
source: people.com
