This Is Us trailer analysis: season 3 episode 13 “Our Little Island Girl”

This Is Us finally premieres its much anticipated Beth-centered episode tonight and the promo looks full of hope and loss. Here’s what it tells us about what we can expect.

The promo opens with Beth and Zoe greeting Carol, Beth’s mom (Phylicia Rashad). Near the end of last week’s episode of This Is Us, it had been revealed that Carol had hurt her hip again and that Beth and Zoe were leaving immediately to visit her. Beth goes in for a hug, both looking pleased to see each other. Carol looks like a pretty confident, no-nonsense lady as she is shown walking down the hallways of what appears to be a college or high school. So she’s maybe a teacher?

But its not all sunshine and rainbows between mother and daughter. We see young Beth in dance class and older Beth telling her mother that she didn’t have to take it away from her. Young Beth isn’t as good at dance as some of the other girls, and Carol explains that Beth had gone as far as she could have gone in ballet. If Carol stopped Beth from dancing just because she maybe was never going to be a professional dancer, that’s no reason to keep her from doing it if she loves it. Plus, there’s no telling what Beth could have done if she really wanted to.

Zoe can see that there is something going on with Beth and she tells her that she needs to find a way to talk about it. Beth has been struggling to find her new path in life over the last few episodes, especially after having been fired from a longtime job she really loved. It looks like Beth is drifting toward teaching ballet, as she watches dancers practice through the windows of a dance studio. Beth arrives home, looking excited and happy, telling Randall that she’s ready to tell him what she wants to do next. The text says this will be “an unforgettable episode about chasing your dreams.”

So Beth loved dancing as a kid, but wasn’t professional level good so her mother made her stop? Or something like that? I guess we’ll all find out tonight. This Is Us airs tonight, Tuesday February 19 at 9pm ET on NBC.