And so that was that on “This Is Us” – and for a show famous for its emotional fireworks, the NBC family hit came to a surprisingly muted close. Not a bad one, mind you, but just one more subdued than expected. After six seasons of drastic heart-pulling that rivaled the Kali Ma sequence in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” for its final notes, “This Is Us” went with sweet modest hugs over dramatic teary heart-tugs. So, in its way, it was a perfect final move in classic “This Is Us” fashion: one last time zigging when you expected it to zag.

I, on the other hand, will do exactly what you expect now: Let’s break down the big final takeaways from the big final hour of “This Is Us” … just as soon as I come up with one final low-key reference to the episode to transition into the bulletpoints.

1. Last week was … OK?

I have a confession to make: I didn’t love last week’s penultimate episode of “This Is Us.” OK, that’s not entirely true: I liked a great deal of it. I actually thought the metaphorical train was quite a lovely bit of concept, visualizing something that could’ve come off hokey or trite, and the interactions with Rebecca on the train – and with the Pearsons saying goodbye back at the cabin – were quite lovely.

But then there was the other family subplot.

Listen, I love Dule Hill, whether he’s Gus or Charlie Young on “The West Wing” or, heck, even Sam from “Holes” – but the subplot involving his family took time an attention away from an episode that should’ve been about saying goodbye to Rebecca. The focus should’ve never been tighter on the Pearsons in this intimate moment the WHOLE SEASON was building toward – but instead the show somewhat overthought things and added a subplot that added little but distraction to what should’ve been emotional proceedings.

You see, instead of getting more time with Rebecca processing her life and the Pearsons saying their farewells, we got the mysterious saga of Hill’s family getting into a VERY dramatic car crash that leaves most of them OK except for their son, whose leg is wounded and potentially bleeding out. He must survive, as we see in the future that he’s fine and working at a hospital – a tease that this is potentially Deja’s new significant other and father to her child. But it’s eventually revealed that, no, Malik thankfully is the father to Deja’s baby – and that this family’s connection is that they were in the hospital the same night that Jack died. In fact, when Jack shockingly coded and passed, the doctor was off rescuing Dule Hill’s wounded son just a floor away, thinking all was well with the fire survivor. But before he died, Jack told Hill the show’s famous line about lemons and lemonade – a line that passed through to Hill’s family and wounded child, who would go on to help treat Alzheimer’s.

The final message of these storytelling shenanigans – that even the darkest moments have silver linings, good things can be born from bad – is cute enough, but it sure is a lot of screenwritting sweat in the name of a fairly familiar idea. A fairly familiar idea that, frankly, the episode already has with Randall finding out about Deja’s child on the same night as watching his mother pass away. But instead, we got a subplot that got everyone’s brains distracted, trying to solve a mystery about a mostly unnecessary bunch of new side characters during what should’ve been a tribute to the show’s essential matriarch. I know the show was defined by its high-concept screenwriting twists and turns – many of them successful and meaningful – but in this case, show creator Dan Fogelman overthought it, playing with narrative just to play with narrative. (“Crazy Stupid Love” and “Life Itself” know a little something about that … )

That all being said …

2. Last week might’ve also been the better finale

OK, so I know I just spent the last several paragraphs harranging the last episode for being overstuffed with unnecessary characters and “intrigue” … but last week’s episode also felt a lot more like a proper, or at least more expected, “This Is Us” series finale.

Whereas Tuesday’s actual finale left several characters surprisingly unattended to, “The Train” felt like it brought so much of the show full-circle, bringing back some of the original quotes, bringing together the whole family and bringing together so many of the side characters along the way – oh hey, William and Miguel and Dr. K! – for a final goodbye to Rebecca, ending just right with the two Pearson parents literally laying to rest together and the matriarch at peace with where she left her family. The train concept also gave the penultimate episode some cinematic and mystical realism flourish, some emotional and theatrical fireworks, while the proper finale didn’t have … much of that at all. In fact, it was a pretty mundane episode; Rebecca’s funeral was barely glimpsed while the big flashback sequences were just a regular rainy day together, with petty grumbles about minor life problems like Randall having school troubles and Kate not sure how she fits in Four Square with five Pearsons. If you didn’t know any better, you could’ve easily forgotten that Tuesday night was IT and was the show’s final statement, forever.

Again, for a show often defined – and even ridiculed – for being an emotional gauntlet ruthless to tear ducts, the finale was shockingly low on big grand moments to really remember or obvious tear waterfalls to Kleenex away. The family laid Rebecca to rest mostly offscreen, the Pearsons had a diverting rainy day, “This Is Us” ended … and that was kind of that. The episode oddly faded quickly from mind Tuesday night – and in fact, I’d bet when people look back at this final season, they’ll remember several other episodes well before this one. Heck, they might even recall “The Train” as the actual finale, forgetting this pleasant but minor-key epilogue of sorts.

But THAT all being said …

3. Still, this final bow worked

Not to put on my snooty culture critic hat and say something kookily pretentious like “but actually it’s disappointing ON PURPOSE” … but if the “This Is Us” finale was unsatisfying or underwhelming, then good, the episode did exactly what it set out to do.

In perhaps its wildest misdirection yet, “This Is Us” ended not on loud tears but thoughtful meditation, skirting the obvious drama at hand and instead reflecting on the general themes and ideas the show’s tangled with over all these years. After all, it’s not like the show just … forgot to show Rebecca’s funeral or the speeches. Or that it accidentally picked a random day from the Pearsons’ past and realized too late that they forgot to write anything dramatic for it, that it was just a lazy rainy day of games and mild distraction. For a show about big drama and moments, the finale instead became about the opposite: how for all the giant emotional swings, life is mostly made up of small moments and fleeting people that come and go seemingly so fast – so much so that it can seem impactless.

That’s Randall’s takeaway at first, serving as the audience surrogate well into the episode, wondering if life’s pointless if a moment as seemingly massive as his beloved mother’s funeral can disappear so fast. The event plays as such to the viewers, glimpsed in almost audio-free montage. We don’t see any of the speeches or any of the major moments, just faces in thought and reflection and the occasional tension-popping laugh everyone’s begging for at a funeral. It just comes and goes – just another moment washed away in time’s unfeeling constant stream. Not that “This Is Us” ever needs me help with picking song cues, but “Is That All There Is?” would’ve played nicely here (if absurdly on the nose so, actually, never take my music advice, show).

Randall quickly gets corrected by Deja, learning that he’s going to be a grandpa to a boy and learning that they want to name the child after William. But even without the punctution of Deja’s speech, the episode gets its point across by making the small moment – the rainy day in the past – big and the big moment, Rebecca’s funeral, small. The result is a surprisingly thoughtful way to investigate, one final time, the show’s grand theory of life: That life may be this uncaring fleeting stream constantly moving, but throughout it all, people and moments big and small make their ripples, ones that bounce off one another and grow and impact the whole in ways we could never fathom. Since the beginning, “This Is Us” has always been at its core about those fascinating ripples, how they echo and intertwine and bend through time and through people – and while it wasn’t with the usual emotional punches and timeline craziness, that’s exactly how it wrapped up too.

4. Solving some final Randall mysteries

It wouldn’t be “This Is Us” without a few final mysteries to solve – and thankfully this time the intrigue wasn’t based around a completely unrelated family that really seemed superfluous to our already pretty stuffed narrative! (Again: Love you, Dule Hill! Big fan!)

No, the finale’s last loose ends all involved Randall – which makes sense. While Kate and Kevin got their own mostly solo-focused episodes to bring their stories to a sense of closure, Randall strangely never got his hour, going from one of the most well-served characters on “This Is Us” to one of the least by this final run. Then again, did anyone really want to dedicate any more screentime than necessary to Randall’s political subplot? That’s what I thought.

Thankfully it doesn’t get much of a spotlight, but Randall’s political career is at the heart of the finale’s biggest question mark: What the heck was Beth talking about with the deep-fried Oreos?

Early in the episode, Beth’s nagging Randall about how his big eulogy speech is coming together. Answer: It’s not. Randall’s got about a sentence and a title and … that’s about it, with little improvement in sight. (Been there, Randall; on every single thing I’ve ever written ever … been there.) He knows he’ll figure something out – he is, after all, the show’s resident monologue master – but there’s also something else on his mind: a decision involving … deep-fried Oreos. Is this some Pearson traditional snack I’ve forgotten about over the years? But no, as Randall eventually reveals in the final Big Three chat, deep-fried Oreos are a classic treat at the Iowa State Fair … where the DNC wants to send him to see how he plays with the people. And if he plays well … Presidential nominee Randall Pearson?