It’s hard to believe it’s been three years since we said goodbye to the Pearson family and This Is Us after six seasons. Even as the cast moves onto some great other projects on the 2025 TV schedule, there’s a part of me that yearns to catch up with Kevin, Kate and Randall. Apparently I’m not alone, because Sterling K. Brown opened up about the effect episodes continue to have on people.
Sterling K. Brown played Randall Pearson on This Is Us (which can be streamed in full with a Hulu subscription or Netflix subscription). In talking about episodes that continue to make an impact, Brown mentioned the one where Milo Ventimiglia’s Jack dies after the Pearsons’ house burns down. Brown told EW the episode has a different meaning in the aftermath of the Los Angeles wildfires — in which Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore both lost their houses, saying:
It's really insane, right? But that one has a deep level of resonance. But what I find is that a lot of them have deep levels of resonance. Different episodes hit different people in different ways. And you have people come up to you all the time and really what I get asked for more than anything else from This Is Us people, specifically, ‘Can I have a hug?’ And it's the most lovely thing. I think that was the gift of the show: We felt connected, especially in a world that feels so divisive and a country that feels incredibly divided right now, that we had a show that allowed people to connect.
This Is Us did a lot of things right, and one of them was definitely connecting people. Over six seasons, creator Dan Fogelman weaved us through different generations of the Pearson family, showing how a seemingly random act from one person could change the entire trajectory of someone else’s life.
At times we’d start an episode by following a stranger’s story, only to have that stranger be an integral part of the Pearson family by the episode's end. William Hill (played by the late Ron Cephas Jones) was one of those characters. He turned out to be Randall’s birth father who had left him at the fire station as a newborn.
Fans quickly grew to love William, and his death was one of This Is Us’ most heartbreaking moments. In fact, Sterling K. Brown said that episode — Season 1’s “Memphis” — is the one fans most often want to talk to him about, and I have to imagine that’s where plenty of the requests for a hug come into play.
Today Sterling K. Brown and Dan Fogelman are working together again, on Hulu's Paradise, and unsurprisingly, that series hits some of the same emotional notes as This Is Us. You can count me among the fans who are happy that it’s been renewed for a second season.
In other Big Three news, Justin Hartley’s Tracker (streaming with a Paramount+ subscription) also got a third-season order at CBS, and Susan Kelechi Watson (who played Randall’s MVP wife Beth) is one of the stars on Netflix's ensemble series The Residence. Hopefully these shows can comfort us as well as a hug from Sterling K. Brown would.