Moderator: Chief Couch Potato Kylie

THE SPECS:

Who: “This Is Us” is a romantic family drama series that currently airs on NBC, winter to spring Tuesdays at 9:00 PM.

What: Created by Dan Fogelman, the series follows the lives and families of two parents and their three children in several different time frames and stars an ensemble cast featuring Milo Ventimiglia, Mandy Moore, Sterling K. Brown, Chrissy Metz, Justin Hartley, Susan Kelechi Watson, Chris Sullivan, Jon Huertas, Eris Baker, Faithe Herman, Lyric Ross, and Asante Blackk in Season 5.

When: Season 5 aired on NBC from October 27, 2020, to May 25, 2021, with a total of eighteen episodes.

SYNOPSIS

This Is Us follows the lives of siblings Kevin (Hartley), Kate (Metz), and Randall (Brown, known as the “Big Three”), and their parents Jack (Ventimiglia) and Rebecca Pearson (Moore). It takes place mainly in the present and uses flashbacks to show the family’s past. Kevin and Kate are the two surviving members from a triplet pregnancy, born six weeks premature on Jack’s 36th birthday in 1980; their brother Kyle is stillborn. Believing they were meant to have three children, Jack and Rebecca, who are white, decide to adopt Randall (Brown), an African American child born the day before and brought to the same hospital after his biological father William Hill abandoned him at a fire station. Jack dies when his children are 17, and Rebecca later marries Jack’s best friend Miguel (Huertas). Randall becomes a successful finance professional and marries college classmate Beth (Watson); they raise two daughters (Tess, played by Eris Baker, and Annie, played by Faithe Herman). Kevin becomes a successful actor while struggling to be taken seriously. After lacking direction for much of her life, Kate meets Toby (Sullivan).

Most episodes feature a storyline taking place in the present (contemporaneous with airing) and a storyline taking place at a set time in the past, but some episodes are set in one time period or use multiple flashback time periods. Flashbacks often focus on Jack and Rebecca in and around 1980, both before and after their babies’ birth, or on the family when the Big Three are children or adolescents (and played by two sets of younger actors); these scenes usually take place in Pittsburgh, where the Big Three and their parents are born and raised. As adults, Kate lives in Los Angeles, Randall and his family are in New Jersey but relocate to Philadelphia in Season 4, and Kevin relocates from Los Angeles to New York City and back again.

Where: The action follows the core family members – two parents, three children, and their eventual spouses – who are originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but who later move and spread, particularly in the present/future timelines, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Los Angeles, California; and New York City, New York.

Why: To find out why individual podcast panelists started watching this show, listen to the Season 1 podcast episode via the link below!

How – as in How Was It? – THOUGHTS

In 2021, we launched our This Is Us panel, caught up quickly on the first four seasons, and now continue this series as a Water Cooler entry. You can listen to our first four episodes in this series below; the second, third, and fourth episodes are still part of our audio feeds at Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Castbox, and Amazon Music:

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

Season 4

Panelists Kristen L, Spencer, Emily, Kristin T, and Jared triumphantly reconvene with moderator Chief Couch Potato Kylie (one of our previous panelists temporarily departed the panel due to lives behind the podcast) Around the Water Cooler after almost one year’s hiatus to pick up where our This Is Us series left off in 2021 when we last discussed the family Pearson and those who love them. In tonight’s episode, CPU! continues forward-looking Water Cooler coverage of This Is Us with our penultimate Season 5 recap and review, in which our panel remarks upon the success or lack thereof of this gripping and layered family drama, and in so doing, ruminates in-depth upon the production values, performances, writing, and, in the case of this panel, the music of this acclaimed program. In this chapter, our panel reflects upon and recaps our continued learning about the Pearson family in several different eras of the family’s story and in pieces and parts, providing clues to a larger mystery around how the family survives hardship while remaining centered and grounded in the face of life’s greatest challenges. The enthusiasm from our panel remains truly palpable, as this series has become one of the highest-rated shows (by review of our panelists) that we have covered on the podcast.

This episode was recorded in March 2022, and there are, without question, MAJOR SPOILERS, as the panelists cover key plot points of the fifth season. Listen at your own risk, and let us know what you think by commenting below!

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Remember, new episodes and blog posts are published weekly!  Next Wednesday, our Call the Midwife panel returns to the CPU! Water Cooler to continue our Catching Up Series reacting, two seasons at a time, to the popular BBC/PBS period drama by discussing Series 3 and 4 in Episode 2 of our Series. Stay tuned!

Questions, Impressions, and Future Considerations

1) Who does Kevin end up with in the future? Is it Sophie (guest: Alexandra Breckinridge)? Is it Cassidy (guest: Jennifer Morrison)? Or, is it someone entirely new? Will we get a chance to meet her in any sort of meaty or flushed-out way with the limited amount of airtime real estate left in this final season?

2) Why do Kate and Toby officially end their marriage since it is clear from the fifth season finale that Kate marries Phillip, the teacher she comes to assist at the music school for the blind? How does that love affair even come to be?

3) Are the producers/network really considering making a movie of any type and/or with an alternate storyline in mind, exploring what might have happened had Jack survived the fire?

4) Will Rebecca see Jack as she inevitably passes away in the future/flash-forwards as a result of the progression of her Alzheimer’s Disease, either as an actual vision of him or by mistaking, the vigilantly watching and patiently waiting, Nicky (guest: Griffin Dunne) for Jack as he sits by her bedside?

5) What happens with the farmhouse inherited by Randall and Beth from Randall’s birth mother Laurel, who survived long past what was understood to be her death, so we learn in Season 5?

6) Will the show reexplore some of the side stories they have seeded, such as the depiction of the inventor of email?

7) Will we see adult Nicky and Franny, Kevin and Madison’s children, in the future?

8) Will we see a big family reunion far into the future, following Rebecca’s death and focusing on the children of Kevin, Kate, and Randall?

9) Who will inherit Rebecca’s crescent moon necklace?

10) What happens to Miguel? Does he die before Rebecca? Or, does Rebecca “release” him from marriage with her, so that he will not have to witness her Alzheimer’s-influenced decline?

11) Where are Miguel’s kids from his first marriage? Will we see them at any point in Season 6?

12) What sort of Kate will we see in the end? A happier one? A thinner one?

13) What happens to Tess, Annie, Deja, and Malik in the future?

14) Will we see Kevin, Kate, and/or Randall’s grandchildren? Will the show invest in a Six Feet Under type of projection or time jump in any of the final episodes?

15) What will Nicky do in this not-too-distant future?

16) What happens to Toby in the end?

PARTING SHOTS

This Is Us continues to be wholeheartedly and boisterously recommended by our CPU! panel to “almost anyone” who enjoys watching television – full stop – but particularly to those who enjoy family dramas like Parenthood, Brothers & Sisters, and The Council of Dads and to those with some years of life experience behind them that would make some of the more difficult parts of this series, in terms of the challenges that the characters face, resonate more fully on an emotional level with would-be watchers. Our panel believes that this show will appeal most to people who appreciate some reality in their fiction, as opposed to pure fantasy, because the creator and writers have infused their story with an undercurrent of wisdom and a concentrated sense of genuineness that renders the show a fulfilling and emotional viewing experience that keeps one wanting more, as the story is told non-linearly, with meted out clues and parallelisms connecting well-meaning, three-dimensional characters with whom it quickly becomes easy to identify. The panelists universally describe This Is Us as well-written, well-performed, and well-directed, with expertly plotted, interweaving storylines that both tease the mind and fill the heart and are executed by earnest and genuine performers who breathe a comfortable vitality into smart, relatable, and emotionally complex characters. Our panel notes that a decision to watch this NBC drama should be one made with a firm commitment, a preparation for an investment that requires full concentration for the watch without the “second screen experience” and other distractions, as there are glimpses and hints of story revelations in early seasons that ultimately play out masterfully in later seasons. The panel further praised the casting, lauding the seamless ensemble of this drama and its effortless cast chemistry.  In the end, the panelists unanimously enjoy this series, Season 5 as much as the seasons preceding it, and enthusiastically recommend it to any would-be viewer who would be enticed by it to start, without hesitation; in fact, our supersized panel proved all too eager to continue watching Season 6, which we will discuss following the airing of the (gulp) series finale later this year, at which point we will also Look Back at the whole darn show. Stay tuned!

LOOKING AHEAD

NBC renewed This Is Us for three additional seasons, including a sixth season, at the same time that the show received its fourth season renewal (May 2019). In May 2021, it was announced that Season 6 would be the show’s final season, which premiered on January 4, 2022. Our panel will visit This Is Us one final time to discuss Season 6 following the airing of the series finale on May 24, 2022; we will Look Back at the entire show in that same episode.  Like, follow, and/or subscribe to the website, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher Radio, Google Play, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Castbox, Amazon Music, Patreon, or our social media accounts to stay abreast of new episodes regarding This Is Us as well as new episodes for all of our podcast panels! And, if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. Thank you!