“This is Us” is nearing its season 5 return, and there’s plenty of updates to keep you in the know before we learn more about the Pearson family.
What’s going on?
“This is Us” is less than three weeks away from its fifth season premiere date.
- The show — one of the top dramas on television right now — has a number of storylines related to current issues for its upcoming season.
- Last time out, we saw Randall (Sterling K. Brown) and Kevin (Justin Hartley) argue about how to best find their mother Rebecca (Mandy Moore) health care for her neurological issues.
- “This is Us” will be one of the first fall shows to return amid the pandemic.
Production news:
- “This is Us” started production on new episodes at the end of September amid the pandemic. Writers have been working on the show remotely, pulling together new ideas as they could.
- The show was expected to start production on Sept. 24 for additional episodes of the fifth season, according to Deadline.
Release date:
- NBC announced “This Is Us” will premiere on Oct. 27 from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. EDT.
- The show was supposed to debut its new season on Nov. 10.
Storylines to watch:
Kate Pearson will deal with something “very unexpected” during the fifth season, and it might include her ex-boyfriend Marc, which I wrote about for Deseret.com.
- “Dan said, ‘Oh my goodness, are you even comfortable with doing this?’” she says. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, I am. I think it’s really important.’ People are going to have a lot to say about it. It will definitely be a challenge, but I’m looking forward to it.”
Series creator Dan Fogelman told Entertainment Weekly that the show will address the pandemic. How they plan to address it remains a mystery.
- “It’s a really huge challenge for us,” he said. “I keep saying, ‘As if juggling this show with 18,000 timelines and characters isn’t hard enough.’ It really is a complicated question. It’s been complicated for all shows. I can’t tell you the amount of debate that has gone into everything from our show existing in a world that corona has not happened, like many shows are going to choose to do, to making the entire first nine episodes all happening during a quarantine period in our offseason. We’ve been all over the map. I think we have a plan that splits the balance. ... But you know, we’re fluid writers. We have the ability to adjust as needed.”
Sterling K. Brown said the new season will address Black Lives Matter, too, according to People magazine.
- “It was as huge from a writer’s perspective as it was from mine. I think Randall offers such a unique perspective. Being a Black man raised in a white family, there’s a very specific prism through which he sees the world, and I think the writers have captured it brilliantly,” he says. “Our first two episodes are outstanding. As long as we, as actors, are able to execute what the writing has provided us an opportunity to do. I think our fans will be very, very, very happy.”
Cast news:
- Milo Ventimiglia, Mandy Moore, Sterling K. Brown, Chrissy Metz, Justin Hartley, Chris Sullivan and Susan Kelechi Watson will all return for the new season, according to Deadline.
There will be a season 6
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Fogelman told Entertainment Weekly the show will follow its plan to have a sixth season and wrap up all the planned storylines.
- “We have a carefully crafted plan through six seasons of the television show that hundreds of people have now devoted for four-plus years of their lives executing,” he told EW. “And we’re going to execute that plan, no matter what’s happening in the world. What’s happening in the world may shift the details of how things happen, but the big moves continue to happen — and actually potentially heighten and make better the television show then maybe some of our initial plans, because that’s our job. Here are the new rules we’ve been given. How do we continue to try and top ourselves and make things even better than they were?”