‘This Is Us’ Season 2 Midseason Premiere To Feature 11-Page Scene That Will Knock Fans Over
This Is Us fans should prepare to be blown away—or at least knocked over. After a six-week hiatus, the NBC drama’s second season picks up on Jan. 9, and it will feature an extended scene that has even the show’s stars in awe.
When This Is Us returns with the episode “The Fifth Wheel,” the Pearson siblings will reunite for the first time since each of their lives were hit with tragedy. Before the hiatus, Kevin (Justin Hartley) hit rock bottom with his drug and alcohol addiction, Kate (Chrissy Metz) suffered a miscarriage, and Randall’s (Sterling K. Brown) foster daughter, Deja (Lyric Ross), went back with her birth mother.
Show creator Dan Fogelman took to Twitter to tease the return of This Is Us, revealing there will be an extended scene featuring the Pearson clan and a special guest star in the upcoming episode, “The Fifth Wheel.”
“There is a twelve-minute take between four of our Pearsons and (and a great guest star) that will knock you over,” The This Is Us showrunner wrote.
Fogelman previously talked to Deadline about the supersized scene, which will pick up shortly after Kevin Pearson was pulled over by police while driving under the influence—with his young niece in the car. Fogelman revealed that the Big Three and their mother Rebecca (Mandy Moore), will be featured in an intense scene as the family comes together to address Kevin’s addiction problem.
“We find Kevin in rehab and the family has arrived to hash things out in a therapy session,” Fogelman told Deadline. “It’s very loaded.”
This Is Us star Sterling K. Brown told Entertainment Weekly the powerful scene is unlike anything the cast has ever done on the show before.
“There is a family scene that includes Kevin, Randall, Kate, and Rebecca that is about 11 pages long that is absolute TNT,” Brown told EW.
“It is one of my favorite scenes that we’ve done in the course of the two seasons of the show and I think people are going to leave it saying, ‘Damn!’ We come back shooting hot, hot fire. People are going to be happy with what they see.”
The other issue, that Randall and Beth’s (Susan Kelechi Watson) daughter Tess (Eris Baker) was a stowaway in a drunken Kevin’s car, will also be addressed head-on during the This Is Us midseason premiere.
“I can tell you that is something that we address directly when we come back,” Brown revealed.
“It’s complicated because it has to do with the nature of why Kevin thinks he’s an addict, and it has to do with whether or not Randall validates his brother’s perspective…Kevin, Kate, and Randall all have their own different versions of what their childhoods were that shaped who they are.”
This is not the first time the This Is Us cast has teased a pivotal scene. Ahead of last spring’s Season 1 finale, “Moonshadow,” Fogelman told Varietythere was a scene with Mandy Moore and Milo Ventimiglia that would shake up viewers in a way like never before.
“There is a scene with Milo and Mandy that I have not seen on television,” the This Is Us creator told Variety. “I think it’s going to rock people.”
The explosive scene, an extended argument between the Pearson parents, was carefully choreographed by Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore and had very few edits in it. Ventimiglia later told the Hollywood Reporter the scene was painful to shoot because it was so raw and real.
“Heartbreaking,” Ventimiglia told THR. “Some place that we’d never been with This Is Us, and it was just one of those moments that you were grateful for the work and grateful for the words you get to say and the partner you get to be in a scene with. It was one of those scenes.”
This Is Us returns with “The Fifth Wheel” episode Tuesday, Jan. 9 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.
