‘This Is Us’ Boss Explains Randall’s Angry Reaction To Kate’s Assumption About Jack’s Legacy

Spoiler alert: This article contains minor spoilers from the This Is Us episode “A Philadelphia Story.”

This Is Us is diving into Kate Pearson’s fertility and ruffling some feathers in the process. On the Season 3 episode “A Philadelphia Story,” the Pearson daughter (played by Chrissy Metz) is going head-on into IVF treatments under the assumption that she is the only one out of the Big Three who has what it takes to “carry on a piece” of their late father Jack (Milo Ventimiglia).

Kate’s thoughtless comment is an insult to her twin brother Kevin (Justin Hartley) and their adopted brother Randall (Sterling K Brown), who was very close with their father and is already a father to two kids. Indeed, Randall is clearly triggered by his sister’s comment.

The episode ends with the devoted dad of two fuming while he sits with Kevin at the premiere of the Ron Howard film Hill 400. As the theater lights dim, Randall looks over at his sister and Kate obliviously waves at him, but it is clear this misunderstanding is far from over, especially in an episode that earlier had Randall declaring, “I have two dead fathers, and I want to make them both proud.”

In an interview with Variety, This Is Us executive producer Isaac Apatker explained why Randall fumed over hearing Kate believes she is the only one in the family who can carry on a piece of Jack.

“As someone who feels an incredibly intense connection to his adopted father, he feels like he very much carries on a piece of Jack with him in the way he leads his life. So the implication that because he doesn’t have the biological connection means he doesn’t carry that, he’s finding pretty offensive.”

Aptaker also teased that the aftermath of Randall’s angry look will play out next week in the episode “Katie Girls,” promising, “We’re going to pick right up on that in our next week’s episode and see what that look was all about, but clearly that has shaken him.”

This Is Us producer Elizabeth Berger also weighed in on the storyline, teasing that Randall and Kate will “deal with this pretty immediately and hash it out, and after that, for the most part, the family is going to be extremely supportive” of Kate’s IVF plans. Berger told Entertainment Weekly that fans will soon see if Kate’s comment affects her relationship with her brother.

“We’ll see next week what it does to their relationship. Kate loves her brother so much and feels so connected to him. And I think she was coming from a place of feeling so intensely about her own situation that she wasn’t choosing every word correctly… She will definitely have to deal with the consequences of not choosing her words a little more carefully.”

In flashback news, viewers also saw a 1990s-era Randall turn down his acceptance to Howard University to stay close to home near his widowed mom.

You can see Kate announcing that she is the only one in the Pearson family who can carry on a piece of their dad in the This Is Us scene below.

This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.