A New 'This Is Us' Season 5 Trailer Shows Kevin's Tense Reunion With Randall
This Is Us season 5 will start on Tuesday, October 27 with a two-hour premiere episode airing on NBC.
The new season of This Is Us is expected to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, Black Lives Matter movement, and more.
Here's what the This Is Us cast has said about the upcoming episodes so far.
It feels like a lifetime ago that the This Is Us season 4 finale aired in March. Thankfully though, we won't have to wait too much longer to see what's in store next for the Pearsons.
In the meantime, we've been collecting all the must-know details from the This Is Us cast about what to expect when the series comes back this fall. According to Mandy Moore, who plays Rebecca, season 5 will be well worth the wait.
"I am biased. But I feel like it keeps getting better and better. I marvel at how extraordinary our writers are, and how innovative and inventive they are. I am excited," she told TVInsider.com.
So far, here's everything we've learned about what will likely be the second to last season of This Is Us:
This Is Us season 5 is delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Though the past four seasons have premiered in late September, the COVID-19 crisis has, unfortunately, thrown off the NBC show's schedule. That said, NBC recently announced that This Is Us season 5 will officially premiere Tuesday, October 27, kicking off with a two-hour episode. It was previously scheduled to come back on November 10, but got bumped up two weeks by the network.
This Is Us season 5 will tackle events happening in 2020.
In a talk with Good Housekeeping about his partnership with Survivorship Today, Sterling K. Brown explained that, like everyone, the Pearsons' world has been turned upside down this year.
"We will be addressing COVID, we will be addressing Black Lives Matter, and we're still maintaining the fabric of our show," Sterling, who plays Randall, revealed.
A new promo for season 5 confirmed the coronavirus storyline. In the new teaser clip, Kevin (Justin Hartley) is seen wearing a mask while walking to his car. We also see the moment Randall shows up and confronts Kevin at the Big Three's 40th birthday celebration — and it's tense, to say the least.
The entire cast should return (and include new faces).
Season 4 kicked off with the introduction of many new characters, so season 5 should also offer a mix of familiar faces and exciting newcomers. The staples on the show —Sterling K. Brown (Randall), Chrissy Metz (Kate), Justin Hartley (Kevin), Chris Sullivan (Toby), Susan Kelechi Watson (Beth), Milo Ventimiglia (Jack), and Mandy Moore (Rebecca) — will definitely be present. In the meantime, we’ll keep checking for hints of actors joining the cast.
Season 5 is the second to last season of the show.
We hate to see it go, but all good things must come to an end. We know this because showrunner Isaac Aptaker previously said the team was working on “three seasons in the future” while season 3 was airing.
"I would hope that when we reach our ending, people think it's a really satisfying end place that makes sense, and it feels like they've watched something that is a complete piece of work because that's really how we're trying to plan it," Isaac told Deadline. "We've had this end in mind for a long time, so we're able to plan for it and try to make it feel like it's a whole, as opposed to a series that's going to go endlessly."
We’ll see less Jack-centric storylines in future seasons.
As much as we love Milo, showrunners have said that it’s time to narrow in on the other characters’ storylines. In an interview with Good Housekeeping, Dan told us that most of Jack’s backstory unfolded in season 3.
“We are starting to move towards new chapters … with the Big Three,” he said about season 4. “Some of the more mysterious or dramatic pulls of the series might start falling into the hands of some of our other characters.”
Season 5 will be about "new beginnings."
According to what Dan told People after the season 4 finale, fans should expect a main theme of the next season to be "birth and rebirth."
"I’m very excited about, especially with where the world is right now, the uplift, and I would call it almost rebirth, that comes next season ... There’s going to be something big in the season premiere," he added.
Fans will see more about the Big Three's birth.
While we've already seen the Pearsons as babies and Rebecca and Jack in their days before kids, season 5 will revisit the Big Three's birth, according to what Milo told Us Weekly. In fact, since Mandy is pregnant in real life, he told the outlet the show will be "playing some of those notes up" as her "belly is growing."
There will be a focus on Rebecca's past.
With an upcoming move to St. Louis to begin the Alzheimer's clinical trial and the fallout of her two sons, Dan said the Pearson matriarch is in for a "challenging chapter." That said, this will also be the time we will learn more about Miguel and Rebecca's budding relationship.
"When we land in St. Louis with her, kind of exploring with Miguel … Here is the opportunity where we’re going to be bringing them in a location together and undergo this treatment that they didn’t necessarily plan on trying," Dan explained. "It will also allow us to get towards, which has always been the plan in the back part of our series, further understanding how their relationship bloomed, then stalled, then bloomed again and really getting inside their lives."
Randall and Kevin won't heal right away.
In the season 4 finale, Randall and Kevin engaged in a nasty verbal fight. Unfortunately, Justin told Entertainment Weekly that fans shouldn't expect the two brothers to reconcile immediately.
"It might take a bit. But they're brothers, this is not going to divide them until their deathbeds and they don't speak," Justin said to the outlet. "That’s how I took it to mean. But I think it's going to take a while."
There will be an "excavation" of Randall's past.
That is, according to what Sterling told TVLine.com. "I think it’s going to be a really soul-searching sort of thing," he added.
What's more, Sterling dished to Entertainment Weekly that he's really "excited" to explore this next chapter for his character. "It has to do with this exploration of past. In a similar way in which we went to Memphis [toward the end of season 1] to find out things about where he came from, his father’s family, etc., it’s going to be something very much akin to that."
A darker period for Kate is likely ahead.
When talking to Deadline, Chrissy spilled that she and Dan have talked about exploring some more secrets of Kate's past in season 5. And what viewers will see will be difficult.
“We’re going to find out even more in depth next season as to why she’s decided to, not necessarily use food, but use a substance — hers being food — because she’s been through some things that we haven’t, we don’t know [about] yet."
Further, she told People more about Kate's future journey.
"There is a story, a through line, coming down the pike about some experiences that shaped Kate as a woman, as an adult, that we haven't seen yet," she teased. She added that it's "trauma for sure."
There are so many ways to watch This Is Us season 5.
If you don’t catch the first airing, you can typically watch new episodes via NBC’s on-demand feature 24 hours after they air. The show will also be available for streaming at NBC.com/this-is-us/episodes.
The NBC app also has episodes you can download, and Hulu subscribers can stream an episode the day after it airs. There’s even a live TV function on Hulu that will allow you to tune in on your mobile device.
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