NBC THIS IS US -- "The Fifth Wheel" Episode 211 -- Pictured: Chrissy Metz as Kate -- (Photo by: Ron Batzdorff/NBC)
It may be Tuesday, but unfortunately, everyone’s favorite NBC show won’t be on TV tonight. Fans are going to have to wait another week for a new episode of This Is Us.
This Is Us will return for its winter premiere next week, January 9, at 9/8c, in an episode titled “The Fifth Wheel”.
The show was initially set to return to television tonight, January 2. Halfway through December, however, EW announced that NBC had decided to delay the winter premiere one week. It’s unclear why that decision was made.
When we left off, Deja and Randall were taking some impressive leaps in their father-daughter relationship… until Deja’s mother showed up at their house, saying she’d been released from prison and that all her charges were dropped.
Deja was clearly excited to see her mom. Wanting to keep everyone from getting ahead of themselves, though, she warned they’d need to go through a social worker and that the process could take time.
Pictured: Justin Hartley as Kevin
Flashbacks throughout the episode allowed us to get a better sense of Randall’s adolescent and teen years. We learned more about the intricacies of his relationship with Jack; how both felt alienated and isolated at one time or another. Randall’s reflecting about his own relationship with his father led to him taking drive through Shauna’s neighborhood.
Eventually, he and Beth came to understand they’d have to say goodbye to Deja. The tear-wrenching farewell involved Shauna coming to the Pearson’s home to take her daughter back. While embracing her foster dad in a hug, Deja told Randall, “You know I don’t want you to think that just because I want to go home doesn’t mean that I don’t like living with you.”
As the episode drew to a close, Kevin was pulled over and arrested for a DUI. Little did he know, Tess was in the backseat of the car– she snuck in without him knowing. Randall and Beth were livid, unsurprisingly.
EW interviewed Sterling K. Brown about the midseason finale. Asked how Randall is going to process the news of Kevin’s addiction, the actor said, “… 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, because when you think about the nature of memory, everyone tends to highlight those things that reaffirm their own perspective of truth. And Kevin, Kate, and Randall all have their own different versions of what their childhoods were that shaped who they are, and then they have very different ideas of how other people perceive themselves.”
Be sure to tune into the winter premiere of This Is Us next Tuesday, January 9, at 9pm ET/PT on NBC.