‘THIS IS US’ TAKES ON RACE, CLASS AND TEENAGE LOVE
LOS ANGELES—TWO high schoolers are testing their fledgling relationship with a day on the town, a classic start to a screen romance. But on Tuesday’s “This Is Us,” the carefree date in Philadelphia belongs to a boy who’s a teenage dad from a blue-collar household and a girl who’s been adopted from foster care into relative affluence.
The scenes and the episode circumvent typical network TV brushstrokes, offering a nuanced take on the African-american teenagers’ lives and on the cross-currents within black and multiracial families. Sterling K. Brown, the Emmy-winning actor who plays the girl’s dad, Randall Pearson, and the show’s makers are proud to share the results.
“I just love this sort of diaspora of African-american representation,” Brown said. “‘This Is Us’ is all about family and connection, and the world of the show continues to expand over the years. But it really does my heart good when, every once in a while, the show becomes focused on the African-american experience through Randall’s family, through these other families that we’ve added to the fold, and they’re not the same.”
The script was written by Kay Oyegun from an idea that series creator Dan Fogelman had been mulling. The inspiration: the chemistry between talented young actors Lyric Ross, who plays Deja Pearson, and Asante Blackk, a newcomer to the series as Malik. There’s also a touch of influence from a 1995 Richard Linklater film and its 2004 sequel.
Weighty themes emerged with the development of Malik’s character and his place in the story, but Oyegun sees the teens’ jaunt itself as remarkable.
The highlights, from sampling cheesesteaks and frozen custard to contemplating sites honoring the African-american experience, reflect Oyegun’s familiarity with and affection for the city that became home after leaving her native Nigeria as a child.
“You get this lovely romance between these two kids that we rarely see, that kind of space for young black kids that’s not surrounded by violence, hardness, pain or tragedy. It’s the simplicity of what it means to engage with someone you like, and in the most basic sense of the word,” said Oyegun, a writer on “Queen Sugar” before joining “This Is Us” at its start.
“This Is Us” remains among TV’S top-rated programs on its fourth year, ranking No. 5 for the season to date with nearly 12 million weekly viewers before time-shifted viewing is taken into account, according to Nielsen. It also nets the biggest increases among advertiser-favored young adults when viewership is measured over a week, NBC said. The drama, which deftly circles among multiple characters and their past and present, laid sturdy groundwork episode.
Making ethnicity an issue can provoke discomfort, Oyegun said, but it’s an important start.
“I’ll be very frank: A lot of white people feel uneasy talking about race. Black people talk about race quite often, mostly because it’s something that’s a part of our daily lives. One of the things that we wanted to do with this episode was to make it OK to talk about race, to destigmatize, normalize and begin a fluid conversation about differences and similarities.”