Will Randall and Beth make it as a couple on ‘This Is Us’?
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — As much as it’s a relationship-focused family drama, the partially Pittsburgh-set “This Is Us” also keeps viewers tuning in with mystery. How did Jack die?
Will Kate have a baby?
Why is Beth running a dance studio in flash-forwards to the future?
That last question, at least, gets addressed in this week’s episode (9 p.m. Tuesday, WPXI-TV), a Bethcentric hour that should put star Susan Kelechi Watson in the running for an Emmy Award, an honor she’s fully earned since the show’s first season.
“[She] needs to be nominated for best supporting actor in a drama series [Emmy],” said co-star Sterling K. Brown, who plays Randall, Beth’s husband. “Not that she needs it; I need it for the tremendous work she’s putting in. To be her husband on screen has been such a joy.”
This week’s episode explores Beth’s past and how it influences her in the present.
“[Viewers will] see Beth when she was younger and what her passion was and how it motivated her in her life and the disappointments she’s had to deal with,” Ms. Watson said in an interview during the Television Critics Association winter 2019 press tour. “It informs who Beth is as a woman, and you’ll see that mother-daughter dynamic that can be so tricky for so many of us, that we’re not the same way with others as we are with our mom.”
Phylicia Rashad (“The Cosby Show”) guest stars as Beth’s strong-willed mother, which should also generate a guest star
Emmy nomination for Ms. Rashad, who’s never won an Emmy.
The episode boasts an amazing turn by young actresses Akira Akbar and Rachel Naomi Hilson as young Beth and teen Beth, who nail Ms. Watson’s mannerisms. The production even mimicked the mole in Ms. Watson’s eye by giving the young actresses molemarked contact lenses.
The episode also reveals that Beth and Randall first met during their freshman year at Carnegie Mellon University. (Co-producer Kay Oyegun, a 2010 University of Pittsburgh grad, said putting Beth and Randall at Pitt felt “too close to home” and CMU seemed like a better fit for the characters personality-wise.)
This season “This Is Us” has put Beth and Randall’s relationship in jeopardy with more scenes of the pair not getting along and questions about what flash-forwards to the future suggest about the ability of their relationship to endure.
“[This week’s] episode is not about their marriage, but it’s a jumping off point that really homes in on their marriage in the back half of the season,” said “This Is Us” executive producer Dan Fogelman during a visit to the show’s set on Stage 32 of the Paramount Pictures lot earlier this month. “Since Jack died, the No. 1 question I probably get is, are Beth and Randall going to be OK? Are they going to make it?”
Mr. Fogelman teased “complicated logistics” in the episodes ahead that are all part of his master plan for the series, which he’s mapped out from beginning to end.
“Listen, I know people don’t want Beth and Randall to have problems or get divorced,” he said. “I’m not going to make them get divorced just to mess with people, but I’m also not going to keep them together just because that pleases everybody. We have a story, and we know where it’s going, and we’ve very rarely strayed from that.”
Mr. Brown said even his real-life wife, actress Ryan Michelle Bathe (“One for the Money”), has told him Randall and Beth need to stay together.
“As a man who’s been married happily for 13 years this March, I can say even the best of marriages have their trials and tribulations, and my wife would echo that sentiment,” he said. “I’m happy me and Sue have the opportunity to represent for black love, and I hope folks aren’t disappointed with how it all goes down.”
As for the Pittsburgh of it all, this season “This Is Us” has referenced Franco Harris’ Immaculate Reception and more recently featured a model of Three Rivers Stadium. The Feb. 12 episode saw young Kevin meet a Pirates player.
“I was going though old files recently, and when I was 7 years old I wrote a letter to my favorite baseball player, Jason Thompson, who played first base for the Pirates, and it said, ‘My dad says you’re going to get traded, I hope you don’t, but you need to protect yourself.’ It was like advice from a little kid in little kid handwriting,” said Mr. Fogelman, who grew up in Bethel Park. “That became the basis for a storyline. We got to the reallife player and got his permission and tried to cast an actor who looked a lot like him.”
Still ahead for this season is an episode that presents like a play, putting characters together in one room, similar to the powerful family therapy session in season two.
Mr. Fogelman said Kate (Christy Metz), her pregnancy and the potential for a baby will be “a massive part of the rest of the season” along with a focus on the relationship between Kevin (Justin Hartley) and Zoe (Melanie Liburd).
As to when “This Is Us” may finally film scenes in Pittsburgh, Ms. Oyegun offered no update.
“When we choose to come to Pittsburgh — and I pray to God I’m there when it happens; I’m gonna go back to see my professors — it’s gonna be in a way that feels right,” she said.
Since the show already shot in Philadelphia this season, perhaps they’ll save Pittsburgh for a milestone episode, similar to how Seattle-set “Frasier,” also shot in Los Angeles, filmed in Seattle for its 100th episode.