managed to deliver on its signature ability to simultaneously blindside, shock and delight its audience with unexpected, twisty reveals, causing viewers to buy in even as they’re dumbstruck. “It’s a weird magic trick that my group is very good at pulling off,” says Fogelman. “It doesn’t work unless you’ve got a fan base that’s willing to go on a ride with you, and this show continues to have an audience of people who tune in for that stuff.
We just tried to kind of continue working our regular life stories into the show. I was navigating having a first child in the middle of the pandemic, just as Kevin [Justin Hartley] was [on the show this season]. And I was going to doctor appointments with my wife, where I was sitting in the car outside, because only one person was allowed in at a time, the pregnant woman.
I was really pleased with how our writers, our actors and our whole crew executed those storylines. Whether it was Randall in the premiere, confronting his sister and his family on what was not seen in his childhood, through an episode that we really devoted to Randall trying to make Kevin see what he wasn’t seeing, those were really interesting pieces of storytelling that were unique to our show, unique to the season and unique to this moment in time.
It was an idea I had at the beginning of the season when I noticed how connected we were all becoming via Zoom and FaceTime during this weird moment in time. And when we pulled it off and people had that response to it — when that man, Nasir [Ahmed, played by Abhi Sinha], was trending on Twitter — that was a really rewarding moment for us as writers.
And those are the challenging moments. In this show, when you know you’ve done something that’s going to be successful and that’s also going to upset people, it’s a wild ride on your end … This was one where we knew we’re going to get a reaction. And it’s exciting to catch people by surprise and to get that chatter going at that level on the fifth season of a network television show.
Not a fan of the show. Couldn't make it past 2 episodes
Boring af.