Sterling K. Brown on Randall s This Is Us Race Reckoning
Ron Batzdorff/NBC
The actor discusses his character s journey learning about his birth mother, the lessons of COVID-19, and being a Black child raised in a white family.
When
This Is Us first dove into Randall Pearson s back story in the Emmy-winning episode Memphis, the Los Angeles-based production packed up and headed to Tennessee as Sterling K. Brown s character explored the city where his dying birth father, played by Ron Cephas Jones, grew up. But as Randall learned more about his birth mother in season five, the COVID-19 pandemic didn t allow for travel to her hometown of New Orleans.
This Is Us just made fans ugly cry by gifting them with the second half of Randall s birth story.
In Tuesday s Birth Mother episode, Sterling K. Brown s character, a Black adoptee welcomed into the white Pearson family, was finally able to put together the missing puzzle pieces about his biological mother Laurel (Jennifer C. Holmes) and piece together the seasons-long Where do I come from? identity struggle. Get push notifications with news, features and more. + Follow
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Laurel was introduced to Randall through her last boyfriend Hai s (Vien Hong) retelling of her life experiences, and audiences saw flashbacks of her most pivotal life moments: Starting with her upbringing as a member of the distinguished DuBois family in New Orleans to running away to Pittsburgh to avoid an unwanted proposal and being incarcerated in
other half of his history.
Her story.
Tuesday s episode of
This Is Us bathed viewers in flashback emotion as orphaned-at-a-fire-station Randall (Sterling K. Brown) and his wife Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson) journeyed to New Orleans to learn what really happened to Laurel (Jennifer C. Homes), his biological mother who did
not die after giving birth to him, but rather lived a rich, painful, and extraordinary life.
In Birth Mother, Vietnamese refugee and Laurel s two-time love Hai (Vien Hong) unspooled a potent and bittersweet tale this was not
The Notebook, he cautioned of a woman told by her upper-crust father (Chi McBride) to marry a freshly promoted VP at his bank, when she was actually secretly in love with a fisherman. With a proposal looming, she fled town (alas, Hai could not leave his parents) and wound up on a bus to Pittsburgh, where, as you recall, she fell for William (Jermel Nakia), gave birth to Randall, and overdosed. She became a casualty of a racist syste
Viewers of the NBC drama react ahead of the standalone episode ‘Birth Mother.’ Spoiler alert: This article contains mild spoilers for the This Is Us Season 5 episode, “Birth .
Credit: nbc
Shortly after, the couple arrives at the blue and white house where fans previously saw Hai and his granddaughter together. Randall, welcome. It s nice to finally meet you in person, he says.
In last week s episode, the trio had a phone conversation about Laurel after Hai sent a message and an old photo of Laurel and William to the city councilman. The call led to an invitation by Hai for Randall and Beth to travel to New Orleans and see the city where Laurel spent the latter years of her life. Thank you for agreeing to this, Randall tells Hai.