‘This Is Us’ Season 5 Episode 4: Will Randall's viral shirtless clip help him meet his birth mom Laurel?
“Invisible threads are the strongest ties...” Friedrich Nietzsche once said. ‘This Is Us’ beautifully portrays that sentiment by connecting the past, present and future together. Ever since Season 5 began, it left us with a big piece of the puzzle that doesn't really fit in. Before this season, the beloved NBC show never really peeked into Randall Pearson (Sterling K Brown) before he entered the Pearson family.
Through the last four seasons, we meet his biological father William "Shakespeare" Hill, but we never really know what happened to his birth mother, Laurel. Adding several shocks and surprises in the first four episodes, the series hints at a new twist. Randall's birth mom Laurel (Jennifer C Holmes) could still be alive.
The last episode ‘Changes’ began on a beautiful, sunny morning as a little girl named Linh (Brandilyn Cheah) innocently asked her grandpa Hai (Vien Hong), “Do fish sleep?” Restless and jumpy, she couldn't wait to catch a fish and head back home for lunch. The Vietnamese grandfather and his over-inquisitive granddaughter are somehow connected to the Pearsons — specifically, Randall Pearson (Sterling K Brown).
The photo frame at the end of their conversation left a huge mystery hanging in the air after Hai confessed, “I learned to cook because I wanted to impress someone very close to me. I will not tell you who I cook for but I will show you how I cook for her.”
But, before we jump to that, let's take a look at the fourth episode ‘Honestly’. The one-hour drama adds a fun element with Randall in a jovial mood. Cracking lame puns and cheesy dad one-liners, he makes his daughter Deja Andrews (Lyric Ross) blush. Confused between solid or striped ties, he asks for Beth's (Susan Kelechi Watson) help. "It's very cute you want to look good for your protégé," Beth cleverly comments. Defending himself, Randall remarks, "I'll think of him as my apprentice." It's clear the two are talking about Malik Hodges (Asante Blackk). Randall goes to Deja and jokes Malik has decided to shadow with a person "whose name rhymes with Gandall Gearson!"
Malik enters and while he is six minutes late, his suited-booted look does impress everyone around. Deja gives him a piece of advice: "Don't talk about us, don't talk about me, don't talk about you... Actually just don't talk at all."
While at work, Randall gives his speech as the City Councilman on the live stream. To his horror, Malik is busy on another phonecall and forgets to switch off the live stream once Randall's speech ends. Unknowingly, Randall does a funny little dance while stripping off his clothes on the video which is being streamed to thousands of people. Shirtless and sexy, Randall's antics make onlookers stare at their screens and it soon collects over 100,000 views. At the end of the episode, his clip goes viral and we see Hai catching a glimpse of it while staring back at Laurel's photo.
Woah! Does that mean the shirtless clip will help Randall connect with his birth mother? While that could bring a huge change to the show, there are still many unanswered questions. How did Laurel meet Hai? Why didn't she ever try to contact William again? Did William know about her and never tell Randall about it? Or would it be a poignant sad story that would break our hearts?
As of now, we don't even know if Laurel and Hai were romantically involved. She could even be a close friend or a loving acquaintance he helped. And if they are lovers, Randall has a niece. What will his reaction be when he finds out? Teasing the storyline, creator Dan Fogelman told Entertainment Weekly, Randall's storyline will turn “very, very funny,” and yet somehow yield “another good piece of Randall mother puzzle.”
In Fogelman's words, the Vietnamese grandfather will “play a large role in our story,” and connect Randall to his birth mother, Laurel, who as it turns out, did not die of a drug overdose soon after giving birth to Randall. “In short order, a full, beautiful story is going to be told,” he said. “I think it will be a satisfying and elegant answer to a lot of stuff, as opposed to something that necessarily begs more questions.”
After a high-octane premiere, “It was important to us to land back inside of our show and settle for a moment with these simple family stories that start setting up some bigger stuff that's to come,” he explained. “When we come back on the other side, we have some pretty giant and quite specialized episodes. So this was an opportunity for us to [put] our families in simple stories that progress our plot but are filled with heart and warmth, and with sweet endings.”
The two-hour episode of ‘This Is Us’ premiered on Tuesday, October 27, at 9 pm ET on NBC. Following the four episodes, the beloved drama will return after a two-month break in January.