‘This Is Us’ Season 5 Episode 6 Spoilers: Why didn't Laurel meet William? 5 theories that will boggle your mind
What if you found your biological mother years after looking for her? Wouldn't you be touched after putting the missing pieces of the heartwarming tale together? ‘This Is Us’ will make you look back to a beautiful past in the next episode titled ‘Birth Mother’.
Last week, the episode ‘A Long Road Home’ ended with a call from Randall Pearson (Sterling K Brown) to Hai Lang (Vien Hong). In a dilemma, Randall asked him, “Do you mind if I ask you a blunt question? Laurel (Jennifer C Holmes) died of breast cancer in May 2016... My father William Hill (Ron Cephas Jones) told me she overdosed and died after my birth. Did he lie to me?” Clearing out the misconception, Hai remarked, “From what I know of the story... I believe he told you what he thought was the truth.”
When he was asked, “How exactly did you know Laurel?” Hai said, “We met in our 20s. I thought about telling you about her for so many years. I wish I could see your face. I wish I could show you the places she lived. The things she loved.”
While some are pretty annoyed with the flashback and carry-on, others seem to adore the twist. “I really enjoy the Laurel (Randall’s mother) storyline. So many families have secrets ... secret families, secret children. It’s sometimes not as clear cut why a parent may not be in a child’s life. I’m glad they wrote it out this way and not that she’s alive,” one fan said. The biggest mystery seems to be: Why didn't Laurel meet William?
Here are some intriguing theories from Reddit fans that will boggle your mind:
Did she go back to drug addiction?
One fan guessed, “I'm confused about why Laurel wouldn't have tried to find William once she was out of hospital? Or in fact wouldn't she also want to track Randall down as he was a much-wanted baby? Unless she went back to her drug addiction for a while.”
Another added, “I think she might not have trusted herself. She got clean and stayed clean for 9 months, but then she ODed even though she had every intention not to go back to it. She might not have felt it was fair to subject Randell to that possibility. If she got clean in jail she might worry that going back to William would lead to relapse once she got out.”
Was she in prison?
“One I am glad that Randall‘s mother is not alive but it’s stupid that she was ever brought back from the dead in the first place. It is likely that she probably went to prison for possessing drugs after being taken to the hospital so I can kind of understand why William didn’t know about it. The whole mother storyline is stupid though. She should’ve died giving birth to him.”
Another added, “I think she may go to either jail or court-mandated rehab.”
Did she think the baby was better without her?
“From what I remember, the EMTs didn’t give a rats ass even when they were trying to save her so I don’t think I’d put it past them to just leave her and assume she’d be fine because she’s an addict. And she could have assumed that William had left already and that she wouldn’t have had any credibility when claiming her child due to the drugs and how the EMTs found her. Maybe she thought the baby would be better if without her,” one fan said.
Did William have no money for the funeral?
According to one theory, “It was because of the drugs, William would have been arrested. Plus, they definitely would have taken the baby away. That kind of leaves a plot hole of why would he leave Randall at a hospital, but maybe he felt that he had more control over Randall’s life that way versus if he had immediately gone into the foster system? IDK, but there’s a reason he didn’t follow up. Plus, it doesn’t sound like either of them or their families had the money for a proper funeral.”
Is it a copied ‘finding William’ story?
Many fans don't seem to be too intrigued.
One Reddit fan said, “I join the group of people who are exasperated by this. While I am sure that Laurel will have her own storyline of what she was doing in the years since Randall's birth and it will probably be touching in some way, I am just straight up not interested. It feels like lazy writing, and like a repeat of the 'finding William' storyline which was so well done, it didn't need to be done again. If the writers wanted to include Laurel, then I think it should have been done alongside the William storyline (like, maybe Randall and William find out that she lived together and go on a journey to piece together what her life had been like?).”
The viewer continued, “To come back with it and repeat the 'I never met my birth parent but now I will explore my connection to them' now, several seasons later is just lazy writing and not engaging me. I get that Randall is struggling with his Black identity, and finding his birth parents juxtaposes how he was raised by a white family. But again, I just feel like this storyline has been done before, and I would instead love to see different ways that Randall can build his identity as a Black man and become more involved in the Black community. I feel like the possibilities are endless. I am to the point where I'm questioning if I even want to watch next week's episode. We'll see.”
What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
‘This Is Us’ premiered on Tuesday at 9 pm ET on NBC after the mid-season winter break with Episode 5 titled ‘A Long Road Home’ on January 5, 2021. Catch the next one Episode 6 titled ‘Birth Mother’ on January 12, 2021.