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MARY & BLAKE PRESENT

This Is Us Too.

Six seasons. One family.
A lifetime of stories.

The complete Pearson family guide, original podcast conversations, and the stories that stay with us long after the finale.

2016—2022SIX SEASONSTHE COMPLETE PODCAST ARCHIVE
Explore the six seasons Browse the podcasts ↓
THE PEARSON FAMILY

Six Seasons. One Family. A Lifetime Of Stories.

This Is Us begins with a family that was never supposed to exist exactly as it does. Jack and Rebecca expect three babies, lose one and bring Randall home. From that single day comes six seasons about parents and children, brothers and sisters, marriages and losses, the stories families tell about themselves and the things one generation unknowingly leaves behind for the next.

Mary & Blake covered the Pearsons throughout the original run of the series on This Is Us Too, with weekly recaps, reactions, listener conversations and plenty of arguments around the kitchen table. This page brings that original archive together with our modern season guides and story analysis.

If there is one idea connecting all of it, it is this: families give us stories before we are old enough to understand them. Growing up means deciding which parts we carry forward.

YOUR SEAT AT THE TABLE

Where would you like to begin?

Whether you're here for the pilot, a favorite conversation, or the final goodbye, there's a place for you.

01 / NEW TO THE PEARSONS

This Is Us Season 1

The pilot, the Big Three, Randall finding William, Memphis and the season that shows how the Pearson family became a family.

Start Season 1 ↗ 02 / PULL UP A CHAIR

This Is Us Too

Go back through our original episode-by-episode conversations, recorded while the Pearson story was still unfolding.

Explore the podcast archive ↗ 03 / FULL SERIES SPOILERS

The Ending Explained

Rebecca, The Train, Kevin, Kate and Randall's futures and why the ordinary moments matter most in the final episode.

Read the ending explained ↗
THE STORY UNDERNEATH

What Is This Is Us Really About?

On paper, This Is Us follows Jack and Rebecca Pearson and their three children — Kevin, Kate and Randall — across multiple decades. The series moves freely between childhood, adulthood and the family's future, allowing events separated by years to sit beside one another until we understand how one became part of the other.

But the real subject is inheritance. Not simply money or genetics. Emotional inheritance. Family mythology. Traditions. Fear. Addiction. Ambition. The strange ways children spend their adult lives responding to decisions their parents barely realized would become important.

Jack and Rebecca create a family. Kevin, Kate and Randall experience three different versions of it. Eventually, they become the generation responsible for deciding what the Pearson story means after the people who began it are gone.

THE COMPLETE COLLECTION

One family. Six chapters.

Six different questions about what it means to belong to the Pearsons. Every season guide holds the episode stories and their companion podcasts.

This Is Us Season 1 artworkSEASON 01 2016–17 · SEASON 1How The Pearson Family Became A Family

Jack and Rebecca expect one family and build another. Randall finds William. Kevin tries to become more than The Manny. Kate meets Toby. “Memphis” breaks our hearts. “Moonshadow” reminds us that even the great Pearson marriage had to be built one imperfect choice at a time.

Explore this season This Is Us Season 2 artworkSEASON 02 2017–18 · SEASON 2The Same Family, Three Different Childhoods

Kevin, Kate and Randall grew up under the same roof but did not experience the same family. The season explores Kevin's addiction, Kate and Rebecca, Randall and Deja, Jack's alcoholism and the devastating night the Pearsons lose their father.

Explore this season This Is Us Season 3 artworkSEASON 03 2018–19 · SEASON 3The Lives The Pearsons Never Knew

Kevin goes looking for Jack's hidden history in Vietnam and finds Nicky. Beth confronts the dream she left behind. Toby's depression becomes impossible to ignore. The season asks what happens when we discover that the people we love had whole lives outside the part we knew.

Explore this season This Is Us Season 4 artworkSEASON 04 2019–20 · SEASON 4The Strangers Who Change Everything

Malik. Cassidy. Adult Jack. Marc. Madison. The season begins and ends with “Strangers” because the people who eventually become essential to our lives usually enter the story as people we do not know yet. Meanwhile, Rebecca's diagnosis begins changing the future of the entire family.

Explore this season This Is Us Season 5 artworkSEASON 05 2020–21 · SEASON 5When The Story You Know Isn't Enough

Randall discovers Laurel's story. Kevin and Randall finally confront the childhood they remember differently. Kate revisits her past. Nicky moves forward. Madison forces Kevin to confront what he actually wants. The Pearsons learn that an incomplete story can still contain truth.

Explore this season This Is Us Season 6 artworkSEASON 06 2022 · SEASON 6Who Carries The Pearson Family Forward?

Rebecca's decline, Miguel's devotion, Kate and Toby's divorce, Kevin finally finding home, Randall's future, “The Train” and the final transition from the generation that built the Pearson family to the children responsible for carrying it forward.

Explore this season
SIX SEASONS, SIX QUESTIONS

What does it mean to be a family?

The question changes as the Pearsons do.

01

How does a family become a family when almost none of it happens according to plan?

Season 1 ↗02

How can three children grow up in the same house and remember three different childhoods?

Season 2 ↗03

What happens when you discover the people you love had whole lives you never knew?

Season 3 ↗04

Which strangers are about to enter your life and change the shape of your family?

Season 4 ↗05

What happens when the family story you inherited turns out to be incomplete?

Season 5 ↗06

Who carries the family forward when the generation that created it is gone?

Season 6 ↗
HANDPICKED FROM THE ARCHIVE

Conversations worth coming back to.

Six episodes that capture what made the Pearson story—and talking about it together—so special.

Browse every episode ↗
THE MARY & BLAKE APP

Bring the whole conversation with you.

Follow your favorite shows, catch up on the podcasts, and stay connected to Mary & Blake wherever you listen.

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This Is Us series finale sceneFULL SERIES SPOILERS
THE STORY AFTER THE STORY

What Does The Ending Of This Is Us Really Mean?

This Is Us does not end with a giant final twist. Rebecca dies in “The Train,” leaving the finale free to ask a more important question: what remains after the people who built a family are gone?

The answer is hidden inside an ordinary Saturday, the Big Three talking after their mother's funeral, Deja carrying William's name into another generation and Jack reassuring Rebecca that death does not mean she is leaving her children.

Our complete ending explainer breaks down Rebecca's train, Kevin, Kate and Randall's futures and why the smallest family moments become the show's final argument.

Read our full ending explained
WHY THIS STORY WORKED

This Is Us Was Never Just Trying To Make Us Cry

Yes, the show knew exactly where the emotional pressure points were. It had no problem using a hospital room, a family photograph, the right song or Milo Ventimiglia looking at one of his children like they were the only person on Earth.

But reducing This Is Us to emotional manipulation misses why the structure worked when the series was at its best. The timelines allowed cause and consequence to occupy the same episode. We could watch a parent make an ordinary choice and immediately see the adult who had spent thirty years living inside it.

That is where the show became more than a collection of sad moments. It was interested in the strange mathematics of family: how one person's fear can become another person's wound, how one improvised tradition can survive for generations and how people can love one another completely while still getting important things wrong.

The Pearsons mattered because they were not a perfect family. They were a family trying very hard to understand what their love had actually done to one another.

THE ORIGINAL THIS IS US TOO PODCAST

Go Back To The Kitchen Table With Us

Before we knew how Jack died, before we knew who “her” was and long before Rebecca boarded The Train, Mary & Blake were talking through This Is Us one episode at a time.

Those original This Is Us Too episodes are a time capsule of the show while it was unfolding: theories that turned out to be right, theories that absolutely did not, listener feedback, personal stories, disagreements and the emotional reactions that only exist when nobody knows what comes next.

The original podcast episodes continue below. If you are looking for our modern, organized guide to a specific season, use the season guides above. If you want to hear what we thought while the story was actually happening, pull up a chair and start digging through the archive.

ALL EPISODES111 recordings · Most recently published first
ABOUT MARY & BLAKE

Why We Covered This Is Us

Mary & Blake make podcasts and write about the television, movies and stories we cannot stop talking about. Our conversations mix immediate reaction with character analysis, storytelling craft and the personal experiences that make certain stories land harder than others.

This Is Us was especially suited to that kind of conversation because the show was constantly asking viewers to bring their own families to the table. Sometimes we loved what the Pearsons did. Sometimes we thought they were completely wrong. Most of the time, the interesting part lived somewhere in between.