Some shows give you mysteries. Others give you villains, crimes or cliffhangers. This Is Us gave us the Pearsons. That was enough.
When This Is Us premiered in 2016, we knew fast that NBC had something special. Hollywood Outbreak covered the series throughout its six season run, spoke with its stars many times along the way and watched this fictional family become remarkably real to millions of people. The whole story is sitting there now, start to finish. There is no better time to experience it.
Just have tissues nearby. We mean that.
This Is Us binge watch starts with one of the best pilots ever made
Hard to talk about what made This Is Us work without going back to the beginning.
That first episode was one of the best pilots we had seen in years. On the surface, it looked like several separate stories about people navigating birthdays, relationships, careers and parenthood. Then the reveal hit. Everything we had just watched clicked into place differently. The show had pulled something off that most pilots never attempt.
It didn’t feel like a trick. It felt like a promise.
This Is Us wasn’t interested only in what these characters were doing today. It wanted to know how they got there. How their parents shaped them. How small moments ripple across a lifetime without anyone noticing until it’s too late. That became the engine driving everything.
Start with the pilot. You’ll know by the end whether the Pearsons have you.
The Pearson family: real enough to frustrate you
This is Us creator Dan Fogelman built this show around a family that was complicated, loving, maddening and imperfect. A real family.
Jack and Rebecca. Randall. Kevin. Kate. Through them, This Is Us explored adoption, race, marriage, grief, addiction, sibling rivalry, aging, identity and the weight of expectations that families quietly pile onto each other. None of it played as issue-of-the-week television. It played as life.
The show wasn’t only sad either. There were weddings. New babies. Running jokes that lasted seasons. Small victories that hit harder because of everything surrounding them. This Is Us could make you laugh and then pull the rug out before the scene was over.
That’s when the tissues came in.
The cast made every version of every character feel real
This kind of show only works if you believe the people at the center of it.
Milo Ventimiglia gave Jack a warmth that made it easy to understand why his ghost hung over everything. Mandy Moore played Rebecca across decades without ever losing the thread connecting all those versions of the same woman. Sterling K. Brown brought a full human being to Randall, not just the anxious overachiever the show introduced but someone capable of surprising you right up to the final season.
Chrissy Metz made Kate feel like someone you knew. Justin Hartley gave Kevin real depth under the surface charm. The younger versions of all three Pearson kids were cast and directed so carefully that watching a childhood scene could suddenly explain something about the adult you already cared about. Not flashbacks. Pieces being assembled.
Beth and Randall, Jack and Rebecca gave the series its heart
The romances earned their weight.
Beth and Randall worked because the show let them be difficult with each other. Real partnership. Susan Kelechi Watson built Beth into one of the show’s most essential characters and delivered some of its funniest lines along the way. Jack and Rebecca were never presented as perfect. We saw the arguments and the sacrifices alongside the love. That made the love story better.
We knew where it was going. This Is Us kept finding ways to make us lean in anyway.
Dan Fogelman knew when to stop
One of the reasons This Is Us works so well as a binge is that it feels finished.
Dan Fogelman cared too much about these characters to let the show drift. Six seasons gave the Pearsons room to grow and change without wearing out their welcome. The 2022 finale wasn’t built around a shocking twist. It was built around gratitude for a journey well spent with people who felt like they mattered. That tone is rare and it’s exactly right for this show.
Milo Ventimiglia on the show’s lasting impact
We spoke with Milo Ventimiglia many times during the show’s run, and it was always obvious how much This Is Us and its audience meant to him. He talked about the profound impact the series had on viewers and encouraged people to carry what they found in the Pearson family’s story into their own lives.
Click on the media bar below to hear Milo Ventimiglia talk about the lasting impact of This Is Us.
Where to watch This Is Us and why now is the perfect time to binge
Watching This Is Us as a binge is a different experience than watching it week to week.
You move from one timeline to another without waiting. Details stay fresh. Moments that feel small when they happen carry more weight when the show returns to them three episodes later. The whole thing breathes differently when you’re in control of the pace.
And yes, it is emotional. Deeply emotional.
But the people who reduce This Is Us to “the show that makes you cry” are missing the point. It made people cry because it made them care first. About marriages and parents. The gap between who you wanted to be and who you actually are. Those ordinary Tuesday moments that only become significant in hindsight.
That’s why it holds up. That’s why it remains such an easy recommendation years after the finale.
If the Pearsons have you, clear your schedule. Keep the tissues close.
This Is Us is available on DVD and digital platforms including Amazon and is streaming on Hulu and Tubi.
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