Wong: When he called and proposed that we write a rom-com together, I thought—because at the time no one had known me at all for acting—that he meant he wanted me to write something with him for him to star in with somebody else. Which is perfectly normal. That seems like a rude thing, but people ask that kind of shit all the time. I thought he wanted to be in something with Emma Stone or something. And I would’ve done it! And then he clarified and was like, “I think it should be a romantic comedy for you and I to star in together.” We just got to it.
This story is so distinctly Asian American. I was sitting in a screening room next to another Asian reporter, and as soon as we saw the Spam on the plate in the first scene, we both gasped. I grew up not seeing myself on screen at all in pop culture, so it’s still surreal seeing two Asian people fall in love.
Wong: I wonder what it’s like for non-Asian people to see that. I keep hearing people from people who are Asian American who are so excited to see it, and I wonder what it’s like for [non-Asians].
Park: It’s like growing up watching When Harry Met Sally. I put myself in their shoes.
Wong: But like, when would you ever see another Asian American couple hook up?
Park: Never. That’s a good question. I wonder if it has any effect on non-Asians.
Wong: The effect is that there’s been this whole online discussion about Randall being a snack. And then there are debates on whether he’s a snack or a meal. So there’s a revelation amongst non-Asian people about something that I’ve known for a very long time: Asian-American men are super sexy. And Daniel [Dae Kim] and Randall are like 50.
Park: I’m 45!
Ali Wong and Randall Park at an afterparty for the Always Be My Maybe premiere.
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Netflix
When you were writing the script, did you add little Easter eggs for Asian Americans, or was the whole movie just very Asian because of you two writing it and Nahnatchka Khan directing it?
Park: We didn’t come in thinking of that. For us it was really about making a good movie—a good rom-com that came from a real place. I think that’s where those elements made their way in because they came from our experiences, like Ali growing up in the Bay Area. A lot of those details kind of came in as we were making the film and filling up the world. The little details people appreciate weren’t written in the script.
Wong: To me, Marcus’ character is very much a type of guy that I grew up with. A very Asian American dude who grew up in the Bay and lives at home well into his 30s because of gentrification and rent is so expensive in San Francisco. They have this artistic passion and they’re not that ambitious because they’re third generation. Their parents don’t have that crazy immigrant mentality. That’s something I have never seen on camera before, but that’s something I very much grew up with. These guys were so sexy and confident, but they’re good, you know? They’re satisfied and not watching for anything more. And his dad is his friend.
Yeah, you usually just see tiger moms and overbearing immigrant parents in pop culture…
Wong: Right, and you haven’t seen that kind of Asian dad before. My dad was born in the United States. He didn’t have any accent, he was very progressive, and he journaled. He’s really into self-reflection. I know a lot of dads like that, and I have always felt like it’s a shame that they weren’t on camera. This is not the Asian American rom-com. This is an Asian American rom com. That’s an Asian American dad. That’s an Asian American guy I haven’t seen before. And that’s very exciting to me.
In that opening scene, Marcus doesn’t want to bring leftover kimchi stew to school. He says no one wants to sit next to a thermos kid, which is the stinky lunchbox problem that I imagine a lot of Asian Americans feel going to school with something that’s not just PB&J. What made that important?
Beth slept on the couch last night at the end of This Is Us‘ mid-season finale and, honestly, I was thrilled. Not because I want her and Randall’s relationship to fail, but because maybe Randall will now finally wake up from whatever’s been making him the worst for quite some time.
Seriously, what is up with Randall this season? If you’re caught up on This Is Us, then you know he’s hellbent on winning the city councilman election in Philadelphia—so much so that he’s now sacrificing the wellbeing of his family. Randall was hit with a harsh dose of reality last night when his campaign manager told him he just doesn’t have the numbers to compete with his running mate, Sol Brown. On top of that, his daughter Tess came out, and Deja, whom they just adopted, now wants to regularly visit her birth mother.
To me, all this pointed to Randall needing to drop out of the race and stay close to home. Beth—who was fired from her job and is going through it—even told Randall she can’t handle this family stress on her own. But his response was essentially, “Nope, I’m still doing this! Don’t care about your feelings, bye!”
Yes, it’s noble Randall wants to run for councilman, but his intentions are starting to feel increasingly selfish—at this point, it seems like he just wants to win the race. And I think he’s been like this for a while. Whenever Randall has some all-consuming idea, Beth is right there by his side with her support. Remember when he up and quit his job? Beth held down the fort so he could find his passion. When he wanted to buy a whole building, Beth was like, “Sure! We can afford that!” She’s always been Randall’s biggest cheerleader. Now it’s time for him to be hers.
PHOTO: NBC
Beth is clearly the one who needs support right now. When she told Randall she was fired, it didn’t sway or affect his councilman ambitions. He didn’t think to himself, “Maybe, I should take a backseat, find a 9 to 5, and let Beth figure things out like she did for me.” It was full steam ahead, no matter how she felt.
In fact, his solution to Beth’s feelings of inadequacy was hiring her for his campaign team. It always comes back to him and his needs, regardless of what he says to the contrary. After Randall told Beth he wasn’t dropping out of the campaign, she snarked, “You sure did learn how to talk like a politician.” She’s right! Anything he said about putting his family first was just lip service. When push came to shove—when Beth actually said, “Hey, I need you”—he failed. No amount of funny dad jokes or shirtless scenes is going to make up for that.
The men of This Is Us are frequently billed as perfect specimens, but it’s important to remember they’re all flawed. I’ll never forgive Jack for thinking he can buy a car without consulting Rebecca first, Kevin’s greatest asset is his abs, and Randall is completely self-centered. (Sorry, but he is!) In my opinion, the only way Randall can redeem himself is by quitting the campaign and committing to staying at home and fueling Beth’s growth. This likely won’t happen, though. He’ll probably just say some charming nonsense to make Beth temporarily forget she’s mad, even though her feelings are valid. Maybe he’ll go on to win the campaign, miraculously, and then find some other pipe dream that puts Beth’s desires on the back-burner. Again. But I really hope I’m wrong.
This Is Us season three will return January 15 at 9 P.M. ET on NBC.
This Is Us closed out the first half of season three with not one, not two, but three major cliffhangers for the beloved Pearsons.
After nearly a year of guessing, viewers found out that the “her” in question in the future is actually Rebecca, not Beth or Kate. “The reveal is one piece of the larger picture in terms of what happened with our family as we move through the rest of the series,” executive producer and co-showrunner Elizabeth Berger tells Glamour.com.
However, what wasn’t revealed was the state of Beth’s marriage to Randall or Kate’s marriage to Toby. Considering that both Randall and Toby aren’t wearing wedding rings in the future, what does that mean for the fan-favorite couples? “Everyone is going to have to see what becomes of them,” Berger teases.
And if that wasn’t enough to make viewers sweat, then the big reveal that Nicky Pearson is actually alive most certainly did. “Yes, there’s a lot going on,” executive producer and co-showrunner Isaac Aptaker says. “I can promise we’ll have some very satisfying answers in the immediate episodes when the show returns. It’s worth it.”
Until then, Aptaker and Berger do their best to explain everything that went down in tonight’s fall finale, and where the show will pick up in the new year.
PHOTO: NBC
Glamour: Nicky is alive! Who is the actor that plays him as an older man? It actually looked like it could be Milo Ventimiglia, but perhaps wearing prosthetics.
Isaac Aptaker: That’s top secret! But I promise you it’s not Milo with prosthetics. However, we’ll get the full story on older Nicky very, very soon. We’re going to be along with Kevin as he’s on this quest, with this little nugget of information he’s been given, to try and figure out what the story of his uncle was, and his whereabouts in the present day. We’re going to pick up on this right away, so fans won’t have to wait months and months. ‘All about Nicky ‘will be told by the end of the season.
Bradford, Pennsylvania (where Nicky now lives) is about a four-hour drive from Pittsburgh, so what significance does that town hold?
Elizabeth Berger: You may be seeing some version of that drive in the near future!
Aptaker: Bradford is actually a town where my mom grew up, and I’ve been there once, and it felt like exactly where I would have imagined Nicky would have settled down.
Is that how you decided on Bradford, PA then?
Aptaker: Yeah, well we knew the type of place, and I was like, ‘Actually, I’ve been somewhere that I think is perfect!’
What should viewers take away from the quick glimpse we got into Nicky’s life? Obviously we see him living a rather reclusive existence, and there is a bottle of alcohol on the table.
Berger: Obviously we’re not showing too much, but I think in the brief glimpse that we get, it’s someone that is living somewhat of a solitary existence, and like Isaac said, when we return we’ll find out the full story very quickly.
Is Nicky past the point of being able to acclimate himself into the Pearson family in the present day? Is he past the point of being saved?
Berger: That is a very good question. And knowing the type of family that the Pearsons are, you can guess that the Pearsons are probably going to want him to try and acclimate, and probably not be able to stay away once some of them learn about his existence. I think we’re going to be finding someone that has been living a very specific type of lifestyle, and there may be limitations there in terms of what he can do.
When might he meet some of the other Pearsons?
Aptaker: Kevin is pretty determined to get to the bottom of this story. He bought two tickets to Vietnam, so it’s all-consuming for him. I think it’s a matter of how long does it take to being told from a hotel clerk that your uncle is alive to actually tracking him down. I can promise that we’ll have some very satisfying answers in the immediate episodes that we come back with.
PHOTO: NBC
When did Milo first find out that Nicky was going to be alive, and what was his reaction?
Berger: We crafted our whole Vietnam arc [prior to] the beginning of the season and so as soon as we figure everything out, we let the actors in on it so they know the larger scope of what they’re playing. And I think he dug it. Milo loves the time period and he’s been having an amazing time working with Michael [Angarano, who plays Nicky].
Aptaker: He and Michael already knew each other and had worked on a project together, so they had a brother dynamic down so quickly. I went to their first day on set, which was that scene where Jack is working at the autobody shop and they are waiting to see the draft, and they felt like brothers instantly. They just had this dynamic that was so perfect.
What can you say about the Vietnamese woman? We obviously didn’t get the answers to who she is, but will we? How much emphasis should we put into who this woman is?
Aptaker: Honestly not a ton. For us, that was more a story of how, in life, you think you’re pursuing one thing, but it leads you to a much larger question that you didn’t even know you should be asking. In a little bit of a way, she was a MacGuffin [Ed note: essentially a red herring]. She was certainly important to Jack and they had that connection, but Kevin thought there was going to be this great, salacious love story with maybe an illegitimate child, and it turned out that ultimately this was more a story about brothers that he didn’t even realize.
Berger: But we will be learning a bit more about what happens with her in the past. Obviously, we still have so many questions about what happened actually during the rest of Jack and Nicky’s time together, and she obviously is involved [in their lives], so we will be getting a satisfying answer there in that time period.
Let’s move on to the question everyone has had since the season two finale: Who is “her” in the future? We finally see Beth in the future, so we know it’s not her. But when Beth says she’s going to visit Randall’s mother—thereby answering who “her” is—my first thought was that she was referring to his birth mother, and not Rebecca. Did you purposely want to make it unclear about which mother she was going to see?
Aptaker: You’re the second person that brought this up, especially because we thought, ‘Let’s just try to be really clear for once about who ‘her’ is!’ I guess we weren’t! That was not us trying to be clever. So [when Beth says she’s going to visit] Randall’s birth mother, she’s referring to Rebecca.
That makes sense,because otherwise why would older Randall call up older Toby (as he did in the season three premiere) to say “She wants you there, Toby,” if he was talking about his birth mother and not Rebecca.
Aptaker: That’s hilarious. Yes, we can answer the question that “her” is Rebecca, so that no longer has to be looming over people. And also, Beth is OK [in the future]. She has survived and is healthy and thriving in the future.
And as sad as it is knowing Rebecca is probably not doing well, at least we know that, for the most part, she has lived a long, healthy life. Is she in her eighties?
Berger: Yeah. Yes, that is true. There wasn’t some untimely death here, and this reveal is giving one piece of the larger picture, in terms of what happened with our family as we move through the rest of the series. It’s one little piece in terms of the larger plan that we’ve had in our minds since the beginning.
This must be hard for Tess, too, especially after seeing the touching scene she shared with Rebecca about her coming out.
Aptaker: Exactly. As young Tess was coming of age, Rebecca was clearly becoming such an important person in her life, and they developed a strong bond over the years and that would make it particularly painful for Tess to see Rebecca in whatever circumstance she may be in.
PHOTO: NBC
Speaking of the future, what kind of solace can you give to Beth and Randall and Katoby fans? Now we’ve seen both Randall and Toby not wearing wedding rings in the future, so either you guys have something against wedding rings or both men are not with their present-day spouses. This is very disturbing.
Aptaker, jokingly: In our future, jewelry is outlawed.
Berger: I think we can’t say too much on it. We have two incredibly strong, lovable couples that are going to be put through the pieces, and everyone is going to have to wait and see what becomes of them.
So should fans automatically not assume that Beth and Randall are divorced or separated?
Aptaker: I think you have to look at those scenes and make what assumptions and connections and guesses you want to make, because I would say we certainly haven’t shown them in any sort of affectionate, married way yet. We only know these very limited, very intentional moments that are [playing out] every so often, and it could certainly go either way.
Berger: I don’t think people should assume the best or worst. They’re just going to have to go on this journey with us a little longer.
There’s no way Beth and Randall split up over their argument involving his political future, right? They’re too strong of a couple for that.
Aptaker: I certainly don’t think they’re splitting up over that argument, but we’re over a decade into the future, so a lot can go right or wrong in the marriage in that much time.
PHOTO: NBC/Ron Batzdorff
How has Beth changed in the future? What are we meant to take away from that quick glimpse of her as the boss of a dance company?
Aptaker: Exactly. I think it’s a little bit of a head-scratcher right now for us, but it’s something that we’re going to be getting into the second half of the season. We’re doing an all-Beth episode that we’ll be starting to shoot in a week or two that will really dive into her backstory and give us a lot of answers about who Beth was before she met Randall. Once we explore that backstory, the future flash[forward] will start to make a lot more sense.
In the future, Beth’s assistant hands her a Pin the Tail on the Donkey game. Remind viewers how that played into Rebecca’s past.
Berger: It’s something that we showed in our birthday episode in season one, so the game is part of the Pearson family history.
Finally, what can you say about where we pick up in January?
Aptaker: We actually just watched the first cut of the episode and it’s a really, really cool one. We are going to pick up on election night for Randall, which is about an eight-week jump in our show. But then we’re going to go back in time. It’s one of our specially-structured episodes where we start on election night, waiting for the results to come in, and then we jump back and tell the story of those eight weeks we missed and catch up to where everybody is on election night.
This Is Us will return January 15 at 9 P.M. ET on NBC.
Tonight’s This Is Us episode was all about Randall, who is, hands down, the superior Pearson sibling. So, naturally, this episode was the best of the three centered around the trio. And by that, I mean it was gut-wrenching AF. Here’s what happened (spoilers ahead):
We open this episode with Randall being the Best Dad Ever. He cracks iPad jokes, helps Déjà with her school project, praises Beyoncé randomly—I’m ready to give Sterling K. Brown the Emmy right now. I don’t know which Emmy—just the Emmy.
But Déjà and Randall’s moment is interrupted by Déjà’s birth mother, Shauna, who shows up abruptly at the house and demands to see her daughter. She’s out of jail—the charges against her were dropped—and now she wants Déjà back. Of course, she can’t just walk out of Randall’s house with her daughter: She has to go through the social worker first. Oddly, though, it’s Déjà who has to tell her mother this, driving home the point that she’s actually the adult in their relationship. Oof.
Linda, Déjà’s social worker, tells Randall and Beth she’s recommending to the courts that Shauna receive custody. Understandably, they’re pissed, and they tell Linda they’ve hired a lawyer and will fight to keep Déjà in their house. It’s a tense argument, but Beth looks bomb as hell, which is all that matters.
Because everything’s connected on this damn show, Randall can’t help but have flashbacks to his relationship with William, who Rebecca purposefully kept out of his life for years. It’s clear he’s starting to have second thoughts about fighting so hard to keep Déjà from her birth mother. This is all so heavy-handed, but Sterling K. Brown can act his way out of a paper bag, so I’m here for it.
We then watch a flashback of William actually finding the Pearson’s house back in the day; he desperately wants to knock on the door and demand to be a part of Randall’s life, but he doesn’t. He tells Randall he didn’t think it was right to knock and blatantly go against Rebecca’s wishes. It’s honestly hilarious how cyclical this friggin’ family is. Like, in what world can you be like, “Wow, this exact situation happened to my father 25 years ago!” Ultimately, this causes Adult Randall to realize he and Beth can’t keep Déjà from Shauna. Surprise, surprise!
Their goodbye is emotional. I’m bawling. Adult Randall is the greatest human on this show. Randall and Beth jointly decide to foster another child again—and it’s implied a young boy is on their radar.
Cut to Teenage Randall: He’s thumbing through Ivy League college applications. It’s obvious Jack wants him to go somewhere fancy, like Harvard, but Randall appears to have an interest in Howard University, a historically Black college. (For context: We’re revisiting the same frame of time as the last two episodes—the events leading up to Kevin’s football injury.)
Randall and Jack arrive at Howard University for a tour. They meet Randall’s friend, Keith, who takes him for a “real” tour of the school with his friends, leaving Jack behind. I don’t know what the hell is about to happen, TBH. Randall is dumfounded at the fact there are no white people at the school.
In the car ride home, Randall explains to Jack that he feels out of place all the time. The implication here, I think, is that Randall doesn’t feel this way at Howard. It’s an awkward, emotional conversation, because Randall doesn’t want Jack to think he’s responsible for making him feel off-balanced. Jack seems to get it, though, but their moment is interrupted by the news of Kevin’s injury.
Adult Kate, Adult Randall, and Adult Kevin’s storylines have all lined up at this point, and we’re picking things up now with Kevin arriving at Randall’s house disheveled and strung out. Remember, we left things two episodes ago with Kevin about to tell Randall he’s an addict, but Randall interrupts with the news concerning Kate’s baby.
Randall immediately calls Kevin out for looking like “hell” and goes to call Kate. Kevin gulfs down a vodka-and-orange-juice—in the afternoon—hugs Randall’s kids and leaves abruptly.
But he’s not alone: Randall’s daughter, Tess, secretly sneaks into the backseat of Kevin’s car. He’s driving drunk—speeding and swerving like a maniac—is pulled over by a cop, and gets arrested for a DUI. All with Tessa in the back seat. Oh my God.
Parting thoughts: Enough with these whiplash endings, This Is Us!
