‘This Is Us’ is ending with 6th season

Chrissy Metz and Sterling K. Brown, "This Is Us."
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

After five emotional years, it’s time to say goodbye to Kate, Kevin and Randall Pearson, the much-loved sibling trio at the heart of “This Is Us,” the family drama spanning multiple decades. The “This Is Us” final season has been announced, and season six will be the show’s last.

Although the news is hard for fans to take, it’s doesn’t come as a surprise. Back in 2019, when the TV show was renewed by NBC for seasons four, five and six, sources told The Hollywood Reporter that it was unlikely that it would be renewed beyond that.

In April 2019, showrunner Dan Fogelman told THR that the season three finale was the midpoint of the series.

“We’re roughly in the middle of where the television series is going to go,” he said. “We never set out to make a television series that was going to last 18 seasons, so we have a very direct plan. I have script pages I have written and I’m writing that really are deep, deep, deep into the future. We have a plan for what we’re going to do, and I know what the plan is.”

On May 14 — just a few days after THR first reported that season six appeared to be the final season — NBC confirmed that “This Is Us” was indeed ending. Fogelman tweeted, “While sad to have just 1 season left, also grateful to NBC for letting us end the show how, and when, we always intended.”

Fogelman and fellow showrunner Isaac Aptaker discussed their plans to end the series after six seasons in an interview with Deadline in 2019.

“From day one, Dan came in with his master plan for the big picture stuff of the show and said, ‘I think this is where we end up. I think this is what I know. Let’s figure out the rest together,'” Aptaker said.

And the “This Is Us” cast members were always really clear on Fogelman’s vision as well.

When Popsugar spoke to Mandy Moore (who plays matriarch Rebecca) in 2019, she said, “We’ve been told pretty much what happens next season and we know how the show ends, so it’s just whether or not it’s five or six seasons is what they’re deciding on right now.”

Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Moore, who recently welcomed her first baby with husband Taylor Goldsmith, said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly in October 2020 that season five was going to be “a mixture of things that are shocking, and some surprises that aren’t as much of a surprise to people.”

“Obviously there’s an intention of revealing things slowly and peeling back the layers of the onion, but I know there’s never an intention to misdirect people. It’s just like: Have you really been paying attention? Or: You just don’t know the fuller picture yet,” she said. “We’re just super-zoomed-in and looking at something on a micro level. And as we start to look at the macro picture of things, things get revealed. There’s a couple of things that I think people are going to be like, ‘Oh! Oh — oh. I didn’t see that coming.'”

If the rest of the show is anything to go by, the final season of “This Is Us” is guaranteed to pack a huge emotional punch. Get your tissues ready!

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Claire Gillespie

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