Ken Olin takes us inside the show’s penultimate weeper, “The Train.”
Last stop: total devastation.
you just got hit by a freight train.
Mandy Moore in ‘This Is Us’.Ron Batzdorff/NBC
This one was actually a passenger train, though.
If the family was soon to be contracting, it would also grow.
“Hey,” she said.
Justin Hartley, Sterling K. Brown, Chrissy Metz, and Mandy Moore on ‘This Is Us’.Ron Batzdorff/NBC
“Hey,” he said.
Beginning of more tears.
How did Rebecca (and William,andDr.
K) end up on this train ride of a lifetime (or should we say afterlifetime)?
What were the challenges in bringing this journey to life?
What lies ahead in the final hour?
Could there be a spin-off with that new family?
Where did it rank on the weeper scale?
But I think most of the time it was because it was saying goodbye to people.
The episode itself, it was so challenging from a staging perspective and stylistically.
And the last two episodes are kind of a testament to that.
Viewers saw Rebecca on a train in the season 6 premiere.
It was a metaphor that was based on the experience of one of the writers [K.J.
And then Dan started talking about it as a metaphor for the end.
I thought it was interesting.
I mean, it’s the most romantic.
And then visually it’s so rich.
So for me, there were little things that I wanted to do.
Our show has never been about showing off cinematic tricks.
I don’t think our show ever attempted to have a look.
So that was challenging because there had to be some element of it that was metaphoric.
It’s a couple of little things [cinematographer] Yasu Tanida and I would talk about.
But I didn’t wan to call attention to it.
How’d that guy become my brother all of a sudden?"
There’s an ethereal element of wonder and discovery.
Mandy even referred to as a little bit psychedelic.
Mandy and I talked: How do you act this?
And we both early on [were] like, “That didn’t feel right.
That felt a little too grounded and immediate.”
“Oh, wait, that feels too weird.”
And then you just find it.
Was it an obvious choice to have William be the conductor?
And what was it like to have Ron back for one last ride?
I don’t think Dan writes from this place.
I don’t think he would be interested in logically explaining to you why Ron’s the right choice.
It just was… right.
That’s so weird!"
And then the moment where he says “William,” you just go, “Ohhh!”
I mean, there’s just something beautiful about that.
He’s the kind of actor that when he’s in the zone, it’s magic.
And he has to find that.
And then that last moment I’m really proud of.
Do we do the iconic hat?"
Because there is no right or wrong.
It’s not like you go, “Well, wait a minute.
He would never do that.”
He also confides that he shared her fear that she almost died giving birth.
What was it like to build that scene at the bar?
And that’s what he does.
And it’s effortless.
He makes it seem effortless.
Yet somehow he brings the size of what he’s talking about to it.
He brings the emotion to it.
I mean, he could totally go there, but he doesn’t.
He’s so smart.
So it was phenomenal.
He takes you all the way to the most beautiful emotional moments and then…Nope!
That’s as far as I’m going.
I mean, that was great.
The episode ends with a Rebecca-Jack reunion, short as it is.
[Jack] was the love of her life.
So to have that moment at the end is just an affirmation of that.
And it’s wish fulfillment.
But I want to say, I think we earned it.
That they were meant to be together, and that’s where we leave it.
I don’t know, I think that’s one of the most incredible moments in television.
What was it like to bring all the different versions of Kevin and Randall together?
There was just so much going on in every one of those [scenes].
And then it was just that constant thing of figuring out some little activity or where they could be.
And it’s not a very big space.
But on the other hand, it’s so sweet, really.
As Deja says, “There are no rules for any of this.”
How much time did you spend talking about achieving that balance in this episode?
Dan loathes to be self-serious.
And I think that is just understood between us now.
Life is so dark sometimes.
And there is a way to deal with it.
At least I certainly think a way to deal with it is through humor.
And I know Dan celebrates that.
How and where do we land that so that it isn’t disrespectful or cavalier?"…
But at the same time, we didn’t this to be nothing but the Grim Reaper experience.
I think we achieved that.
Here, it’s a little awkward, but he seems pretty fine.
Was there something that the writers decided not to pursue, or were they keeping their options open?
We all knew that there was a clear decision that Toby and Kate weren’t together.
What does that mean?
I don’t think we knew exactly what his life was at that point.
We just knew that he and Kate weren’t together.
How surreal and eerie was it to return to the hospital on Super Bowl Sunday?
So for me there were just visual challenges that I had to deal with.
It didn’t feel that weird.
Mandy and I talked about it.
So some of that stuff came back on her.
How happy was Dan to be able to pull off one last twist before the show ended?
Oh, I think he was very excited.
He called one night and it was late.
I got it!"
He’s pitching this story, and it was like, “Okay, that’s good.
That’s good!”
He pulled it off.
He’s really good at that, and he loves doing it.
It’s not easy.
I mean, he’s tired.
Listen, he gave everything everything to this show.
I think it’s going to be much harder than he knows to cut the umbilical cord here.
Maybe in a year or two years he’ll go, “I was just thinking about this.
I was thinking maybe…” Right now he doesn’t want to go down that road.
What can you say about about the finale?
If there’s such a thing as a 45-minute coda, that’s kind of what it is.
There’s a wonderful celebration of some of the most beautiful, small moments in their lives.
And it’s uplifting.
It’s certainly affirmative about this family.
It’s really beautiful.
