This Is Us
Memphis
TV Flash files “Memphis” as a desk essential hour — This Is Us (2016–2022) on NBC, season 1, episode 16, aired 2017-02-21, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S01E16: listed hour 16 of 106 in the This Is Us guide, hour 16 of 18 in season 1. It aired 2017-02-21 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Jack Pearson's Son” (S01E15). Next is “What Now?” (S01E17).
Essential hour: “Memphis”. A different cloth enters the portrait. Randall's origin as a costume change the series has to live in.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Randall and William take a road trip to Memphis, where Randall learns about his biological father's past.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Memphis sit in the This Is Us guide?
S01E16 is listed hour 16 of 106 — hour 16 of 18 in season 1, season 1 episode 16.
When did This Is Us S01E16 air?
Memphis aired 2017-02-21 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Will I cry in episode one, or is that a rumor?
You may well. The pilot is designed as a reveal and a hug. If that sounds like a trap, it is also the contract. Later hours get more complicated; the first one wants your face.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Watch it as the last great network family portrait: aging makeup as a special effect, Monday tissues as a premiere ritual, and a Super Bowl hour that dressed grief like a national event. Sincerity, tailored. Not an accident of lighting.
The first look is a family that photographs like a campaign. Not a political one — a lifestyle one. Flannel, kitchen light, a Philadelphia house that understands cameras even when nobody in it is famous yet. This Is Us arrived on NBC in 2016 selling sincerity the way a fragrance launch sells memory: close-ups, timelines, a promise that if you stay, the portrait will complete. Mandy Moore's face is the long con of the costume department. You watch her age forward and backward until the latex becomes the point.…
Filed against
- Milo Ventimiglia as Jack Pearson
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- Mandy Moore as Rebecca Pearson
Mandy Moore’s Rebecca Pearson is the mother-as-campaign-image of This Is Us — flannel, kitchen light, aging makeup as the real costume plot on NBC’s Monday tissue ritual. Dan Fogelman’s family serial sold sincerity like a fragrance…
- Sterling K. Brown as Randall Pearson
Sterling K. Brown’s Randall Pearson made This Is Us a Monday premiere of American feeling — NBC’s family portrait, aging makeup as the real costume plot, Super Bowl as a national living room. On TV Flash he is sincerity, tailored: the…
- Chrissy Metz as Kate Pearson
Chrissy Metz’s Kate Pearson carried This Is Us’s emotional event TV — body, voice, and family fracture as network tissue-box prestige. Superstar ensemble tears needed her center in a portrait that photographed like a campaign. TV Flash…
- Justin Hartley as Kevin Pearson
Justin Hartley’s Kevin Pearson is This Is Us as an image campaign for American feeling — aging makeup as costume plot, Super Bowl as a national living room, a Pearson brother posed for the myth. NBC serial portraiture. On TV Flash he is…
- Susan Kelechi Watson as Beth Pearson
Susan Kelechi Watson’s Beth Pearson is This Is Us without the apology — NBC’s family portrait, Monday tissues as a premiere ritual, aging makeup as costume plot. On TV Flash she is the partner as a second spine: sincerity tailored, dance…