This Is Us
After the Fire
TV Flash files “After the Fire” as hour 71 of 106 in the TV Flash guide — This Is Us (2016–2022) on NBC, season 4, episode 17, aired 2020-03-17, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S04E17: listed hour 71 of 106 in the This Is Us guide, hour 17 of 18 in season 4. It aired 2020-03-17 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “New York, New York, New York” (S04E16). Next is “Strangers: Part Two” (S04E18).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Randall reflects on what could have been.
Viewer FAQ
Where does After the Fire sit in the This Is Us guide?
S04E17 is listed hour 71 of 106 — hour 17 of 18 in season 4, season 4 episode 17.
When did This Is Us S04E17 air?
After the Fire aired 2020-03-17 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
Milo Ventimiglia’s Jack Pearson became This Is Us’s tissue-box patriarch — timeline gymnastics and ensemble tears as network event TV. Gilmore Girls charm graduated to spoiler-sensitive Monday gold. TV Flash keeps the fridge light on for…
- 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…