Just when you thought This Is Us may have been running low on twists, they shock us with another one. While it’s usually all about the flash-forwards, the season 5 premiere is all about flashing back. In the final moments of the season 5 premiere, we learn that Randall’s birth mom, Laurel, is alive! For the past 4 seasons, fans thought Laurel had died from a drug overdose. In the first episode of the series, William tells Randall that he remembered his mother “dying.” After that, no one really questioned Laurel’s fate.
The season 5 premiere flashback brought us back to when the Big Three were making their entrances into the world. After giving birth at home, Laurel is in so much pain. She’s been clean since getting pregnant, but she begs William for some drugs to deal with the pain. He gives in, and she ends up overdosing.
William, while holding baby Randall, watches as paramedics try to revive Laurel after the overdose. When they don’t get a response from Laurel, the main paramedic tells his colleague to stop performing CPR and call the time of death. Thinking Laurel is dead, William leaves with Randall and drops him off at the fire station.
However, at the end of the episode, the show flashes back to the paramedics and Laurel. Suddenly, one of the paramedics can feel a pulse from Laurel. The final moments zoom in on Laurel, and the last thing we hear is her taking a deep breath.
Now if she survived the overdose, that means she could be alive in the present day. If she is, did she ever try to look for Randall or William? Did William know she was alive? There are so many questions to be answered.
After William drops off Randall at the fire station, he ends up going to the hospital. He prays in the chapel and ends up passing by Jack in the church. They don’t acknowledge each other, but it’s pretty poignant to see Randall’s two dads at the same place and same time. This Is Us season 5 airs Tuesdays on NBC.