‘This Is Us’ Producer Dives Into That Emotional Vietnam Memorial Scene

This Is Us may have already aired its season two fall finale, but one of the producers is opening up and speaking about that emotional Vietnam memorial scene.

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, producer Isaac Aptaker was asked about the moving scene in which Jack and Randall bonded at the Vietnam Memorial.

“There’s definitely much more to come in terms of Jack and his Vietnam, but what’s special about the moment, it’s one of the first times that Jack is really talking to Randall like a man instead of a child, and confiding in him in a way that he hasn’t even necessarily confided in his own wife,” Aptaker revealed.

“It’s a very mature father-son moment. We’ve seen him calming Randall with his anxiety and taking him to the dojo, and making him go to the private school,” he then added.

“We’ve seen much more father doing parenting to a younger child, but that moment on the bench is really him relating to Randall, much more man to man,” Aptaker said.

Before the interview concluded, Aptaker was asked about another scene, which featured the family visiting the Howard college campus.

“It was so important to us that we filmed the episode at Howard because we really wanted to capture the visual storytelling of seeing Jack surrounded by people who are a different race than him, which is an experience that Randall [lived] probably 95 percent of life in, from childhood,” the producer explained.

“So, for Jack, he really is able to understand for the first time in a more visceral level — of course, it’s different but with the race flipped — what it feels like just to not look like everyone around you,” Aptaker said.