‘This Is Us’ Will Revisit Memphis in Season 2

One of the best episodes of This Is Us‘ first season was “Memphis,” when Randall (Sterling K. Brown) drove his biological father William (Ron Cephas Jones) to see his hometown before his death. Creator Dan Fogelman assured fans that the show will head back to Memphis during season two.

Fogelman told Deadline Monday that Randall will find his way back to Memphis to reconnect with his biological family. He said a return trip there was in the cards for this season’s Thankgiving episode, but it was shelved when the writers decided to create three-episode arcs for each of the Big Three.

“We have a lot of real estate from Memphis, and we’ll find our way back there,” Fogelman said.

The creator also said there are plans to look into Randall’s birth mother, Laurel, who Randall believes died in childbirth. This issue likely won’t be dealt with this season.

Events like Randall visiting Laurel’s grave or finding more about her life “aren’t happening this season. But the construct of the show is that if we want to explore her back history, we don’t have have to send Randall to do it. We can just go into the story about his mother by going back in time and see how she met William.”

Brown, who won an Emmy this summer for playing Randall, told Deadline last month that there are plans to take Randall back to Memphis. He said they had to leave Memphis out of the Thanksgiving episode because it would have meant introducing too many characters in one episode.

“There’s a potential for it to exist in the future,” Brown said. “This season they’re almost done with breaking story on how we end in 2018. We’re shooting Episode 214 right now, and we have four more episodes. We’re shooting right here in Los Angeles at Paramount.”

This Is Us returns from its winter break on Jan. 9 on NBC.

Photo credit: NBC