‘This Is Us’ Season 5: Fans Can’t Stop Thanking This 1 Person
After the Feb. 19, 2021, episode of This Is Us Season 5; fans cannot stop thanking this one person who was never even on the show. Viewers met several new characters during the episode that they had difficulty connecting with the Pearson family. By the end of the episode, their true identity was revealed, and now fans won’t stop sending their gratitude to this one man.
‘This Is Us’ Season 5, Episode 8 recap
This Is Us Season 5 is very different from previous seasons because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The writers had to change the way that the characters see each other. Randall Pearson (Sterling K. Brown) can’t fly across the country at the drop of a hat anymore. Instead, the producers incorporated technology into the episodes very heavily.
In This Is Us Season 5, Episode 8, Randall used video chat technology to keep Madison (Caitlin Thompson) company during her labor. They remained on the FaceTime call for hours until Kevin (Justin Hartley) finally arrived.
Since Toby (Chris Sullivan) couldn’t be in the delivery room, Kate (Chrissy Metz) introduced him to his new baby girl with another video call. Rebecca Pearson (Mandy Moore) met all three of her new grandchildren via FaceTime. The writers felt it was essential to incorporate how the world is coping with the pandemic into the show.
‘This Is Us’ cast two new guest actors for season 5, episode 8
To incorporate how every family relied heavily on technology to stay connected, the producers of This Is Us brought in two new guest actors. Abhi Sinha portrayed Nasir Ahmed, and Katie Sarife played Esther Ahmed. Many fans thought the two new characters might be related to Miguel (Jon Huertas). However, they were unrelated to anyone on the show.
Nasir Ahmed is an Indian-American electrical engineer, computer scientist, and professor who helped invent the Discrete Cosine Transform. In 1972, he believed that this new technology could be used for image sharing across the country or the world.
The end of the episode paid homage to Ahmed because he’s part of why friends and family can stay connected.
‘This Is Us’ is about COVID-19 but does it well
At first, fans were not happy that This Is Us incorporated COVID-19 into the season 5 storyline. However, the longer it goes on, the more fans appreciate how they weave in the pandemic. Many fans enjoyed the introduction of Esther and Nasir Ahmed, and they cannot stop thanking him.
“I loved the weaving of the Nasir story into the episode,” one fan wrote on Reddit. “It made it very personal for everyone who’s had to rely on video and photo sharing technology to get through the last year. That’s why so many were moved by the storyline.”
Other fans agreed that it was nice to see the writers and producers add in a real-life storyline.
“One of those situations when I was so thankful that they leaned into the reality of our current times,” another viewer added. “It’s been a while since I cried at this show, but I lost it at the end when they did that montage. Nasir has saved lives this year with his invention.”
