‘This Is Us’: The Producers Reveal the Shocking Stories that inspired Randall’s home invasion
Tuesday night’s episode of This Is Us touched on something terrifying because it was so real. Sometimes the tragedies that occur on television are so far-fetched that we never think they will happen to us. However, the intruder in Randall’s (Sterling K. Brown) home was an authentic scenario for many viewers watching. Perhaps, it was incredibly accurate because it was based on real-life. Let’s take a look at who inspired the home invasion.
[Warning: This Is Us Season 4 spoilers ahead]
What happened to Randall on ‘This Is Us’ during the latest episode?
During Tuesday’s episode of This Is Us, we picked up right where the cliff-hanger from last week left off. Randall is standing in his kitchen face-to-face with an intruder wielding a knife. Somehow, the city councilman remains calm, cool, and collected. He tosses his wallet over and tells the man he doesn’t want any trouble.
Luckily, the criminal took the money and ran. However, Randall is considerably shook-up. With everything on his plate right now—trying to be the perfect son, father, and councilman—he might be at his breaking point.
Randall now has his back against a wall and is hopefully going to address his mental health in the coming episodes.
What inspired Randall’s Home Invasion?
The writers of the show were looking for a way to pull Randall from a place of coping with his anxieties on the surface to digging deeper. What could they do to set him over the edge?
“A couple of the writers in our room had had people break into their homes when they were home,” Isaac Aptaker told Entertainment Weekly. “People would come in, and we would see the impact that it has on you when someone invades your space like that — the aftermath and the fallout.”
They knew exactly how it felt to have an intruder in their homes. So, it was the perfect scenario to send Randall spiraling. The writers felt they could imagine what the break-in would do to Randall’s already delicate mental-health, since it was now firsthand experience.
Will the home invasion make Randall realize that he needs professional help?
Although the intruder shook Randall to the core, producer Elizabeth Berger indicates that he is not at the point of seeking therapy, just yet. What the producers do reveal is that he is going to open up more to someone about his mental health.
“He’s definitely at a point where he’s ready to reconnect with his siblings, and he’s definitely ready to find comfort there,” Berger told Entertainment Weekly. “And whether or not he’s ready to walk into a therapist’s office, he’s very intelligent, and it’s definitely becoming clear to him that he cannot go on the way things are.”
What is interesting about the producers’ comments is that we know that Randall is not on speaking terms with his brother, Kevin (Justin Hartley), nine months in the future. It seems like the two scenarios do not line up.
Next week we will watch Kevin’s perspective of the events we saw with Randall. We will also get to see what is happening in the actor’s life at the same moment that Randall has a mental breakdown. Tune in on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020, at 9 p.m. to NBC for more This Is Us.
