This Is Us' Season 4 premiere was like a pilot to a whole new series

The A.V. Club

"The reason the big twist at the end of the This Is Us pilot worked so well is because no one was expecting a twist from a series that had been billed as a sentimental drama about strangers who share the same birthday," says Caroline Siede. "It’s a trick the series could only ever pull off once. So even though in many ways the season four premiere, 'Strangers,' feels a whole lot like that pilot, the experience of watching it is totally different. That episode was about introducing us to the complex emotional realities of a set of characters before landing at a surprising endpoint. This one is about using the complex emotional realities of a brand new set of characters to tease out a big reveal we all know is coming."

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