THIS IS US.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: TV

This Is Us, the addictive (or cloyingly annoying, depending on your ability to stomach unironic schmaltz about parenting, childhood, marriage, PTSD, and loss) program from NBC, launched its sixth and final season in January. The show's delivery of a multigenerational family soap opera via /.osf-style storytelling trickery and misdirection leaves many mysteries to be teased out between the tearjerker moments.

The most challenging such conundrum: Is Randall Pearson-the adopted black son who replaced a dead white triplet at birth--a true selfless hero or at least in part a selfimportant villain?

The show seems to accept Randall's superior wonderfulness; casting the enormously strong and charming Sterling K. Brown puts a heavy thumb on that scale. Still, could there be hints of a subterranean jaundiced attitude when he becomes a Philly city council member, likely on his way to...