It’s been four months since the This Is Us nation had a good cry, but there were plenty of tears in the room at the show’s Emmy campaign event in Hollywood on Wednesday night, which ended with performances by Mandy Moore and Brian Tyree Henry. During a panel discussion with the show’s nine main actors, creator Dan Fogelman also shared a couple of (vague) season-two tidbits.
“The question that I’m being besieged about on a daily basis will be answered in the course of the season but that is not to say that new questions won’t start being asked,†said Fogelman, of Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and when fans will learn how the Pearson patriarch died. “The first episode of the season holds not all the answers but a huge piece of the puzzle.â€
Fogelman also had a message for fans: You think you know, but you have no idea. “Do you guys read everything online?†he asked the audience of mostly Emmy voters. “I don’t. My writers read a lot. I have not quite seen anyone in the vicinity of being right.â€
The evening was capped with musical performances at Le Jardin by the show’s composer Siddhartha Khosla, Moore, who covered Linda Ronstadt’s “Willin’,†and guest star Brian Tyree Henry (Atlanta) who played a musician and cousin of William (Ron Cephas Jones) in the road-trip episode “Memphis.†Henry’s Ricky won fans over with Khosla and Chris Pierce’s original song “We Can Always Come Back to This†on the show, and Henry himself brought the house down last night. Watch a full video of his performance below: