TV Talk: ‘This is Us’ spotlights Pittsburgh’s Jonny Gammage
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Please note: This article includes spoilers from the fifth-season premiere of “This is Us” that originally aired 9-11 p.m. ET on Oct. 27, 2020.
NBC’s partially Pittsburgh-set “This is Us” often imports real-life Pittsburgh, whether it’s references to sports figures, locations, characters dressed in Steelers gear or a 1970s-era visit to long-shuttered Downtown Pittsburgh bar Froggy’s.
But Tuesday’s two-hour fifth season premiere shined a light into the bleaker recesses of Pittsburgh history when Randall (Sterling K. Brown), reeling over the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, shares the story of Pittsburgh’s Jonny Gammage with Maliq (Asante Blackk), his daughter’s boyfriend, while sitting on the steps of his Philadelphia home.
“[Jonny] was the cousin of Ray Seals. Ray was a former defensive end for the Pittsburgh Steelers,” Randall begins. “Johnny was 31. He was driving home one night in this fancy car. Cops tried to pull him over for an expired registration. He ended up getting pinned down by five of them for resisting arrest. He died right there.”
Maliq says he and his father took a walk after the Floyd video came out, something they’ve been doing regularly since the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman.
“Growing up the way I did, I always felt like when stuff like that happened in the world, it always stayed outside the house. There were no walks,” replies Randall, who was adopted at birth by the white Pearson family. “Maybe it was too much for [my parents], I don’t know. But when Johnny was killed, I was older, so I watched it on my own. For a kid to be all alone with that, it was a lot.”
The show cuts to a scene of 15-year-old Randall in 1995 watching what appears to be real Pittsburgh news footage, including the glimpse of a KQV-AM mic flag.
“This is Us” writer Kay Oyegun, a 2010 University of Pittsburgh grad, brought Gammage’s story to the show. She’s credited with writing the two-hour premiere alongside Jake Schnesel and series creator Dan Fogelman, who lived in Bethel Park for a portion of his childhood.
“Jonny’s life and story has been on my heart for years,” Oyegun said this week. “Grateful to be able to share that.”
The moving and insightful Randall story of confronting his past and growing up Black in a white family continues in the episode’s second hour. Sister Kate (Chrissy Metz) tries to express her concern for Randall and his family in the wake of the George Floyd killing, saying she’s overwhelmed by what’s going on in the news: “I can’t even imagine what you guys are going through. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry about what?” Randall asks. “Specifically, what are you apologizing for?”
Kate, taken aback, stammers that she’s referring to “what’s going on in the country, the protests …”
“OK, but you’ve never apologized before,” Randall says. “And this isn’t the first Black person to be killed on camera.”
“No, it’s not,” Kate replies quietly. “I don’t know, this feels different.”
“Not for me, Kate,” Randall says. “We grew up in the same house. Things like this have been happening to Black people for years. And we’ve never talked about it. Not once, not once in 40 years.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Kate says. “I don’t want to say the wrong thing.”
“Growing up, I just had to keep so many things to myself, because I didn’t want to make you guys feel bad,” Randall says. “I didn’t want you to have to worry about saying the wrong thing.”
Kate acknowledges they never discussed systemic racism as children and defends her parents for doing the best they could.
“I hate seeing you upset,” Randall tells Kate. “And normally I would hug you. And I would tell you that you did all the right things. I would try to make it all okay for you. But if I did that, Kate, if I made things better for you, then where does that leave me? I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. That has been my pattern all my life. And honestly, Kate, it is exhausting. I’m exhausted.”
After that scene, Randall calls his therapist, played by actress Pamela Adlon, and tells her while he made a conscious choice to see a white, female therapist, there are things he doesn’t feel comfortable discussing with her, so he intends to find a Black therapist.
In a teleconference with reporters last week, Fogelman said it was important to get the first two hours of the new season on TV before the election, “not because they’re political, but because they’re difficult and then hopeful. And we felt it was important to us to just to put it on TV now with no agenda other than that.”
As for the show’s latest twist – that Randall’s bio mom (Jennifer C. Holmes) survived her drug overdose the day Randall was born, bringing another character back from the presumed dead, which the show already did with Jack’s brother, Nicky (Griffin Dunne) – perhaps the less said about that, the better.