‘This Is Us’ Season 1B: Justin Hartley Teases Kevin’s Development, “Evolving” Relationship with Randall

‘This Is Us’ season 1B is scheduled to return on NBC on January 2017. Actor Justin Hartley, who plays the adult Kevin Pearson on the series, teased his character’s development in the series as well as his “evolving” relationship with Randall on the next half of the season.

According to TV Guide, Hartley talked about his character Kevin Pearson’s development on the show as well as more in store for him in the next half of season 1, specifically with his relationship with his brother Randall.

He said, “I'm looking forward to their reaction when they see what's in store for Kevin. I want to see how this play goes -- how successful or unsuccessful this play ends up being. I'm excited to see the evolution of his relationship with Randall. Also if he finds what he's looking for and how long that takes him, and where it was this whole time.”

When asked about Kevin’s development throughout season 1 of the series, Hartley replied, “For one, I think he's grown up quite a bit. I think he's taking responsibility for things. He's becoming a man of action instead of just sort of feeling sorry for himself.

He continued, “As far as the play goes, instead of just complaining about the play and not really wanting to do it, he's becoming a man of action where he decides that he's going to put up his own money and he's going to produce the play and do it the way he wants to do it. So he's becoming quite the problem solver, I think.”

Hartley also explained that Kevin’s pursuit for self-fulfillment may be anchored towards love and companionship instead of career success. He said, “I'm just not sure that he's aware of that yet. He knows there's something missing, he just doesn't understand that it's companionship.”

Season 1’s fall finale, which aired on NBC last December 6, brought in good ratings for the series. According to TV Series Finale, 10.94 viewers tuned in on the Tuesday air date. The episode, “entitled “Last Christmas,” was written by co-showrunner Don Todd and directed by Helen Hunt.

The episode followed the young Pearson family heading to the hospital for Christmas for Kate’s surgery. It was also full of twists and big reveals including William’s (Ron Cephas Jones) declaration of homosexuality as well as Toby (Chris Sullivan) collapsing in the process of hoping to win Kate back.

Creator Dan Fogelman addressed the episode cliffhanger during an interview with Deadline saying, “Well you’re gonna have to wait 3.5 weeks or so to find out what happened to Toby. Hopefully by now we’ve shown that we’re not scared to make a big choice. That said: the show has an optimistic underbelly. So I guess you could say there’s an argument that could be made both for Toby “making it” and “not making it.”

He also expressed his enthusiasm over the second half of season 1 saying that the next episodes will put more focus on specific characters and storylines.

‘This Is Us’ season 1B is scheduled to return on NBC on January 10, 2017 with an episode, titled "The Right Thing to Do."