This Is Us creator on the midseason finale: "We're at the beginning, in this episode, of a very long complicated journey"

The Hollywood Reporter

"It's been part of the plan from go for this show, which is so much about six, seven and beyond decades of one family, when you really try to count backwards and forwards," says Dan Fogelman. "As a show that deals with time and nostalgia and memory, that was always part of the construct. In terms of how I had it planned, you're very much seeing on screen where I thought we'd be and how I thought it would feel at this point. What you can't plan for is — for my money, Mandy Moore is doing something on this television show that's beyond extraordinary as an actor. She is seamlessly — just if you look at this half season of television — switching between various ages and incarnations of a character to the point where you almost recognize the different ages of characters as different people and different constructs of people. It's extraordinary acting work she's doing, and you see it in this episode and you've seen it in other ages of the character and other episodes. As a fan of what she's doing right now, I'm interested and excited to see what comes next. It's beyond what I could have imagined." ALSO: Executive producer Isaac Aptaker breaks down the fall finale.