"This Is Us," NBC's tear-jerker of a drama about the fictional Pittsburgh-based Pearson family, aired its series finale earlier this week.
The premise of the Emmy-award winning show, created by Dan Fogelman, is we are all connected. Chance encounters with strangers shape our future in ways we may never understand. I came to the show in the second season, curious about why my Facebook friends were crying every week.
Come on, nothing on network television can that intense, I thought. What I found was an accurate portrayal of a family that loved each other, yet still tiptoed around each other. After all, it's hard to be your authentic self when you constantly feel like you are coming up short. But when the emotional breakthroughs happened — and there was one every week — tears of relief flowed and flowed and flowed.
