Ron Cephas Jones played William, Randall’s biological father, on This Is Us. He appeared in 45 episodes of the series and won two Emmys for his performance. Although he had many great speeches throughout his time on the show, one of his most powerful has recently been named one of the “Greatest TV Monologues of the Last 10 Years” by Collider.
The speech took place during episode 17 of season 6, which was the penultimate episode. It revolved around Rebecca, who was in the process of passing away. As her final moments arrived, she imagined she was on a moving train. The conductor on that train was William.
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As her final moments approached, she said, “This is quite sad, isn’t it. The end?”
He replied, “The way I see it, if something makes you sad when it ends, it must have been pretty wonderful when it was happening. Truth be told, I always felt it a bit lazy to just think of the world as sad, because so much of it is. Because everything ends. Everything dies. But if you step back, if you step back and look at the whole picture, if you’re brave enough to allow yourself the gift of a really wide perspective, if you do that, you’ll see that the end is not sad, Rebecca. It’s just the start of the next incredibly beautiful thing.”
Mandy Moore, who plays Rebecca, revealed that she was emotional when she read the script. Dan Fogelman, the creator of the show, told NBC, “The second-to-last script, I sent it to the cast, and it made Mandy throw up.”
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“It was beautiful [throw-up],” she added. “It was so beautiful and upsetting that that was my physical reaction.”
Fans also had a strong reaction to the show. When speaking about this episode, one reviewer said, “This episode should have been the finale. It was perfect.” Another said, “This is one of the best episodes of any show I’ve ever seen. The way it was told, the train metaphor, and the pure emotion had me sobbing by the end.”
Jones passed away in August 2023. He was 66.