The sixth and final season of This Is Us will premiere on Tuesday, January 4 at 9 p.m. on NBC and fans everywhere are getting ready to bid farewell to the Pearson family for good, and so are the folks behind the seasons.

It’s hard to believe it's almost coming to an end.

When I spoke to This Is Us executive producer (and frequent director) Ken Olin four months ago, we discussed the state of the pandemic, our love of NYC, and, of course, what to expect from the first half of the show’s second-to-last season.

“It made people genuinely sad that night,” Schitt’s Creek actress Jennifer Robertson tells me, recalling the night she shot Season 5, Episode 6’s “Rock On.”

Four months after my first conversation with This Is Us executive producer Ken Olin, a lot has changed.

When you have 20 minutes or so to chat on the phone with the executive producer and frequent-director of one of the top five most-watched TV shows in America, you make it count.