We're Truly Shaken by This Last-Minute This Is Us Twist—and the Newest Character
Tuesday's This Is Us season 4 premiere introduced a number of new characters, and waited until the final act to explain their connection to the Pearsons.
The most mysterious of all was Blake Stadnik's character, a blind musician, whose role was not revealed at all ahead of the episode airing.
In the final moments of the episode, we learn that Stadnik's character is Jack Damon, the adult son of Kate and Toby.
Three years ago, This Is Us became an instant phenomenon thanks to its unforgettable pilot episode, which introduced a bunch of seemingly unconnected characters who share the same birthday, and only revealed in the very final moments of the episode that they were all related. That emotional twist ended up setting the tone for the entire show going forward, and Tuesday's season 4 premiere, "Strangers," mirrored the pilot, waiting until the very end to reveal how all of these people connect to the Pearsons.
We've known for a while that season 4 would introduce several major new characters, played by actors like Jennifer Morrison, Omar Epps, and Asante Blackk. And the season premiere turned out to be focused heavily on the new players, with most of the show's main cast appearing only briefly. One of the biggest new characters introduced in the episode—played by Blake Stadnik—hadn't been revealed in advance at all, for reasons that became clear in the powerful final scene.
Stadnik's initially unnamed character is a struggling musician with an adorable dog named Sam. He's blind, but able to see some light and shapes. Early in the episode he meets a waitress named Lucy (±±Auden Thornton), and opens up to her about his creative struggle. "I'm hungover because last night I was writing a song, and I realized I completely suck and I'm gonna be playing cocktail lounges and country clubs for the rest of my life," he says. Let's see, shall we?
Throughout the episode, Stadnik's character is also shown composing a song with lyrics all about the experience of meeting a stranger, which echoes Rebecca's words to Jack in an earlier scene. "It's so strange, isn't it?" she says. "How just like that, a complete stranger can become such a big part of your story. It's actually kind of terrifying, you know? How a single cross with one person you've never met can change everything."
In a series of quick glimpses, the episode covers what appears to be several months or even years, as Stadnik's character and Lucy fall in love, get engaged, and discover they're expecting a baby. More importantly, Sam the dog gets gradually bigger and more floofy, which is how we know for sure that time is passing. It's not clear what year any of this is happening in, but the setting seems contemporary.
And then, in the final scene, everything falls into place. In the present day timeline, Kate and Toby visit a doctor who tells them that their baby son, Jack, will be blind but able to see some light and shapes. Sound familiar?
Just as we make the connection, Stadnik's character is introduced by name for the first time as Jack Damon—just as he walks out onto the stage of an auditorium packed with screaming fans to perform the finished version of his "Strangers" song. And just to triple the emotional impact, that scene is intercut with two others: in 1972, Rebecca serenades Jack in a bar after a truly horrifying night with her parents. In 2019, Kate and Toby bring baby Jack home from the hospital, and are greeted by a beaming Rebecca. And in an undefined year we're going to call 2045 for now, Jack Damon performs to a crowd of adoring fans, having found the level of success as a musician that his mother, and grandmother, always dreamed of. I'm not crying, you're crying!
And here's an extra tidbit that makes this casting even cooler: Stadnik is visually impaired in real life. Per The Los Angeles Times, the actor was diagnosed with juvenile macular degeneration when he was 6 and also has Stargardt disease, a disorder affecting the light-sensitive cells in his retinas. Despite being legally blind, Stadnik built a successful career as a theater actor in New York, and is now starring in one of the biggest shows on television. Huge props to This Is Us for casting a visually impaired actor to play this role, because representation matters!
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