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‘This Is Us’: The Philadelphia story continues in season finale

There were a satisfying number of revelations on Tuesday night as NBC’s "This Is Us" wrapped up its third season, including one with special meaning for Philly.

Susan Kelechi Watson as Beth, Sterling K. Brown as Randall in a scene from NBC’s “This Is Us," which healed a rift between the couple in Tuesday's season finale with a bold real estate move.
Susan Kelechi Watson as Beth, Sterling K. Brown as Randall in a scene from NBC’s “This Is Us," which healed a rift between the couple in Tuesday's season finale with a bold real estate move.Read moreRON BATZDORFF / NBC

This post includes some plot details from the season finale of NBC’s This Is Us.

There were a satisfying number of revelations on Tuesday night as NBC’s This Is Us wrapped up its third season with an episode that, among other things, involved some even sadder, age-ier makeup for Mandy Moore.

But here’s the one that got my attention: Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson) and Randall (Sterling K. Brown) are finally moving to Philly.

You might think, as I do, that this is something that should’ve happened well before Randall ran for, and won, a seat on City Council. Because they’re characters on This Is Us — in whose universe Council elections can be held in January and a candidate can live with his family two hours away in Alpine, N.J. — it couldn’t be that simple.

The episode even had an O.Henry twist in which Randall, after getting a stern, eloquent lecture from his daughter Deja (Lyric Ross), decided that rather than have Beth give up her dream job in a dance studio, he’d resign his seat before taking office. (With any luck, Deja, who really knows how to twist the rhetorical knife, will be writing all of next season’s shows.)

Beth, meanwhile, was two hours south, scouting Philly real estate.

Randall insisted he didn’t want to uproot her and their three daughters, but she persuaded him that she wasn’t giving up her dream, just moving it to the city, where she’d be opening her own dance studio.

“With what you want to do, we’re going to have to get a much smaller place than this,” Randall warned her.

“Guess it will be easier for me to find you then,” she replied, settling into his lap. “We don’t work when we’re apart. But together? Baby, together we set the world on fire.”

Personally, I think there’s been quite enough fire on This Is Us, but I appreciate the sentiment. And though I remain a little hazy about the exact location of Randall’s fictional 12th District, I’d be happy to help the Pearsons look for a new home.

Unless that North Jersey mini-mansion they call home is mortgaged to the hilt, I think they’ll be pleasantly surprised by what Philly has to offer.