Laurel's Story | "Birth Mother" with Writer Kay Oyegun (506)

That Was Us

Film Interviews, Tv & Film, Tv Reviews

4.9 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2026

⏱️ 88 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On today’s episode of That Was Us, we’re diving into Season 5, Episode 6: Birth Mother. This episode uncovers the long-buried story of Randall’s birth mother, Laurel. Randall and Beth’s journey to New Orleans reveals inherited grief, unfinished love, and through Hai’s retelling of his love story with Laurel, Randall releases the pain he’s carried his entire life. Plus, we're also joined by one of the writers of this episode, Kay Oyegun! Kay breaks down the writer's room experience on This Is Us, how they broke down important storylines, what it was like discovering Laurel's backstory, how she came to write for this show originally, and so much more! That Was Us is produced by Rabbit Grin Productions. Music by Taylor Goldsmith and Griffin Goldsmith. Executive Producers: Natalie Holysz and Rob Holysz Creative Producer: Sam Skelton Production Coordinator: Andrew Rowley Video Editor: Todd Hughlett Mix & Master: Jason Richards This is a ⁠Headgum⁠ podcast. Follow Headgum on ⁠Twitter⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠, and ⁠Tiktok⁠. Advertise on That Was Us via ⁠Gumball.fm⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a headgum podcast.
0:04.0	On today's episode,
0:06.0	On today's episode,
0:19.0	we're diving into season five, episode six, birth mother.
0:23.7	This episode uncovers the long-buried story of Randall's birth mother, Laurel.
0:27.5	Randall and Beth's journey to New Orleans reveals inherited grief, unfinished love,
0:33.0	and through Hye's retelling of his love story with Laurel,
0:37.0	Randall releases the pain he's carried his entire life.
0:41.8	What I've dedicated my life to is revenge.
0:46.7	A brand new drama based on the bestselling novel.
0:49.5	They think they're better than us.
0:50.5	Who do you think you are?
0:51.8	I'm going to prove to them that they're wrong.
0:53.5	She's punishing me.
0:55.0	You destroyed my family. I will not rest until I've destroyed yours. A woman of substance on Channel 4 starts tonight at 9. Sally, Mandy. Hello. How's going, game? How well? How are you guys? It's a special episode. It's a really beautiful episode. It's a really beautiful episode of television. We're going to get a chance later on in this episode to talk to the writer-director, which rarely happens for an episode of television.
1:17.7	Correct.
1:18.0	Right?
1:18.7	Kay O'Yegu, who is one of my favorite, favorite, favorite people who's been with our show from beginning to end.
1:26.9	From beginning.
1:28.3	About to be one of everybody's. She's so special.
1:30.3	She's absolutely wonderful.
1:32.3	And sort of like, this episode, because it's one of those things that I don't think a lot of people saw coming,
	...

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