You're Gonna Have To Wait A While For The Next This Is Us Episode

Up until Season 5, This Is Us followed roughly the same schedule every year. It premiered in September, ran until Thanksgiving, took a winter hiatus, and returned in January to finish around March. Due to filming delays, Season 5 arrived at the end of October and then blipped on and off the schedule until May. As for Season 6, because it’s the final season, NBC decided to premiere in January 2022. But now the show is going on hiatus again, and fans need to know when This Is Us will return in February 2022.

Warning: Spoilers for This Is Us Season 6, Episode 5 follow. After spending Episode 4 with Jack in one timeline, processing the passing of his mother, Episode 5, “Heart and Soul,” brought fans back to the present and the more recent past, leaving everyone’s love lives on multiple cliffhangers. Kate and Toby slowly progressed toward their inevitable split, while Randall was forced to deal with the reality that Deja may choose Malik over him. In the most interesting development, Cassidy drew some super strong boundaries around her relationship with Kevin, cutting off any suggestion that they might wind up together, at least for now. And in the early aughts, Rebecca hit it off with single father Matt Dixon, leaving fans wondering how that relationship will proceed and how, exactly, she ends up with Miguel.

With so much left for Season 6, fans were unpleasantly surprised to learn Episode 6 will not be back on the air until the end of February. So, what gives?

The answer is the Olympics. Even though it feels like fans just watched the Olympics last summer (because they did), the Winter Olympics are about to get underway in Beijing, and NBC has the exclusive rights to air them. Starting Feb. 4 and running until the closing ceremonies on Sunday, Feb. 20, just about all primetime programming on NBC will be put on hold for fan favorites like figure skating, snowboarding, skiing, and curling.

This Is Us usually takes a break partway through the season, though as noted above, that hiatus usually happens at the halfway mark (Episode 9 or 10), so the show can pause for the holidays. This break comes at the one-third mark, but once it passes, fans will be right back to the Pearsons and see what happens next on This Is Us.

This Is Us: The Final Season will return to NBC starting Feb. 22, at 9 p.m. ET on NBC, with episodes streaming beginning the following day on Hulu.