WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the Season 5, Episode 6, of This Is Us, "Birth Mother," which aired Tuesday on NBC.
This Is Us has never shied away from heavy subject material. Earlier in Season 5 the series addressed racial inequality and the Black Lives Matter movement as well as the current COVID-19 pandemic. Now, in the latest episode, the series draws attention to the prison industrial complex through the story of Randall's his birth mother, Laurel. Randall wants to know why Laurel never tried to find him or his birth father, William, after she recovered from a drug overdose following his birth. But he soon learns she was unable to connect with either of them for the first five years of Randall's life because she was in prison after being convicted for drug possession. In dramatizing her story, the series makes an emotional plea for the decriminalization of drugs.
Earlier in the season, Laurel died of her drug overdose, however it turns out she was miraculously revived by a determined EMT and then sent to the hospital to recover. Laurel had given up drugs and was completely clean for the duration of her pregnancy. She was committed to being a good mother to her son, but sadly, after the traumatic and unexpected home birth of her son, the pain is so great, she takes heroin for relief.
This decision caused Laurel to lose her lover, her son and her freedom all at once. When she dies, William flees with Randall, and overwhelmed at the enormity of losing Laurel, leaves his infant son at a fire station. Meanwhile, as she recovers alone in the hospital, Laurel is looked down upon by the nurses and then arrested for drug possession as soon as she's well enough to be taken into custody. She is offered no comfort and no compassion for her situation despite the fact that she clearly deserves and needs just that.
After her arrest, she has no way to contact William because they were too poor to afford a home phone and the police do nothing to help her get in touch with him by other means. With no one who cares about her there to help, she pleads guilty to the charges against her based on the advice of her lawyer, who assumes she will get a lenient sentence because it's her first offense. Unfortunately, the judge decides to sentence her to five years in prison, during which she is transferred all the way to California to serve her time where no one would ever think to look for her. Laurel was in a crisis and punished for her pain.
There have been many studies in recent years about the benefits, both socially and fiscally, of the decriminalization of drugs. Reducing the number of people incarcerated for minor drug offenses helps to alleviate the costs of prisons. Also, decriminalizing drugs can help users seek and receive treatment without fear of incarceration or retribution. Furthermore, drug laws have a more severe impact on the African-American community than other demographics so decriminalization alleviates that issue as well. In some ways, the process of decriminalization has already begun across the United States. In late 2020, Oregon became the first state to decriminalize all drugs. However, the process is slow and there is still some resistance to the idea. Of course, in the late 1970s and early 1980s when Laurel was facing charges, decriminalization wasn't part of the cultural conversation.
If Laurel had received compassionate care after her overdose and her addiction had been treated as a health concern instead of a criminal issue, it's possible William and Laurel could have reunited and been a family. Yes, Randall ended up being adopted by a loving family and went on to have a fulfilling life, but the unknowns of his past have also caused trauma. Meanwhile, William and Laurel had to live with their own trauma because of what happened. This Is Us depicts the terrible toll of not just addiction but the laws surrounding it in a subtle and illustrative way.
Created by Dan Fogelman, This Is Us stars Milo Ventimiglia, Mandy Moore, Justin Hartley, Chrissy Metz, Sterling K. Brown, Chris Sullivan and Susan Kelechi Watson. New episodes air Tuesdays at 9pm ET/PT on NBC.