The series follows the lives of siblings Kevin, Kate, and Randall (known as the "Big Three"), and

their parents Jack and Rebecca Pearson. It takes place mainly in the present and
uses flashbacks to show the family's past. Kevin and Kate are the two surviving members of a
triplet pregnancy, born six weeks premature on Jack's 36th birthday in 1980; their brother is
stillborn. Believing they were meant to have three children, Jack and Rebecca, who are white,
decide to adopt Randall, an African American child born the same day and brought to the same
hospital after his biological father abandoned him at a fire station. Jack dies when his children
are 17, and Rebecca remarries over a decade later to Jack's best friend Miguel. Randall
becomes a successful finance professional and marries college classmate Beth; they raise two
daughters and adopt a third. Kevin becomes a successful actor while struggling to be taken
seriously. After lacking direction much of her life, Kate meets and marries Toby, pursues a career
in music, gets a degree, and becomes a mother.
Most episodes feature a storyline taking place in the present (2016–2019, contemporaneous with
airing) and a storyline taking place at a set time in the past; but some episodes are set in one
time period or use multiple flashback time periods. Flashbacks often focus on Jack and Rebecca
c.1980 both before and after their babies' birth, or on the family when the Big Three are children
or adolescents (and played by two sets of younger actors); these scenes usually take place
in Pittsburgh, where the Big Three and their parents are born and raised. As adults, Kate lives
in Los Angeles, Randall and his family are in New Jersey (and later Philadelphia), and Kevin
relocates from Los Angeles to New York City and back again. Various other time periods and
locations have also served as settings, and some episodes have focused on the earlier
experiences of other characters, including Randall's family members William, Deja, and Beth.
Beginning in the second season, the show also uses flashforwards to show a later time period,
when Randall's daughter Tess is an adult and an elderly Rebecca is on her deathbed.