Spoilers ahead for A Million Little Things Season 2. Fans know who Barbara Morgan is now, but her son remains a bit of a mystery. PJ wants to know who his real dad, and he's putting together the puzzle slowly. But he has way fewer pieces than Gary and Delilah and co. had when they solved the Barbara Morgan mystery themselves.
For background, Barbara Morgan is now Barbara Nelson. She's married to Mitch Nelson and they're raising Patrick "PJ" Nelson as if he's Mitch's son. But he's not. The show has led viewers to believe that PJ's real dad was Dave, Jon's college roommate who died in the September 11 attacks when Barbara was still pregnant with PJ.
In Season 1, viewers learned that Barbara married a firefighter in the wake of Dave's death and planned to raise her baby with him, because she didn't want to have to do it on her own. They never told PJ what happened to his real father.
However, PJ is one step closer to finding out now that he's connected to a couple of people who know Barbara's true story. PJ met Rome in Season 1 at the hospital and the two connected over struggling with their mental health. Rome eventually recommended Maggie as a therapist for PJ. In the Season 2 premiere, PJ attended his first session. But a couple of things stand in the way of these connections helping PJ learn the truth about Mitch.
For one, both Maggie and Rome know him as PJ, while Delilah knows him as Patrick. That nickname could stall any potential realizations from Maggie in her sessions that PJ is Barbara Morgan's son. PJ also didn't tell Maggie that he'd actually seen the video apology that Jon sent to Barbara. Without that context, Maggie may not put two and two together for a while — if ever. Even if she did come to that realization, she probably wouldn't be able to tell PJ, and she certainly wouldn't be able to tell the rest of the group. That would be a breach of her patient's confidentiality.
In addition to having seen the video that Jon left for Barbara, PJ has what appears to be his mom's photo album from college in the Season 2 premiere. Inside are pictures of Barbara, Jon, and Dave. It doesn't seem like the photos are labeled, though, so that might not help PJ in his search. He does have one other clue — a Harvard sweater like Jon's. Jon and Dave were college roommates so it could be Dave's sweater that Barbara never let go of, or it could even be Barbara's if she also attended Harvard with the two men.
It's also worth noting that PJ doesn't have the same context (or any context, really) for the situation that the adults in the show do. This is the part of Jon's message that PJ heard: "Barbara, as guilty as I felt for Dave getting on that plane without me, I felt even worse for what happened after between us. Not being there for you and the baby — I left you just when you needed me most."
That snippet alone could lead PJ to think that Jon is his dad and he left his mom when she was pregnant. PJ might be looking for clues about Jon without realizing that he should be looking for Dave. Or... should he? One Reddit user posited the theory that Jon really is PJ's father. With their matching dark hair, Jon and PJ certainly look much more similar than PJ and Dave look. (Dave is pictured on the far right in the below photo.)
PJ has dark hair like Jon, while his mother and Dave have light, wavy hair. It could be a red herring for the casting team to have PJ look so much like Jon, but the Reddit theorist mentioned above doesn't think it's a coincidence.
"The fact that he's named PJ (prob for Patrick Jonathan) instead of PD (Patrick David) and that he looks so much like Jon can't be a coincidence," Gingerblossom884 said. The Redditor also theorized that, since depression can run in families, perhaps PJ inherited some of Jon's own mental health struggles.
It's also worth noting that, in the finale of Season 1, Barbara intentionally didn't answer Delilah's question about whether she and Jon had ever been together. Barbara brushed past it and said, "I dated his roommate, Dave." However, it can be true that she dated Dave but also that she might have had a thing with Jon. It would mirror the cheating situation of Delilah and Eddie for Jon to have slept with his best friend's girlfriend. Maybe that's why Jon wasn't that mad about Delilah and Eddie. Maybe he understood how that could happen.
A Million Little Things Season 2 has only just begun and there are already so many questions. But it may take PJ a while to get to the answers since he doesn't even have the full picture yet. Expect this mystery to dominate throughout the season, hopefully providing some answers and closure by the finale. It's the least that viewers (and PJ) deserve.
