Kevin's New Love Interest On 'This Is Us' Will Be At The Center Of All The Drama

If you fell in love with Beth's cool cousin Zoe during the This Is Us Season 2 finale, you're in luck. The actor who plays Zoe on This Is Us, Melanie Liburd, has been promoted to a series regular for Season 3 and fans will be seeing a lot more of her, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Fans first met Zoe at Kate's wedding where she was working as the wedding photographer. And in just one episode, she made herself a pretty central character.

First she gave a glimpse into Beth's childhood for the first time, revealing that she and Beth grew up together after Zoe's real mom left her. That story also helped Deja (temporarily) adjust to her new normal of living with Randall and Beth knowing that her own mother isn't going to be in the picture anymore. Zoe also hit it off with Kevin, and we saw in a flash forward at the end of the episode that the two began dating and were on their way to Vietnam to learn more about Kevin's father.

Season 3 will pick up with all of these stories and more, but Kevin actor Justin Hartley hinted that it won't be all smooth sailing for the new couple. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Hartley answered questions about Zoe with a lot of questions of his own.

"Do they fall in love quickly? Are they friends? Are they lovers? What’s going on with that?" he said, before adding that Beth, who is not Kevin's biggest fan, may not approve. "It’s not going to go over [well]. What do you think it’s going to be — smooth or rocky? I think rocky. Rocky’s more fun."

Whatever happens in their love story, fans will get to see it all play out soon. Co-showrunner Elizabeth Berger told The Hollywood Reporter, "When we come back, we're going to be embarking on a new chapter with them, sort of discovering their romance and their relationship, and figuring out what they are. We can expect to see her for a while."

Liburd's promotion to series regular won't be her first time as a regular on a TV show. IMDB shows that the talented actor has been in a range of projects from television to film. Recently, before taking on This Is Us, Liburd appeared in Netflix's Gypsy as Alexis, a personal assistant. She also played a regular on SYFY's Dark Matter as Nyx. Before that, she appeared in the drama film Double Play — about a high stakes game dominoes — as Solema. She also had a role on Game of Thrones as one of the Red Priestesses.

Now she'll be dedicating her craft to playing Zoe, a character who comes at a really pivotal time of Kevin's journey. As fans saw in Season 2, he's done the least amount of processing about his dad's death, and this trip to Vietnam to learn about Jack's time at war is a big deal.

As Bustle's Taylor Maple previously pointed out, Zoe is Kevin's first real relationship since he and Sophie broke up. The fact that he trusts Zoe enough to take her on this meaningful trip shows that he's made great strides in his own personal emotional journey and is ready to let someone else in.

Now that Season 3 is poised to show fans even more of their relationship, we'll get to see just how much Kevin has grown and how much he owes to Zoe for helping that happen. They already seemed to be a great fit from the one Season 2 episode we saw, so Season 3 should only hammer that point home.