Warning: this article contains spoilers from the season finale of This Is Us. Read at your own risk.
After all the tears of This Is Us fans have dried, series creator Dan Fogelman spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about the Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebecca (Mandy Moore)-centered episode, the latest twist in the show and what to expect from the next season.
In the episode, viewers got to see what Jack and Rebecca were like before they’d even met (Jack was a soldier who fought in Vietnam and Rebecca was an aspiring singer whose friends thought she should find a more realistic job) and, in the show’s 1990s timeline, viewers see the aftermath of Jack driving out to Cleveland while he was drunk to see Rebecca perform with the band.
The two ended up getting into their biggest fight to date when Rebecca realized that Jack had started drinking again and Rebecca suggested that he should stay with Miguel (Jon Huertas) for a little bit.
Fogelman said this is the ending for the first season that he’d been planning since he pitched the show to networks a year ago.
“From the very first pitch, this was the ending we talked about for the first season. There are a lot of questions as we leave this marriage in the most dire place it’s been,” Fogelman said.
Fogelman touched on the state of Jack and Rebecca’s marriage and said they’re at a “crossroads” in the marriage and viewers will find out next season how they handled those crossroads.
As for Jack’s death, which viewers are still in the dark about, Fogelman said “it’s not necessarily going to happen in a way that people may or may not be expecting.”
Fogelman also looked to the future, saying that there could be episodes that go as far back in time as when Dr. K (the doctor that delivered Kevin and Kate and helped persuade Jack to adopt Randall) was younger or even explore the times when Jack was serving in the military in Vietnam.
Even though the show has already been renewed for two more seasons, Fogelman isn’t sure how long he thinks the show will run for, as he said the decision isn’t up to him, but he did jokingly said that he hopes the show will go on for “100 seasons.”
Usually, the ratings from last night’s finale would be released by now. However, due to a weekend power outage at the Nielson’s center in Florida and this past weekend’s time change, there have been delays getting out the ratings for shows since then, according to TV by the Numbers. Last week’s episode of This Is Us scored 3.0 rating in the 18 to 49 demographic and was watched by 11.15 million viewers in the live and same day ratings, according to TV by the Numbers.