What else can ‘This is Us’ reveal about Jack’s cause of death?
January 26, 2018Warning: this post contains spoilers about this week’s episode of This is Us.
Well, we were warned. Tuesday night’s episode of NBC’s This is Us finally brought us to Jack’s last day. The show’s writers and creator, Dan Fogelman, have done a great job of keeping us guessing as to how the Pearson family patriarch, played by Milo Ventimiglia, would meet his end. As Milo recently told Entertainment Weekly, “I think the best thing I can say — or the worst thing I can say — is: It’s going to be f—ing painful.” If you guessed Jack’s demise came by way of “house fire,” you were right. As we discovered during Tuesday’s episode, an old slow cooker bestowed on Jack and Rebecca by their neighbors had a faulty switch, and started a fire in the kitchen. We left Jack fighting the flames. Not surprisingly, the show’s fans lost it on social media.
Dan also took to Twitter to commiserate with the fans, as did my beloved Randall, Sterling K. Brown.
As bad as I feel for the Pearson clan (and my fellow TIU fans), I feel worse for the poor public relations/social media team over at Crock-Pot, who had to provide a little crisis counseling to This is Us fans who hijacked a comment thread on a Facebook post featuring a delicious recipe for pork carnitas. Mmm… carnitas. Anyway some of the top responses to distraught home cooks from the brand included, “We’re heartbroken over last night’s episode, too!” and “Jack Pearson was our Valentine so we equally understand your pain with his loss. We love him and we love you too.”
Show creator Dan Fogelman also did a little crisis control for the cooking devices, tweeting that a “20 year old fictional crockpot with an already funky switch” was the culprit of the fire, not the “lovely hardworking” Crock-Pots we all have in our kitchens. Side note: this may be the first time this man has made me chuckle. It’s a nice break from ugly crying.
We didn’t really see Jack perish in the flames, he was still alive at the episode’s end, trying to get everyone out of the house. Maybe he used the fire to fake his death and he’s living on an island on Bora-Bora? I’m sure I’m not the only one holding out hope, but I think we all know the inevitable conclusion of this storyline. And if you think that you heard the whole story this week, think again. Check out the preview for the next episode and stock up on those tissues.
And I thought having to root for the defeat of the Patriots by my second most disliked team was sad enough. South Carolina news reporter Matt Dowell is new my spirit animal after this epic tweet.
Photos: Getty Images, WENN.com