Cue the waterworks because This Is Us is back — and it picked up a year after the pilot episode. So much can happen in a year. Kate (Chrissy Metz), Kevin (Justin Hartley) and Toby (Chris Sullivan) moved to Los Angeles, Randall (Sterling K. Brown) and Beth (Susan Kelchi Watson) talked about adoption and the cause of Jack’s death has finally been revealed — kind of.
At the end of the first season, Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebecca (Mandy Moore) got into a fight. Jack went to live with his friend Miguel (Jon Huertas) who is married to Rebecca in the present day.
The bulk of the drama in the season two premiere is delved out in the past. Rebecca and Jack spend most of the episode separated, but in the final moments, Rebecca showed up at Miguel’s house — and all of America swooned at the couple who tried to make a terrible marriage work. But Jack had to tell Rebecca he has been drinking again.
“I need to get a handle on it before I can walk back into that house,” Jack said before closing the door on his wife.
In true Rebecca fashion, she knocked on the door and told him to “get in the car.”
“You are my husband and I am your wife and if we have a problem we will figure it out together,” she said.
They had an emotional ride home, and then the scene seamlessly shifted to Rebecca, who was in a Steelers jersey, driving alone in the family car and wiping away tears. In the passenger seat was a plastic bag full of Jack’s belongings he would regularly have on hand. Rebecca pulled up to a house with “Pearson” on the mailbox. But something was different about it. Firefighters were stationed outside of the charred home that was almost completely destroyed.
From what this episode showed, it looks like Jack died in a house fire. But with This Is Us, viewers cannot quite take everything they see at face value. Last season, fans were adamant that he died in a car crash, but that never happened. What if the house burnt down without Jack in it and he died some other way?
The show did not explain what happened, so more information will surely be dished out in coming episodes. Time will only tell what really happened to Jack.
This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on NBC.
