This Is Us Season 2, Episode 13 Recap: "That'll Be The Day"

We’ve been watching This Is Us for a season and a half now, and we still don’t know for sure how Jack Pearson (Milo Ventimiglia) died. But last week, we were left with two big hints that the moment is almost upon us.

In this week’s episode, we join the family on the “last Pearson Super Bowl.” They’re calling it that because the kids will be in college next year, but there is an eeriness to it. In not-all-that-surprising teen fashion, the kids are all a little brutal to their parents in this episode.

Teen Kevin (Logan Shroyer) is having a tough time between his knee injury and Sophie (Amanda Leighton) going to NYU in the fall. He takes two quick jabs at his parents during the episode. First, he tells his dad that “no one cares” about his projects. Jack explains that it helps keep him busy while he’s focusing on staying sober. We later see Adult Kevin (Justin Hartley) doing the exact same thing at Randall (Sterling K. Brown) and Beth’s (Susan Kelechi Watson) new building. Teen Kevin also tells his parents he was “supposed to end up in a Super Bowl” not watching one. They immediately take offence, and Kevin storms out. Later, he calls to make amends, but doesn’t speak to his dad.

Young Kate (Hannah Zeile) has a tiff with her dad over him taping her singing. “I don’t see myself the way you see me. And no one else sees me like that either. So you saying stuff like that, it hurts.” she tells him. But, after watching the video back, she has a change of heart and tells him to never stop trying to make her see herself the way he sees her. It’s super cute, but you can tell the fight was harsh on Jack. That positivity with his daughter is something he prides himself on!

Teen Randall (Niles Fitch) is spending time with his new girlfriend. So cute! He does ditch the family Super Bowl plans to go see Titanic for the seventh time, though (that’s like 28 hours of Titanic). When he gets back from the movie, he bonds with his dad telling him that he kissed her. It’s a very sweet moment. While he doesn’t throw low punches like his siblings did, all three kids leaving on Super Bowl Sunday was brutal on Jack and Rebecca (Mandy Moore).

Once all the kids have gone to their solo plans, Jack and Rebecca have a truly sweet moment.

Rebecca surprises Jack by giving him a circled listing in the paper for a home that an old couple owns. They’re going to flip it together rather than Jack quitting his job and starting Big 3 Construction on a whim. They then have a sweet intimate moment and head upstairs, if you catch my drift.

After all of this, we finally saw the moment that everything changed for the Pearsons.

Before bed, Jack goes around and cleans up the house. Just little things like turning on the dishwasher, leaving Kevin a note, and turning off the crockpot. However, the crockpot shorts and quickly catches fire. The fire spreads throughout the house.

As we saw last week, the smoke detector is broken. At this point, probably every This Is Us fan ever is sobbing. We’re still left with tons of questions though, which will all be answered in next week’s episode.

It looks like Kevin and Sophie (Alexandra Breckenridge) are done. When he goes to make amends with her, she says that truly making amends with her would mean just leaving her with happy memories of when they were kids.

Kevin got his necklace back! He also still has to make amends with his dad, so we’ll see what that means.

Kate (Chrissy Metz) and Toby (Chris Sullivan) got a dog! Kate did mention how it would be a struggle for her though, so we’ll see how the dog ties into the fire. Maybe she saves the dog and it traps Jack?

Randall and Beth bought the building! There are definite bumps in the first day, but this new career seems exciting for Randall, even though he’s nervous. Them doing a similar project to Jack and Rebecca seems so sweet as well.