It's been a while since we've hung out with the Pearsons on This Is Us, which is probably a good thing: We're going to need a lot of time to process that heart-wrenching season 2 finale. The sophomore season of NBC's breakout hit ended with multiple flash-forwards, showing plenty of drama ahead for network's most emotional family.
Yet there's another ending that This Is Us has in the works. The ultimate ending of the series is not only planned out, part of it has already been shot.
Yep, it's true. However many seasons This Is Us intends to go for, the series has already committed to at least a partial ending.
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The news comes from the show's FYC panel, where creator Dan Fogelman confirmed that the ending of the show has already been committed to film.
"I've already shot pieces of the final scene of the final episode," Fogelman reportedly said, per writer Karen Peterson's tweets from the event.
Discussing the overall direction of @NBCThisisUs :@Dan_Fogelman I've already shot pieces of the final scene of the final episode.@debrabirnbaum And you guys all know [how it ends]?@MiloVentimiglia: Yep.@SullivanTweet: I don't know ANYTHING.#ThisIsUsFYC
— Karen Peterson (@KarenMPeterson) May 30, 2018
The official This Is Us Twitter account also verified the news.
"We have a story to tell and we want to do this the right way." @Dan_Fogelman says he where he wants the series AND has already shot parts of the final scenes! ? #ThisIsUsFYC
— This Is Us (@NBCThisisUs) May 30, 2018
This isn't the first time a TV show has shot its final episode well in advance. How I Met Your Mother, for example, shot scenes from its controversial finale eight years before the ending aired. The reason was to make sure that Ted's future children, whom Ted was telling this story to, looked about the same age as in the pilot.
Which makes me wonder: Is that also the reason that This Is Us has shot moments from its finale? This Is Us hops back and forth between timelines regularly, with different actors portraying older and younger versions of the Pearson children. Perhaps the finale features a flashback with the younger generation of actors, which might explain why it was so important for Fogelman to have shots in the can: Kids grow up super fast, after all.
My secret hope is that we find out in the finale that Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) has secretly been alive this entire time, and that This Is Us is just his coma dream. Farfetched, but hey... that would explain the need to shoot the finale ASAP, right?