According to creator Dan Fogelman's interview with The Hollywood Reporter, This Is Us has so much more to unpack after it reveals the answer to the show's biggest mystery.
If you spent the majority of this week's episode of This Is Us ugly-crying over dads, dogs, and impending doom, well, you wouldn't be alone. Tuesday's "That'll Be The Day" finally gave fans the answer they were looking for, ever since it was revealed that Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) had died nearly 20 years before the present-day events of the show. Yes, the super dad did die in a fire, and it was started by the malfunctioning slow cooker Rebecca (Mandy Moore) used to make her Super Bowl chili.
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While we didn't see all of the events from the night Jack died, This Is Us has officially promised every single answer when the series returns for a very special episode on Super Bowl Sunday. But don't worry: Fogelman insists that seeing Jack's death won't mean the end of the drama on This Is Us. In fact, the show is barely getting started.
"It goes to a lot of places. We're not even at our halfway mark with the series and this was always the plan. There's a big plan for the series, and you'll see how that relates to Jack and this family in the Super Bowl episode," Fogelman told The Hollywood Reporter.
He added:
"[W]e're going to new places where people don't even know quite yet exactly where the show is going and what it's about and that's going to start revealing itself as we move forward."
This Is Us may have dropped clues as to what the next big mystery (or, at least, biggest plot point) could be. Remember how Jack actually has a brother, whom he seemingly served with in Vietnam? And remember how that brother was never mentioned, after the season 2 episode "Brothers?" Nicky could possibly be alive and well, and the next long-lost family member the Pearson clan has yet to meet.
There's also the possibility that the Pearson family won't be the only clan we'll explore. The show could always expand out to include, say, Rebecca and her parents, or continue to dive into Jack's life with his abusive father.
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(I'm also here to learn more about Audio. Just saying.)
But really, no matter what happens on This Is Us, we're guaranteed lots of tears and feel-good vibes — sometimes at the exact same time. Jack certainly left a legacy.