Tess Art at the End of This Is Us Season 2 Episode 14

In This Is Us's Super Bowl spectacular — literally chosen "Super Bowl Sun" — viewers finally learned how the man died. And so as the episode reached its conclusion, the series added yet another new timeline to its drove, so that nosotros might get to ponder how more than people died.

So much of the nail hit series' first season was taken up by questions nearly how Jack Pearson, the patriarch of the show'south cardinal family, perished — right down to when information technology happened — that it was something of a relief when the show's season two premiere offered what seemed like a adequately straightforward answer to the question: Jack died in a firm burn down.

Except ... not actually. The deeper into season two the show got, the more it teased out the exact circumstances of Jack's death, right down to an episode that prompted a response from Crock-Pot underlining the safety of the company's signature product. (The fire that sort of kills Jack starts because of faulty wiring in a ho-hum cooker.)

And the more the show teased, the less information technology could manage to be nearly anything but its central puzzle. The premise of This Is Us went from "A modern family deals with the struggles of contemporary life" to "At some signal, a man dies." Information technology was maddening to watch the series elongate this storyline, which left the impression that once it had revealed the details of Jack's expiry, at that place would exist no show left.

I don't know if that volition turn out to exist true. I hope it doesn't, because at that place are a lot of individual elements I like about This Is United states. But "Super Bowl Sunday" did nothing to dissuade me from my fears.

Jack dies not in the burn, but shortly after it, from cardiac arrest due to smoke inhalation

NBC didn't upload whatever photos of Jack and Rebecca from the episode, then here'southward i of Kevin trying to attain inner peace.

Ron Batzdorff/NBC

The assumption held past many fans — that Jack died because he went back into his burning house to save his girl Kate's domestic dog — turned out to be by and large true. (Kate revealed in the prove's outset flavor that she blamed herself for her dad'south death, and the dog seemed to be the easiest path between points A and B.)

Jack went back into the house to retrieve the dog — and, as it turned out, a family photo album and some beloved jewelry. (He spent so long in at that place and picked upwards so many items that I half expected him to likewise stop to grab his old nemesis, the Crock-Pot.) But he made it out of the bonfire alive, though he'd inhaled a agglomeration of fume. After going to the hospital to take his burns bandaged and his lungs checked, Jack ended up suffering catastrophic cardiac arrest due to all of the smoke he had inhaled. His married woman Rebecca, meanwhile, was purchasing a candy bar while her married man died.

There are some means in which this particular story indicate works, especially because information technology gives Mandy Moore (who plays Rebecca and is who emerging as one of This Is United states of america's strongest performers) plenty of big moments. Notice, for example, how Moore actually works with the candy bar that slowly becomes the last affair she wants to recollect near as the doctor (the corking Bill Irwin) breaks the news that her husband has died. The afterwards scene where she tells Miguel (Jack's old co-worker and Rebecca'south future second husband) what has happened to Jack is a dandy showcase for her as well.

Plus, for as pointlessly convoluted as Jack'southward death proved to be, I liked the way it allowed the episode to describe the slow-motion freight railroad train crash that is grief overwhelming a family as the news spreads from person to person. All of this was more than or less fine!

Simply here's the thing: Jack's decease has come to occupy such a place of centrality in This Is Us's mythology that I don't really know where it can pivot to from here. Season 2 has been a decidedly mixed bag in terms of finding other storylines to hook into, with fifty-fifty Randall and Beth'south struggle to navigate the foster care organisation being a little all over the identify. By stretching out Jack's death to fill two episodes (and, really, three if you count this coming Tuesday'due south funeral-centric hour), the show is not doing itself whatsoever favors.

"Super Bowl Sunday" was an incredibly strange episode to air after the Super Bowl

The episode'south big "twist" involves Randall and Tess.

Ron Batzdorff/NBC

Early during the broadcast of the episode, someone asked me on Twitter why the Pearsons didn't just have their family unit photos and other data backed up somewhere, and so Jack didn't hazard his life to save the photograph anthology. And while, sure, it would take been possible to practice something like that in 1998 (the year Jack dies), it's unlikely the Pearson family would have done something like that. And that'south when I realized that the person asking about backups, quite mayhap watching the show for the very outset fourth dimension, probable hadn't withal realized the Jack and Rebecca stuff was happening in the past.

This is the eternal peril of any mail service-Super Bowl episode of television. Exercise something that dives too securely into the weeds regarding a evidence's overarching storylines and you take a chance turning off casual or first-time viewers. Do something also disconnected from everything else and you chance griping from fans. This Is The states tried to split the difference, and it concluded upwards pain "Super Basin Sunday" as a whole.

Take Beth reminding Randall early in the episode of all of their struggles with the foster intendance organization. This is really non something she would be recapping for her hubby — he would already know — just information technology's probably adequate as a fashion to become new viewers on board with the characters' large storyline for the flavour. And if This Is Us had merely been about a very bad Super Bowl Sun in its characters' by, contrasted with their various (probably standalone) experiences on Super Bowl Lord's day 2018, information technology probably would have worked.

You lot tin can run into the bones of this construction throughout the 60 minutes. Present-twenty-four hour period Randall has a lovely chat with his daughter near how much she means to him, and present-24-hour interval Kevin tries like hell non to drinkable. Present-day Rebecca watches the Eagles vanquish the Patriots by herself, until Kevin joins her. (And the show swapping in bodily footage from the game that had simply ended was a neat pull a fast one on.)

Only eventually, these stories are all consumed by the need to make everything that happens in the present about Jack's death, which is now 20 years in the by. Yes, I buy that these people would nevertheless exist distressing nigh his expiry. And yes, I'm certain their sadness would manifest especially acutely on Super Basin Sunday (though, to be honest, the evidence'due south timeline around Super Basin Dominicus 1998 is a little tough to parse). Merely as some other famous TV drama once insisted, life goes on, right? This Is Us too often makes information technology seem as if the characters have been wandering around in a crater for the by ii decades, like peradventure the show is an accidental ad for the benefits of talk therapy.

This brings u.s.a. to the episode'southward big "twist," which reveals that the social worker who'due south been telling a young boy she's found him a new foster family unit isn't preparing him to meet Randall and Beth but is, indeed, Randall and Beth'southward oldest daughter, Tess, all grown up and working for the foster intendance arrangement in some capacity. The introduction of a new timeline — and new versions of characters we're already interested in — could work for This Is Us, but I'g already worried that the next episode will open with old Randall telling adult Tess, "You know, when your grandmother Rebecca died under circumstances we're nonetheless likewise emotionally delicate to talk about..."

This Is United states of america airs Tuesdays at 9 pm Eastern on NBC , with previous episodes available on Hulu .

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Source: https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/2/5/16972658/this-is-us-super-bowl-episode-14-recap