Mandy Moore Says ‘This Is Us’ Episode 5 Will ‘Destroy People’


Mandy Moore says viewers may want to stock up on the tissues ahead of this week’s episode of This Is Us. Moore, who plays Pearson matriarch Rebecca on the hit NBC drama, told E! News that this week’s show will be beyond a tearjerker.

“I feel like the fifth episode is going to destroy people,” Mandy told E! Online.

“Milo and I watched it the other day and I was—I was beside myself. I got to my car 20 minutes later and just started bawling by myself after I had cried right after. It’s a lot to take in.”

Mandy Moore’s teaser seems to point to the upcoming storyline about what happened between her character and her husband, Jack, played by Milo Ventimiglia. In a previous interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Mandy revealed that the story behind the demise of the Pearsons’ marriage will be a heartbreaker.

“You’ll find out more as to what happens to Jack and Rebecca and why in 2016 they’re no longer together,” Moore told THR. “What happens to them, what breaks them apart… it’s pretty heartbreaking… I was pretty devastated to see they don’t end up together.”

According to TV Guide, the answer to TV’s most heartbreaking question will come in Episode 5, which is titled “The Game Plan.” The reason why Jack and Rebecca are no longer together will actually be uncovered by Kate’s (Chrissy Metz) new boyfriend, Toby (Chris Sullivan). TV Guide reports that after Toby notices Kate is acting weird, she confesses a family secret that she has been keeping from him.

The big reveal will explain why Moore and Ventimiglia’s characters are not together in the present day and, presumably, why Rebecca is now with Miguel (Jon Huertas). The revelation will ultimately change Kate’s relationship with her boyfriend as well.

On this week’s episode, Mandy Moore’s character will also go back in time to the late 1970s, before she conceived triplets. In a flashback scene, fans will find out how the babies were conceived after Mandy’s character says she doesn’t want children at all. In addition, the family’s fandom for the Pittsburgh Steelers will play into the storyline.

Moore’s TV son, Justin Hartley, has said the tears are real on This Is Us. Hartley said during filming of the NBC hit, the actors are constantly crying, so fans should prepare for an onslaught of tears during this week’s game-changing installment.

In just four episodes, This Is Us has been an emotional roller coaster with several big twists that viewers didn’t see coming. Show creator Dan Fogelman told E! News that writers have “carefully mapped out” the gut-wrenching 18-episode story arc for Season 1.

While her character’s fate has already been planned out, Moore told Entertainment Weekly that she was stunned to find out that Rebecca’s present-day husband was not Jack in the second episode.

“The fact that she would be with somebody else… feels like a betrayal in some way,” Mandy said earlier this month.

“I’m rooting for Jack and Rebecca. I want to know their story, I want to know where that disconnect is, because I just love them so much from the first episode. I’m anxious to see where they go, what this journey is… And I’m excited, too, that we’re not married to having that storyline in any sort of real time, because we’re jumping around.”

While fans will have to wait to see how “The Game Plan” plays out, they can take comfort in the fact that Mandy Moore’s Rebecca is still wearing the moon necklace Jack gave her many moons ago.

Take a look at Mandy Moore and the cast of This Is Us in the Episode 5 preview below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S04WfYN6PPg

[Featured Image by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]

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