‘This Is Us’ Fall Finale Will Contain Major Shocker In Jack & Nicky Pearson’s Vietnam Storyline
This Is Us fans should brace for a major cliffhanger at the end of the Season 3 fall finale. In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, This Is Us executive producer Isaac Aptaker couldn’t contain his excitement when talking about the final episode before the show’s holiday hiatus. Aptaker strongly suggested that fans watch until the very end in the upcoming episode titled “The Beginning is the End is the Beginning.”
While the This Is Us producer was careful not to oversell the mystery storyline, he made it clear it will be one of the biggest moments ever seen on the NBC drama series.
“I don’t want to overpromise, but I will. I would say the last ten minutes of this episode are packed with about as much as ‘Oh! Whoa! Holy s—!’ excitement and This Is Us moments as we’ve ever had. It is so dense. So, if you’re going to tune in late, do not tune out early because it is one thing after the next. I think people will be very anxious for this show to get back after the holidays.”
After last week’s Thanksgiving episode that time jumped all over the place, “The Beginning is the End is the Beginning” will hover in two eras: The early 1970s and present day.
Aptaker teased that present day Kevin (Justin Hartley) and his girlfriend Zoe (Melanie Liburd) will head to the village where Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) had been stationed in the Vietnam War, calling the scene “as a very cool collision course of past and present” as the ’70s-era Jack tries to help his stressed brother Nicky (Michael Angarano) deal with the horrors of the war. The This Is Us producer also revealed what happens for Jack and Nicky in Vietnam will be a bona fide shocker.
“It’s hugely surprising. It’s one of our biggest shocking moments that we’ve had on the show.”
With other storylines involving Randall’s (Sterling K. Brown) political campaign and Kate’s (Chrissy Metz) pregnancy, Aptaker also described the episode as a “rollercoaster,” telling EW, “There’s a lot of highs and then a lot of lows and a lot of ‘Wow-I-did-not-see-that-coming!’ It’s all over the place — in the best way.”
Promos for the new This Is Us episode have come with the tagline: “This is the episode where everything changes.”
Earlier this year, This Is Us star Justin Hartley told Entertainment Weekly that his character will unearth some disturbing secrets about Jack’s past in the Vietnam War. Like Aptaker, Hartley teased that viewers won’t see Jack’s secrets coming.
Hartley teased that Kevin Pearson will unearth “shocking” and “super heartbreaking” information about his late father’s time overseas during the Vietnam War.
“It’s not what anyone is expecting. No one is going to see it coming. It’s ambitious stuff…. Here’s the cool thing about it: At the end of Season 3 when you go back and watch the beginning of the series, you’re going to [be] like, ‘Wow, it all works,’ but you never would see any of this coming. I don’t know what those writers are eating, but it’s brain food. They’re brilliant.”
You can see a promo for the This Is Us episode “The Beginning is the End is the Beginning” below.
This Is Us airs Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.
