‘This Is Us’ Season 2: Kevin Heads Back To ‘The Manny’ For A Very Special Episode

This Is Us fans know Kevin Pearson (Justin Hartley) quit his job as the star of the hit sitcom, The Manny, to follow his dream to become a serious Broadway actor. Kevin didn’t go quietly, either; he left the TV show on very bad terms. Now, thanks to director Ron Howard, Kevin is back in Los Angeles on a movie set. So why does the upcoming episode of This Is Us feature the East Coast Pearson clan heading to L.A. for a taping of The Manny?

One week after This Is Us fans were left with a devastating fire cliffhanger, TV Guide posted a sneak peek clip of the second Season 2 episode, curiously titled “A Manny-Splendored Thing.” In the clip, Randall and Beth (Sterling K. Brown and Susan Kelechi Watson) are talking about filling out the required paperwork so they can become foster parents, but it is also revealed that their clan is headed to the West Coast for a taping of The Manny.

But it won’t just be Randall, Beth, and their two adorable daughters in the Manny studio audience. The synopsis for “A Manny-Splendored Thing” reveals that the entire Pearson family will visit Kevin in Los Angeles for a Manny taping.

In a sneak peek clip from the new This Is Us episode, which you can see below, Kevin tells his visiting girlfriend Sophie (Alexandra Breckenridge) that he returned to The Manny because the network asked him to come back to shoot a special episode of the show.

“The Manny made me,” he says. “It made me and then it ruined me. And now they asked me to return to do this epical episode but really I’m just returning to the scene of the crime.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WVDpZToNFc

In another clip from “A Manny-Splendored Thing,” Kate (Chrissy Metz) prepares for her mother’s visit to Los Angeles. It looks like Kate and Toby (Chris Sullivan) will be hosting Rebecca and Miguel (Mandy Moore and Jon Huertas) for a pre-Manny meal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo68A91I7lo

In the This Is Us pilot, Kevin Pearson famously quit The Manny and moved to New York after refusing to shoot a scene in which his dumbed-down character pretended to breastfeed a newborn. While Kevin doesn’t want to be known for his role in a superficial sitcom that requires him to be shirtless, This is Us has featured ongoing jokes about his role on The Manny. It looks like Kevin is now back where he started — at least for one very special episode.

This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on NBC

[Featured Image by Ron Batzdorff/NBC]