‘This Is Us’: Mandy Moore Teases Future Storylines With Rebecca As A Single Parent

This Is Us fans are starting to fill in the blanks on the timing of Jack Pearson’s (Milo Ventimiglia) death and his wife Rebecca’s (Mandy Moore) remarriage. Now, series star Mandy Moores tells Us Weekly that before the show’s second season is done, viewers will have a more complete picture as to when and how the Pearson patriarch ultimately passed away and how his death affected his teen children.

While Moore tells Us the upcoming episodes will be “heavy,” she also reveals that the consequences and ramifications of the traumatic event of Jack’s death will play out throughout the series, which has already been renewed for a third season.

Earlier this season, This Is Us fans found out that Rebecca didn’t get romantically involved with her second husband, Miguel, until 10 years after Jack passed away. While the backstory on the Rebecca-Miguel romance won’t play out this season, the timing tidbit means that Rebecca was a single mom for at least a decade before she became remarried to Jack’s best friend, Miguel (Jon Huertas).

Since Jack and Rebecca’s kids were already teenagers when he passed away, Miguel wasn’t involved in any step-parenting issues when his wife’s kids were still in high school. In fact, Rebecca raised her three kids alone for years.

“Ultimately suffering such a monumental loss as this character does on this show, I definitely foresee exploring and reflecting on what it is like to be a single parent, how she finds her way through her grief,” Mandy told Us.

“There is a good chunk of time there to really delve in and explore who she was, the choices that she made, what type of mother she ultimately became to these kids and how that was a reflection too on the choices that they made going forward.”

It’s hard to imagine Rebecca Pearson without her handsome husband by her side, but unfortunately, it sounds like fans will be seeing those single mom scenes sooner than later.

This Is Us fans already know that Rebecca is very close to her adopted son, Randall. But Rebecca and her daughter, Kate, have a tense mother-daughter relationship in the scenes set in the present day. Kate was extremely close to her dad before his death, but she didn’t seem to have issues getting along with her mom back then. Clearly, something happened over the past 20 years to fracture the relationship between Rebecca and her daughter Kate.

In an interview with Glamour, This Is Us executive producer Isaac Aptaker revealed that the Pearsons’ mother-daughter relationship will be heavily explored this season.

“The relationship between Kate and Rebecca is going to be a big one that we’re really unpacking this year,” Aptaker said.

“This season we’re really diving into the mother-daughter relationship and what it was like for these two women growing up over the years and how they drifted apart, and how they can hopefully come back together as adults.”

In addition, viewers may, at some point, get more of the Kate-Rebecca backstory with scenes set when the Big Three are in their early 20s.

“That would make our casting department’s head explode!” Aptaker said of adding another decade to the mix in the flashback-filled drama. “It’s something we talk about a lot, just from a production and practical standpoint: When do our teenage actors transform into our adult actors and do we need another person to bridge that gap or is it something that we can do with our wonderful hair and makeup department? We’re very, very interested in visiting Kate in that time.”

Take a look at the video below to see Mandy Moore playing a mom of three on This Is Us.

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

[Featured Image by Ron Batzdorff/NBC]