Warning: Major spoilers ahead for tonight's episode of This Is Us. Feel free to check out our other articles until you've caught up.
Well, we've been wondering a lot of things about This Is Us family patriarch Jack Pearson since the earliest episodes. Now, we finally know a bit more about one important event that involved him. Fans have known that Jack was dead in the present day for pretty much the whole run of the show so far, but we haven't been clued in on how he died or when. That is, until tonight. We're still in the dark as to how Jack died, but now we know that he passed away when Kate, Kevin and Randall were teenagers.
Part of the focus of tonight's episode was on the big three's 10th birthday. Twins Kate and Kevin burst in on their parents during a closed door make out session in their bedroom to announce that they want separate parties for their birthday, which just so happens to be the very next day. But, because Jack and Rebecca are cool people, they agree and manage to put together three parties: a Madonna themed one for Kate, a The Princess Bride party for Kevin and a magic themed party for Randall (who, by the way, doesn't care if he gets his own party or not).
The present day sees the Pearson kids having quite a few days of personal and professional strife. Kate is now leery of having gastric bypass surgery, since she and Toby are now engaged and he just survived heart surgery; Randall is trying to land a major account at work, but William is, inadvertently, getting in his way; and Kevin isn't convinced that he's made the right decision by choosing Sloane over Olivia.
It's Kate's storyline, though, that gets us closer to finding out when Jack died. After she tells her doctor that she's not sure about going through with the procedure right now, the doctor suggests an "immersive weight loss experience," a.k.a. fat camp, in the Adirondacks, and Kate decides to go, having Toby drive her. As soon as she gets there, she realizes that the place isn't what she was expecting; they actually focus more on "the issues beneath the weight," and instead of making the campers exercise all the time, they have them do things like meditate, go on bird watching expeditions and do drum therapy classes.
It's in one of these drumming sessions, late in the episode, that Kate begins to have a breakthrough of sorts. She's drumming and getting flashes of her past, including, surprise, surprise, Jack's funeral. At first we only get glimpses of the program from the funeral, a framed picture of Jack showing that he hadn't aged much since the kids' 10th birthday and shots of the kids shoes as they stand at his grave. Then, we finally get our big clue when the camera pans over just enough of the kids' faces to show that they were teenagers when Jack died. In her drumming class, Kate is getting choked up and she screams out loud, to the shock of everyone else in the room.
Well, now that we finally know when Jack died, it's even harder not to want the full story. I'm guessing, though, that more clues as to what happened to Jack will be given out over the rest of the season. You can find out what happened to Papa Pearson when This Is Us airs Tuesdays on NBC.
