Milo Ventimiglia Teases ‘Explosive’ ‘This Is Us’ Finale, Says He Knows How Jack Dies
Milo Ventimiglia says he knows when and how his This Is Us character, Jack Pearson, will die. Fans found out early on that Milo Ventimiglia’s character doesn’t make it to the year 2016 in the time-traveling NBC drama (he’s currently housed in an urn on top of his daughter Kate’s fireplace mantle), but the actor says viewers will have to wait a little longer to find out the sad details of Jack’s untimely demise.
“I do know when you’re going to know, but just wait a little while,” Milo told The Wrap.
“You may get some teasers as to when [he died], very soon. But I think the thing to know is that Jack’s time with his family is limited. But he’s not going anywhere because Jack and Rebecca are in the past, and reflect very much how they impact the Big Three in the present day. I think it’s safe to say that Jack will be around for the life of the show.”
While fans have already been through an emotional rollercoaster throughout the first half of This is Us’ inaugural season, Milo Ventimiglia says there will be more tumultuous times coming in the last 13 episodes of Season 1.
“We have another episode coming up, next week… some bombs are dropped,” Milo said. “It’s one of those things where it gets a pace, and then it just moves faster and faster going into that very, very explosive end of Episode 18.”
While Milo Ventimiglia teased that viewers will soon find out a timeline as to when the Pearson patriarch died, his TV wife Mandy Moore said it would be a while before the circumstances surrounding his death are revealed.
“You’re not going to know what happens with Jack for a while, probably not until the second or third season,” Moore told Elle.
“But I think you’re going to see the strains of a marriage toward the end of this season. We’re getting ready to shoot the last two episodes, and I think that’s the big plotline for us. There are definite cracks in the relationship and in the marriage, and how they will remedy that is anyone’s guess.”
This Is Us creator Dan Forgelman echoed Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore’s sentiments at the Television Critics Association panel and made it clear that the timing of Jack’s death will be addressed very soon.
“Next week is a big week, and then we have a while to go in the big picture,” Fogelman told TCA reporters, according to E! News.
“Slowly but surely you’ll learn when, then much later how, and then you’ll see it, but that will take, hopefully, many many episodes.”
Fans are in no hurry to see the end of “young” Jack. While other characters on the show, including Moore and her character’s second husband Miguel (played by Jon Huertas) have spent hours in the makeup chair to age 36 years for the show’s present day scenes, fans have seen Milo Ventimiglia’s character mostly as a man in his mid-30s to early 40s.
The This is Us pilot episode kicked off with Milo Ventimiglia’s character celebrating his 36th birthday on the day his wife went into labor with their triplets. Several subsequent episodes have featured Jack Pearson as a young dad in his 40s.
Milo Ventimiglia’s character did another time jump when his three kids, nicknamed The Big Three, were introduced as teenagers in the episode “The Best Washing Machine in the Whole World,” making him a dad in his early 50s. But how old will Jack live to be?
Here’s one clue: Milo Ventimiglia previously told Entertainment Tonight he would get to wear prosthetic makeup at some point on the NBC series.
“There is a level of makeup that Jack sees himself in between now and the urn,” Milo told ET.
But have fans may have already seen that “level” of makeup for Ventimiglia’s scenes as a 51-year-old father of teens?
Milo Ventimiglia also told Entertainment Tonight the circumstances surrounding the Pearson patriarch’s death would be extremely painful for fans.
“It’s going to hurt,” Ventimiglia told ET.
“It’s going to hurt real bad! I think it’s going to be a ways off. You’re going to forget about it, you’re going to get wrapped up in the lives of Jack and Rebecca and the big three, and then when you’ve forgotten that he’s gone, we’re going to hit you with it and it’s going to crush you.”
Take a look at the video below to see Milo Ventimiglia talking about his character on the This Is Us after-show.
[Featured Image by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images]
