‘This Is Us’ Creator Says Answer To ‘How Did Jack Die?’ Will Be Revealed In Season 2

The answer to the biggest fan question in This Is Us, “How did Jack die?” will be revealed before Season 2 ends. Series creator Dan Fogelman promised fans that they wouldn’t have to wait until the series finale to find out the reason behind Jack’s death. However, he teased that that answer might just end up leading to more questions about the Pearson family.

There are a lot of things that happened during the This Is Us Season 2 premiere. Rebecca (Mandy Moore) took charge of their marriage and dragged Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) back home, Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson) agreed to Randall’s (Sterling K. Brown) plan to adopt but only if it’s an on older child that no one wanted to bring home, and Toby (Chris Sullivan) and Kevin (Justin Hartley) got into a huge fight about who should take care of Kate (Chrissy Metz).

But it’s the last minute and a half of the show that probably shocked fans the most.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman shared that from the moment he pitched the show to NBC, he has always envisioned the big reveal to happen sometime in Season 2.

“In the first episode of the second season, it will be, for lack of a better example, a Breaking Bad set of imagery that shows you the day/night that he died. And then the second season, in terms of that story line, will very much be a journey getting to that day and night. So that was the plan from the moment I turned in the first script,” he said.

With all the teasing about Jack’s death, some fans were starting to draw a comparison between This Is Us and How I Met Your Mother, a show that also relied on continuity and flashbacks to tell a story. However, Fogelman promised that we wouldn’t have to wait until the series finale to find the cause of Jack’s death.

Fogelman hoped that fans who are still fixated on the how-did-Jack-die mystery will get to understand that the reveal won’t happen in a single episode alone.

“Peeling an onion is the best way to describe it. It was clear from go to me, as an audience member, not a writer, that Jack didn’t die peacefully in his bed at 90-years-old. Something happened to this man and this family that broke them for a little while, and we’ve shown a big piece of that tonight. In order to fully understand that year of their life, you don’t just do it one episode. You have to understand where they’re all at that time period, what had happened in the marriage, what was happening with those kids, what was happening with those kids vis a vis their father, before they lost him, that frames these 37-year-old people we’re seeing. Once we’ve done that, then we’ll see everything we need to know about Jack. And it will be this season.”

This Is Us Season 2 airs Tuesdays on NBC.

[Featured Image by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images]