‘This Is Us’ Reveals The Surprising Way Jack Met Future BFF Miguel In Season 4 Premiere

This Is Us fans have long been wondering how Rebecca (Mandy Moore) and Miguel (Jon Huertas) got together. Miguel, after all, is the best friend of Rebecca’s late husband, Jack (Milo Ventimiglia), yet somehow he ended up married to her following Jack’s untimely death.

But four seasons in, fans will finally get the backstory on Jack and Miguel’s bromance. Entertainment Weekly posted a sneak peek clip from the long-awaited premiere episode which shows Jack and Miguel first meeting—at a department store, of all places! In the clip, the Pearson patriarch is seen shopping for a suit jacket before he meets Rebecca’s parents — played by Elizabeth Perkins and Tim Matheson, as The Inquisitr reported — for the very first time in the early 1970s.

After salesman Miguel Rivas tells Jack the coat fits him “perfectly,” the Vietnam veteran glances at the price tag and realizes it’s way out of his range. Jack explains his financial predicament, and a sympathetic Miguel notes that his own number was not called in the draft lottery. Then, in a poignant moment that will make even the most cold-hearted Miguel haters have a thaw, he tells his future friend to take the jacket, roll the price tag up in the sleeve, and bring it back to the store in a week.

“This girl, she’s worth it,” Miguel says.

This bit of backstory is a long-awaited piece to the Jack-Rebecca-Miguel puzzle, and it finally gives support to producers’ longtime promise that viewers will learn to love Miguel once they find out more about him. Indeed, it has been a slow warm-up ever since This Is Us viewers first found out that Miguel eventually married his dead friend’s wife way back in the first season of the NBC drama series.

Huertas previously told The Hollywood Reporter he wasn’t initially privy to much information about his character when he first signed on to This Is Us.

“They were still developing who Miguel was. The canvas is still pretty open; there are lots of colors to add,” the actor said in 2017. “A lot of time when we’re not filming, Mandy, Milo and myself sit around speculating who Miguel is and what the relationships are. We’re always super excited to read a script to learn new things about our characters or relationships.”

The This Is Us star revealed that he was told what his character’s relationship to Jack was and how long they’d been friends. But the new scene is the first time fans of the show are getting that information.

The This Is Us Season 4 premiere, titled “Strangers,” airs Tuesday, September 24 at 9 p.m. on NBC.