‘This Is Us’ Fans Prepare For ‘What If?’ Episode That Will Show What Would Have Happened If Jack Didn’t Die
This Is Us fans will soon get a look at what life would have been like for the Pearsons if patriarch Jack hadn’t died more than 20 years ago.
Previews for the upcoming This Is Us Season 4 penultimate episode, titled “After the Fire,” show Papa Pearson (Milo Ventimiglia) alive and well post-1998, presumably in fantasy scenes during Randall’s (Sterling K. Bown) therapy sessions.
In the promo, a middle-aged Jack is seen toasting Randall and Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson) and hovering over the shoulder of a teen Randall (Niles Fitch) as his son tracks down his biological dad, William.
In comments to a YouTube promo for the “After the Fire” episode, This Is Us fans braced for what is sure to be a tearjerker episode.
“Don’t do that,” one fan wrote. “I think every episode, ‘Would that happen if Jack didn’t die?’ I don’t know if I can handle the truth.”
“A ‘what if’ episode where Jack doesn’t die AND we get to see William? Excuse me while I go buy all the tissues,” another added.
“This episode will DESTROY me,” a third viewer wrote.
This Is Us fans know that Randall blames himself “every single day” for what might have been on the night his father died in a house fire. In a “what if?” scene on the most recent episode of the NBC drama, a teen Randall is seen telling Jack that if he goes back into the burning house to try to save the family’s dog, he will follow him inside. Jack then jumps off the roof and reunites with his family instead of going back for the dog.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, This Is Us producer Isaac Aptaker explained why Randall is still feeling guilty about his father’s death two decades later. While Kevin (Justin Hartley) has to live with the guilt that he wasn’t home with his family during the fire tragedy, Randall lives with a different kind of pain.
“For Randall, he was standing right there, and as someone who sees themselves as able to save people and fix problems, he can’t help but relive it over and over and over and wonder, ‘What if I had just behaved a little differently? What if I had just demanded he get down from that roof?’ So it’s a different kind of excruciating torture that Randall puts himself through.”
As for the possibility that Randall has some resentment toward Kate (Chrissy Metz) because her crying about the dog prompted Jack to go back into the burning house, Aptaker said Randall blames himself first.
The This Is Us producer teased that the “After the Fire” episode will explore “what life may have looked like had Randall acted differently in those moments.”
