Milo Ventimiglia Has a ‘Pretty Good Feeling’ Jack & Rebecca Will Reunite on ‘This Is Us’
Preview
As This Is Us viewers can attest, the true tragedy of Jack Pearson’s (Milo Ventimiglia) untimely death was that the man cruelly ripped from his family was a really, really good guy. Jack and wife Rebecca (Mandy Moore), as we see in flashbacks, had the type of relationship most couples only dream of having. They finish each other’s sentences, they make sure one of them is always watching the kids, and they truly, deeply love each other.
In flash-forwards, we’ve seen Rebecca nearing the end of her life, and in a promo for tonight’s episode about the wedding of Kate (Chrissy Metz) and Phillip (Chris Geere), she tells her kids she can’t wait for their father to get there. While this could be attributed to Rebecca’s memory slips, it’s possible something else is going on.
Big changes are coming.
Don’t miss the final six episodes of the #ThisIsUsFinalChapter. pic.twitter.com/ya8moZF5Gu
— This Is Us (@NBCThisisUs) April 15, 2022
TV Insider chatted with Moore and Ventimiglia on the PaleyFest 2022 red carpet at the Dolby Theatre before This Is Us was honored in front of legions of fans. Each actor addressed the possibility of there being some kind of on-screen scene between Rebecca and Jack not set in the past but rather in the future.
“I think we’ll have to see how that unfolds,” Moore responded. “I suspect Dan [Fogelman, creator/executive producer] has some trick up his sleeve…whatever it is [will be] beautiful and really appropriate.”
Ventimiglia concurs: “It’s only natural for the love that Rebecca and Jack had [for viewers] to want them to be together. I got a pretty good feeling they’re going to see one another again.”
These past six seasons have flown by for fans, who can’t get enough of the Pearson family. While Chris Sullivan (Toby) told TV Insider he’s up for a revival in a decade or so, Ventimiglia isn’t sure there’d be a place for him in any kind of continuation given Jack’s fate.
“It’s interesting because there’s only so much story we can tell with Jack,” the actor muses. “Mine are kind of dependent on the children not aging. So if we go too far in the future, I don’t know what stories we will tell with Jack.”
Jack’s death occurred in the show’s second season in Episode 14, “Super Bowl Sunday.” Since then, viewers have continued to see Jack’s untold tales explored, which has kept Ventimiglia a part of the storytelling canvas. “The fact that we’ve managed to keep Jack involved in the storylines going through the six seasons — after we learned everything we needed to know about him in Season 3 — is wonderful,” Ventimiglia adds. “It’s a testament to Dan Fogelman and his staff of writers.”
As for plans after the series wraps, Ventimiglia is shooting a pilot for ABC titled The Company You Keep. “I play a con man from a family of grifters who gets involved with a gal who comes from a Kennedy-esque political family [and] happens to work for the CIA,” the actor previews.
Moore, who has an album (titled In Real Life) coming out in May and a tour planned for later in the year, says she’s been trying to soak up every emotional experience in these final weeks of production. “We have moments of acknowledging, ‘Oh, this might be the last time we’re in this time period or [on this] location or this set,’” the actress says. “It’s really hard. I remember taking stock and looking at Sterling [K. Brown, Randall] and Chris, and I put my phone down. I thought, ‘I just want to be here in this moment. It’s not going to last much longer.’”
This Is Us, Tuesdays, 9/8c, NBC
