PEOPLE The Complete Guide to This Is Us

By The Editors of PEOPLE

People presents The Complete Guide to This Is Us with new interviews, exclusive behind-the-scenes photos, plus a Season 3 preview.

• Language: English
• Publisher: People
• Release date: Sep 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781547844432

Book preview

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OMG! Moments

Yes, it’s tear-jerking. But This Is Us also delivers plot twists that make you say, ‘Whaaaat?!’ Here, 10 favorites

TALE OF THE TAPE I describe it as taking all of the videotapes of your family—if everybody recorded every minute of your life, says TIU creator Dan Fogelman.

They’re All Related!

SEASON 1, EP. 1

In its first moments on the air This Is Us did something unusual for a prime-time drama: It quoted a fact from Wikipedia about the probability of people sharing the same birthday. Over the next hour we see four individuals turning 36 on what appears to be one day: Jack, whose wife, Rebecca, is pregnant with triplets; Kevin, a dissatisfied sitcom actor; his sister Kate, struggling not to eat her own birthday cake; and Randall, feted by his coworkers even as he is preoccupied by an e-mail saying his biological father has been found. Jack will see two children born that day; one will not survive. Kevin will quit his job, Rebecca will join a diet group, and Randall will move the man who once abandoned him into his home. Then, as Jack looks into the nursery at his twins, he’s joined by a man who shares that the strangest damn thing happened: A newborn was left at his fire station, the African-American infant in the next bassinet over. Then the strangest damn thing really did happen: He lit a cigarette in a hospital. When did you figure it out? When the waiting-room TV showed the Iran-hostage crisis? Once viewers got that Jack is not some current-day hipster—his is a vintage mustache—they were put on notice: This show is going to mess with your mind—and your heart. Grown-up Kevin and Kate call brother Randall to share birthday wishes. Back in 1980 Jack and Rebecca put their new crew in matching onesies. Hello, Big Three.

He Made It!

SEASON 2, EP. 14

How did Jack die? The question obsessed viewers from the day Kate introduced Toby to her dad’s ashes. Maybe we didn’t notice, but the clues were laid out before us: forgotten smoke-detector batteries, a flammable red dish towel and a Crock-Pot with a faulty switch. Like a pistol in a Chekhov play, the dastardly slow cooker sat innocently on the counter in the first moments of season 1’s second episode. The house fire, which began with a cliff-hanger the prior week, blazed during a highly promoted post-Super Bowl episode. Surely this was what did him in. But hold on; here’s Jack, awakened by smoke, shuttling Rebecca, Kate and Randall to safety (Kevin was away with Sophie). Everyone’s out! But then Kate cries for her beloved dog Louie. Over his wife’s objections, Jack goes back in. After a seemingly endless 60 seconds (well-played, TIU), he emerges with the dog and, for good measure, a pillowcase of the important stuff, including photo albums, a VHS tape of Kate singing and Rebecca’s moon necklace. Tears! Cheers! Jack lives!

‘Take a breather, Superman’

—Rebecca to Jack, after his dog-rescuing heroics

Kevin Shows Up for Randall

SEASON 1, EP. 15

Methodical, brainy Randall long struggled to connect with his brother. At 10, he wrote a plan in his notebook: "Try talking about Karate Kid. Don’t ask to use Kevin’s Game Boy. Kevin, a popular jock, aligned himself with bullies who called Randall Webster," after the ’80s sitcom about a black boy adopted into a white family. As a teen, he scoffs as Randall melts down over a paper on Hamlet. No wonder they grew apart. As an adult, Randall may be the one person in America who has never seen an episode of The Manny, which continued after Kevin’s departure with an African-American actor in the title role—a revelation that leads adult Kevin to say something regrettable to his brother about again being replaced by a black man. They brawl in the street, and the relationship seems unsalvageable. Then Kevin gets a call from Randall on the opening night of his Off-Broadway play. Recognizing the stress in Randall’s voice, he abandons his stage debut (and leading lady Sloane) to comfort Randall in a silent, protective hug. Somewhere the ghost of Jack Pearson smiled.

Grandma and . . . Miguel

SEASON 1, EP. 2

Grandma and Grandpa are here! cheer Tess and Annie when the doorbell rings at their New Jersey home. When the door opens, we should get the first glimpse of the sixtysomething versions of Rebecca and Jack. Instead we get the gently aged Rebecca and a grayer version of Jack’s best friend, Miguel. Huh? Rewind: Earlier in the episode we see the young parents of triplets confronting marital issues, mainly owing to Jack’s drinking. But they soon seem back on track: He vows to give up the bottle and presents her with a crescent-moon necklace along with his promise. I’m never going to take it off, she tells him. So what happened? We don’t know yet: Divorce? Death? An affair? She is still wearing that necklace, but that’s the only hint we