Getty Images
How Did ‘This Is Us’ End? Read Our Recap on the Disappointing Season Finale!
More like “this is disappointing” — are we right!?
Last night was the season finale of This Is Us — and it was underwhelming to say the least. Curious what happened with Jack, Rebecca, and the Big Three in last night’s finale? Keep reading our recap!
MUST SEE: Check Out Toby From ‘This Is Us’ Out of His Fat Suit!
Last night’s episode focused solely on Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebecca (Mandy Moore) — and how they fell in love and, eventually, out of love.
While there was a minor scene featuring the Big Three (“Kate” aka Chrissy Metz, “Kevin” aka Justin Hartley, and “Randall” aka Sterling K. Brown) and their plans for the future — more that later — this episode’s “past” scenes focused on Jack and Rebecca before their met, and the “future” scenes took place when their three children were teenagers.
Where It Began
The episode starts with where we left Jack and Rebecca — she is at a performance, he is drunkenly on his way to meet her; while many fans assumed that his drunk driving would lead to his death, he arrives safely at the venue, and continues to drink.
MORE: Chrissy Metz Is Allegedly a Diva on the Set of ‘This Is Us’
The episode quickly dissolves to a flashback with a young Jack working on a neighbor’s car. The neighbor offers him $5 for his services and offers to set him with a friend’s granddaughter before Jack returns home to his family — his well-intentioned mother and his alcoholic, abusive father, who criticizes him for not having a job (at this point, we know he’s an unemployed, 28-year-old Vietnam vet who tinkers around cars to make a living).
Elsewhere, we meet a young Rebecca, who finds herself in a similar spot. She’s grabbing lunch with her friends, one of whom is marrying someone in finance, as they urge her “diversify” — by not only letting go of her dreams of becoming a singer, but also by focusing on a real, adult relationship.
Where They Ended Up
Then, we flashback to the ‘90s, as Kate is nervously about to take the stage when she expresses her concerns to Ben, her ex-boyfriend-turned-bandmate, who takes advantage of a vulnerable Rebecca by kissing her. Of course, she refuses his advances and storms away to call Jack, who doesn’t answer their house phone because he’s at the same venue where she’s making the call. Jack then goes looking for Rebecca in her dressing room, but finds Ben instead and punches him when Ben lets it slip about the attempt he made on Jack’s wife.
Nice Guys Don’t Always Win
Back in the ‘70s, Jack and his friend Daryl are trying everything to get money, and Jack successfully convinces to go to Daryl’s cousin’s card game, even though he believes the game could be “dangerous.”
MORE: Chrissy Metz Reveals How She Differs From Her ‘This is Us’ Character
Jack gets a good hand and throws in all his money — and wins a lot of money from the seedy gamblers as well — when he decides to take off. Understandably, the regulars at the game aren’t pleased with a new guy showing up, playing one game, and taking all their money — so they proceed to beat up Jack and Daryl, rob Jack of all of his money, and warn them to never come back because next time, they’ll kill them.
Meanwhile, Jack concocts a plan — they’re going to go back to the bar next week, and steal the winnings because Jack is ready to “take the life [he] was supposed to have, instead of waiting for it to come find [him].”
Blind Date Gone Awry
Earlier in the episode, Rebecca was optimistic about her singing career — but after getting a rejection from a record label she decides to “diversify” her options and calls a friend for a blind date. She’s seated at a restaurant, when the scene cuts to Jack — who is at a bar preparing for his heist — when he realizes that he had a date that night that he totally forgot about.
Of course, these two weren’t supposed to be on a date with each other. Eventually, Rebecca’s date shows up and after enduring an impossibly boring conversation with “Evan,” she excuses herself because she’d rather be an open mic night.
MORE: Chrissy Metz’s Boyfriend Offered to Quit His Job on ‘This Is Us’ to Date Her!
As luck would have it — the open mic night is at Ray’s, the same bar that Jack intends to rob; as soon as the bartender gets up to answer a call (placed by Daryl, in a phone booth across the street), Jack approaches the open register when something else catches his eye — Rebecca, of course, who is singing on the stage.
That Was Then, This Is Now (Or, Well, the ‘90s…)
The episode brings us back to the “present” (well, the present where the Big Three are teenagers, and Rebecca just resumed her job as a singer after 15 years as a stay-at-home mom) and the two resume home after Jack beats up Ben and ruins Rebecca’s attempt at resuming a career as a singer.
The husband and wife get in an explosive fight — during which, she rebukes on claims that he is an alcoholic and accuses him of conveniently picking up his drinking habit at the same time she “finally [has] something happening for myself.”
When he challenges her to say that he and the kids don’t “fulfill her,” she fires back by saying, “I am a housewife to three teenagers who don’t need me anymore and a husband who waltzes in at 8 if I’m lucky, goes to the kitchen, recaps his day, and passes out at 10. You wanted a house. You wanted kids. I followed. You hated the fact that I was singing again — you didn’t want me to have a career.”
He quickly shuts down the idea that it’s a career, saying, “You are a 40-year-old woman singing covers in a pub. That is not a career.”
MORE: Mandy Moore Reveals Bad News About Jack’s Death on ‘This Is Us’
They decide to call it a night on their fight, but not before Rebecca asks him to think about what he loves about her — right then, in the moment — asking him, “Next time you tell me you love me, make sure you’re not doing it out of habit.”
When Jack awakes on the couch the next morning, Rebecca encourages him to stay with his friend Miguel for a while when he declares what it is he loves about her in that moment.
Where do they go from here? Share this moment of taking a break. #ThisIsUs pic.twitter.com/GjPW7ZCb2a
— This Is Us (@NBCThisisUs) March 15, 2017
What About the Big Three?
Of course, there would be no “Us” in “This Is Us” without the Big Three — so they were shown briefly during the end of the episode.
During their tiny snippets, we hear Kate tell Toby that she finally knows what she wants to do — be a singer; Justin gives an emotional farewell to Sophie as he takes the meeting with Ron Howard in LA; and Randall provides perhaps the biggest shock of all when he tells Beth that he wants to adopt a baby.
This Is Us will return in the fall for Season 2 — in the meantime, tell us what you thought of the finale by tweeting us @intouchweekly!
Have a tip? Send it to us! Email In Touch at contact@intouchweekly.com.
