A This Is Us actor wants you to stop digging — you're never going to find out what happened to his TV dad.
According to Justin Hartley's interview with Us Weekly, fans have not come close to cracking the mystery that is Jack's (Milo Ventimiglia) death. While we learned that the mustached dad died around the time his children were in high school (the actual date of his passing is unknown, but the kids certainly looked like they were in their teens during that brief funeral scene) we have yet to nab any other concrete info about what happened to Jack. Hartley says we should continue to wait for answers, because those fan theories on the internet have yet to solve the mystery.
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Harley told Us Weekly:
"You'll never guess it. It's unexpected and it's extremely heartbreaking and sad and deep and moving and, ugh, it's painful. It's painful. It'll stay with you."
Umm, duh — every episode of This Is Us has "stayed" with fans, probably because the NBC drama pulls every possible stunt to make us feel all the feelings. (See: Tuesday's "Memphis" episode.) We haven't even seen Jack's death yet and already we're overwhelmed with grief for Mr. Pearson.
The problem with Hartley saying that we'll "never guess" how Jack died? It's only going to fuel our desire to figure out what tragic, heartbreaking ending Jack could have faced. Did he die in 9/11? Did he drink himself to death while Rebecca (Mandy Moore) was on tour? Or did Miguel (Jon Huertas) murder him so he could have Jack's wife all to himself? (Okay, that last one is a little much, even as far as fan theories go.)
I don't know, Hartley: some fan, somewhere, some day has to get it right. We'll all be bawling alongside them when they do.