This Is Us may be the breakout TV hit of the year, and NBC is giving us more of what we want: weekly cathartic sobs. The chairman of NBC, Robert Greenblatt, told TVLine that an episode of This Is Us will air right after next year's Super Bowl. It's television's biggest night of the year, and the show promises to deliver an absolute tearjerker for the event.
"It’s going to be an extraordinary and… [very] emotional episode of television," he says, and also notes that the episode is written for old and new viewers alike. It's an ambitious attempt to score more Pearson fans. "It’s not a standalone episode," "Greenblatt said at NBC Universal's TCA panel in Los Angeles. "It’s going to be the next episode of the show. But there will be a lot of new fans who have never seen it before, and they’ll have no trouble dropping in. [Show creator] Dan [Fogelman] wants it to be very easy for someone to come into it rather than have them go, “What is going on here?” At the same time, I think he really wants to pay off things for the [existing] fans."
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Football is very important to the Pearson family. We learn that Jack has passed away when Kate explained to Toby her ritual of watching the Pittsburgh Steelers alone with her dad's ashes. When he was alive, Rebecca and Jack bond over football after he taught her the rules of the game. Kate and Kevin, of course, were conceived the night that the Steelers won Super Bowl XIV. Ironically, earlier that night Jack and Rebecca were arguing over whether or not to have kids — that argument was quickly answered right after the game.
Could this be the long-awaited episode that tells us how Jack Pearson died? The answer is definitely no, as Mandy Moore already told us that Jack's death would be demystified immediately on the season 2 premiere. Which means that the next time we see the Pearson family, it'll be a total crying sesh for all of us. The Super Bowl episode promises to make us just as misty.