This Is Us Review: Super Bowl Sunday (Season 2 Episode 14)

So, how are we doing? Have our broken hearts recovered yet from last night?

I’m guessing This Is Us Season 2 Episode 14, “Super Bowl Sunday” has left most of us in a puddle of our own tears and grasping for the phone to call our dads to say how much we love them, or somehow relieved that the wait is finally over now that we know definitively how Jack Pearson died. 

After months of speculation, theories, and frustration, This Is Us reveals just how the Pearson patriarch met his fateful end.

And it wasn’t exactly how we thought he would.

Like we were led to believe, Jack didn’t die in the burning house, being engulfed in flames after a heroic move to rescue Kate’s dog. Instead, he emerges from the inferno seemingly unscathed, with the dog and some family momentos in tow at the end of a grand and gripping sequence where he safely evacuate the family out of the house.

No, Jack doesn’t die right then and there despite the giant misdirect. He dies hours later in the hospital, after smoke inhalation causes him to go into cardiac arrest.

This Is Us has always reveled in unexpectedness. It has a tendency to rely on fake-outs and shocks when playing around with the different timelines, and it likes to pull the rug from underneath us just when we think the story is going a certain way. 

But in “Super Bowl Sunday,” the show classic ‘gotcha’ maneuver depicts something very real about death, how it happens and how it affects loved ones.

When Jack is taken to the hospital to treat the burns on his hands (and apparently not get intubated for the smoke in his lungs), there is a sense of calm between Jack and Rebecca, as though the worst of it is over. Then Rebecca steps away for what she thinks is a couple of minutes to get something from the vending machine. And the next thing she learns, and that we learn, is that Jack’s heart suddenly gave out.

It’s a numbing moment.

Rebecca is trying but failing to comprehend the words coming out of the doctor’s mouth. She had just been in the room with her husband, and he was fine. He was more than fine, he was joking. He was safe. And now he’s gone without warning.

This episode, like many episodes in the past, is a shining example of Mandy Moore’s talent. Rebecca’s reaction to Jack’s death, and the display of several different emotions on her face when she’s told that Jack is gone, elevates this scene tremendously.

As she bites into a candy bar, her grasp for normalcy and a moment that haunts Rebecca to this day, she goes through the motions of disbelief, denial, and agitation. And once Rebecca goes back in the room to see Jack’s lifeless body, she breaks down.

The camera focuses on Rebecca’s devastation for an uncomfortable amount of time, and Moore plays it beautifully.

The way Jack dies isn’t in some big, over-the-top, catastrophic way. Instead, it’s quieter. It’s more abrupt. And sometimes, that’s exactly how it happens.

Even though this episode features Jack’s death, “Super Bowl Sunday” is appropriately about the family members Jack leaves behind, and each of the kids have a moment of their own in the present day, which falls under the 20th anniversary of Jack’s passing. 

Kate spends the day wallowing in her grief and self-blame by rewatching the last home-video Jack took of her. Kevin tries to strike the last name on his list by beginning to make amends with Jack, and Randall celebrates Jack’s favorite day by going all out for the super bowl party he’s hosting.

All of the storylines of The Big Three coping with Jack’s death anniversary are great, especially Kevin’s, who pours his heart out to his late-father in hopes of trying to change and be a better man.

But what really makes his story the best are his scenes with Rebecca, which are a highlight of the episode. Rebecca, who spends the day making Jack’s favorite food and and watching the game in his memory, tells Kevin that every year on this day, Jack sends her something that gives her a belly laugh — this year it’s Kevin, and the joy of reconnecting with him.

And then the episode’s kicker.

As Randall and Beth await news about a potential foster child, we see the young boy we briefly met episodes ago, with the expectation that he will become the newest member of the Pearson clan.

However, as the show does successfully, we learn that the boy is not from the present at all, he’s from the future. And when an aged Randall strolls into the room and reveals the lovely social worker to be an adult Tess, the surprise is jolting.

Now that the future timeline is fair game on the show, it brings into question the possibilities of storylines we may get to see from this point on.

It’s a genius, unexpected move from the show, because just as they are closing one mystery, they open up an exciting opportunity for the show to go in different directions.

“Super Bowl Sunday” is the kind of episode that we’ll remember as a Before and After. Before the show told us and after they did.

It’s unclear what the future holds for This Is Us now that we know how Jack died — a mystery the show has hinged on since last season. But a new era has been introduced, signaling that the show will continue to expand upon this world of “collective journeys,” and I can’t wait to see what gets explored next.  

Other final thoughts:

• I loved the Rebecca and Kevin scenes this episode and am enjoying watching them repair their relationship through Jack. These two work better as scene partners than Rebecca and Randall do.
• The little boy Tess is prepping to meet his new potential family is so adorable that I almost wish this scene was in the present day so that the Randall and Beth could just scoop him up. Well played, show.
• It’s interesting that Kevin was the only person not present during the fire, and I’m thinking how being out of such a monumental event in his family’s lives drives home his overall disconnect.
• I love the Miguel appearance this episode because it shows that he’s part of this tragedy, too. And no matter what we want to think about Miguel and Rebecca getting together years down the line, there’s no way that they aren’t first and foremost connected through this shared grief.
• Kate’s speech to Toby is moving and well-earned given that we know how much of a support system he is to her.
• The beautiful rendition of Labi Siffre’s “Watch Me” closed out the episode, a nod to the show’s pilot. Perfect and more tears.

 

What did you think of this episode of This Is Us? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

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This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on NBC

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