Warning: Spoilers ahead from Tuesday’s “
This Is Us” episode.
“This Is Us” specializes in cramming several seasons’ worth of drama into the final minutes of its season finales.
Case in point: Tuesday night’s episode, “Her,” which closed out Season 3 in slam-bang fashion and posed more questions than it answered.
TV’s top-rated network drama, which will return next season, ended by apparently tying up several loose ends in the show’s current-day “This Is Us” universe and then, in its final minutes, flashing forward with a scene featuring various members of the Pearson family gathered in Kevin’s posh home to visit an ailing Rebecca (Mandy Moore): a graying Randall (Sterling K. Brown); Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson); their daughter Tess; Toby (Chris Sullivan); and even Uncle Nicky (Griffin Dunne), Jack’s alcoholic, estranged brother from earlier this season who was thought to be out of the picture. He’s not.
We even got a glimpse of future Kevin’s young son (a dead ringer for his dad) and an allusion to Toby and Kate’s (Chrissy Metz) son, Jack, who was due to arrive at Uncle Kevin’s house shortly. Jack was born prematurely in present-day “This Is Us,” so he obviously lives to tell the tale.
But where was Kate?
“At that point Kate and Toby are no longer married,” Sullivan tells The Post. “Who knows why that could be? Clearly [Toby] is still in communication with Kate and Jack. There are a lot of reasons why marriages don’t continue. The [show’s] writing staff hasn’t told us exactly what that situation will be but I think, either way, there are a lot of lessons to be learned.”
Toby experienced the show’s usual allotment of ups and downs this past season — emotionally melting down last fall, recovering to some extent and then watching helplessly as his tiny premature son struggled for survival in the intensive-care unit while Kate struggled with feelings of maternal inadequacy and Rebecca’s overbearing behavior.
“I think this season rounded out Toby in a way that maybe myself, and the audience, were wondering if he was ever going to show a weakness or a flaw,” Sullivan says. “He was romantically idealized toward the beginning of the show and since he’s a supporting role it took some time to get into who he is as a person.
“The bigger picture this season was the fact that … everybody is going through something and everybody is doing the best they know how to,” he says. “That involves a lot of stumbling and faltering and so we’ve seen Toby get honest with himself and share his struggles.
“You can’t develop full relationships with anybody unless you’re fully honest about who you are.”
Sullivan says that he and Metz were told by series creator Dan Fogelman early this season that Baby Jack would survive his hospital stay.
“Dan told us ahead of time that it might be complicated but not to truly worry,” he says. “I think at this point in the storyline, if Dan had done anything to that baby, we might just straight-up lose our audience. I think people might have said, ‘You know what? That’s enough.’ Besides, I think it’s much more interesting to see how Toby and Kate handle their new roles.
“I don’t know quite how the show’s writers plan to handle that,” Sullivan says of Toby and Kate’s parenting journey.
(He and his wife, producer Rachel Reichard, don’t have children “but we’ve had 13 babies through family and friends” of late, he says.)
“I think, along with the great joy and excitement of having a child, it seems to be that the common themes are also a lot of doubt and fear and uncertainty about being a parent — and about how you might not live up to those expectations,” he says
“Everybody says it’s ‘magical’ but sometimes it doesn’t happen right away. It takes a while for a father and mother to know their child and with Toby’s mental health struggles and anxiety, I’m sure those issues will play a part.”