This Is Us Season 2: We can’t learn how Jack dies this early
By Josh Hill
This Is Us fans are trying to figure out how Jack dies, but it’d be a bad idea to just dump it on us and spoil it too soon.
Every show needs a thread that keeps us interested on a larger level. Obviously you need great characters and believable stories to care about the show, but there needs to be end games in place to make us invested.
Game of Thrones does this with the looming White Walker threat that is in the background but never solved. Breaking Bad had a clear end point and similarly Better Call Saul does as well. This Is Us should pay attention to the latter show, as they have similar storylines that can be drawn out intelligently to keep broad interest high.
In Saul, we’re wondering what happens to the characters we’re invested in but are clearly not a part of Breaking Bad. This Is Us has the mystery of how Jack died, and it’s a question that has kept fan interest at an insane high during the offseason.
While a conversation starter and fan theory generator, it sounds like it won’t be something the show makes a central theme. This sentiment stemmed from Mandy Moore stating that we’re going to learn how Jack dies straight away in Season 2.
“One thing I can tell you, you will learn how Jack died in the first episode of Season 2. That’s what we’ve been told,” Moore revealed in an interview with Larry King Now.
That’s a mistake.
It makes sense in that the show doesn’t want to be all about the death of one character when there are a handful of storylines to run through with present day characters. It could also help in that we know how Jack dies, thus making it even more nerve-racking to watch him get into situations in which we know he died but we don’t know if that moment is the moment.
There’s no need to rush that though, especially right out of the gate in the season premiere. Doing so won’t kill the show, as that’s something that seems impossible at the moment. Revealing Jack’s death too early isn’t a jumping the shark moment, it’s just showing your cards when you can make it through a few more rounds before needing to do so.