This Is Us reveals Jack's death, but you'll be talking about Mandy Moore

After two seasons of speculation, we know how Jack died on This Is Us. The Super Bowl episode brought the answers, the tears, and the Mandy Moore performance that will leave you breathless.

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All This Is Us fans knew going into Sunday night’s post-Super Bowl episode that we would be bowled over by emotion. I mean, this was the episode. The big one that answered all of our questions about the Pearson’s heartbreaking journeys before and after Jack’s death. But we weren’t quite prepared for the stunning, show-stopping, and surefire Emmy-worthy performance Mandy Moore would deliver.

Listen, the entire cast was on their A-game for “Super Bowl Sunday.” Susan Kelechi Watson made us laugh during the lizard’s funeral (RIP Mr. McGiggles), Justin Hartley and Chrissy Metz made us bawl (#SuperBawl) as they grappled with Kevin and Kate’s pasts, Sterling K. Brown inspired us with Randall’s endless fountain of fatherly wisdom, and Milo Ventimiglia both filled and broke our hearts during Jack’s demise. But This Is Us burst the doors wide open to showcase the raw and inimitable talent of Mandy Moore.

She’s wrecked us before as Rebecca Pearson, but never as this Rebecca Pearson, the wife and mother wading into the soul-crushing waters of a partner’s death. This is the Rebecca Pearson we hadn’t wanted to see because it meant knowing and —worse yet — seeing how Jack’s death played out. And as he ran back into the fire for Kate’s dog, we watch Kate, Randall, and Rebecca’s devastation as they believed it was the end. But it wasn’t.

Jack returns with the dog and a handful of irreplaceable treasures, but the smoke inhalation ultimately costs him his life. Following Jack’s cardiac arrest, the doctor breaks the news to Rebecca, who’s just purchased a Mars bar from the vending machine, and she’s defiant. She takes a bite of the candy bar and doesn’t trust the doctor’s words. Until she sees Jack’s body.

The pain that courses through Rebecca, the stages of realization and grief bouncing from corner to corner like a pinball machine, is the palpable stuff that connects the performer to the character to the viewer. Mandy Moore translates this pain as we have seen her translate pain into a universal suffering for 32 episodes of This Is Us.

Before the dutiful scene of Rebecca informing Kate and Randall of Jack’s death, Rebecca has a stern conversation with Miguel (her future second husband, mind you). She seems to have instantly harnessed Jack’s strength and fortitude, as if it passed through his soul and found Rebecca. It takes a strong woman, and a skilled actress, to pull off an emotional state so layered and battered and delicately confident. Excuse me while I start etching Mandy’s name onto an Emmy Award.

Next: Mandy Moore was snubbed at the Emmys, and it's just not fair

But here’s the thing that sends Mandy Moore’s performance in “Super Bowl Sunday” into a league of its own: She unpacks this grief in two different time periods. Moore dives deeps into the fresh wounds that plague Rebecca and her children, and she revisits them again as a still-mourning-but-moving-forward widow on the 20th anniversary of Jack’s death.

Yes, we’ll all be long discussing Jack’s heroism and the tears we shed in his wake. But we should also be talking about the breathtaking gauntlet ran by Mandy Moore, one that should be remembered and honored come Emmy season. In this very heavy episode, Moore pulled double duty, biting into the sourest lemon This Is Us has to offer. And you know what? She turned it into something more than resembling lemonade.

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

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This Is Us revealed Jack’s cause of death, but you’ll be talking about Mandy Moore

By Reed Gaudens | Feb 5, 2018

After two seasons of speculation, we know how Jack died on This Is Us. The Super Bowl episode brought the answers, the tears, and the Mandy Moore performance that will leave you breathless.