‘This Is Us’ Creator Says He Has Already Shot Parts of Series Finale

There is no end in sight for NBC‘s powerhouse drama This Is Us, but star Mandy Moore and creator Dan Fogelman said they have already filmed parts of the series finale.

“We’re pretty far out,” Fogelman told reporters at a “for your consideration” panel on May 29, reports Us Weekly. “We know where it ends and we know the path for each season. We’ve always had a plan, we didn’t want to get stuck … The show won’t overstay its welcome, we have a story to tell, we want to do this the right way. I’ve actually already shot pieces of the final scene of the series.”

Moore, who was also at the panel, nodded when Fogelman made that comment, possibly hinting that her character Rebecca Pearson was involved in what was already shot.

When Entertainment Tonight asked Moore if parts of the finale were shot, she played coy. “I don’t know!” the Emmy-nominated actress teased. “Maybe parts of the ending have been shot!”

More seriously though, Moore said she was happy to hear that Fogelman has an idea of where the Pearson family will be going in future episodes.

“I know, it’s crazy! Though it gives me solace to at least know that Dan knows how the show is going to end,” Moore told ET. “He’s not flying by the seat of his pants, you know? Like, there is sort of a through line and a punctuation point and he knows how it all comes together.”

Like Fogelman, Moore said the finale is a “ways off,” but the cast does know “there’s a finite amount of time that the show will exist.”

When This Is Us earned eye-popping ratings for its freshman season, NBC renewed the show for two more seasons, giving Fogelman and his team of writers the chance to explore the Pearsons without fear the show would get canned. Although This Is Us‘ second season ratings actually went up — partly thanks to the Super Bowl episode that revealed how Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) died — NBC has not renewed it past season three yet.

Filming for season three starts in July. The big mystery will be answering who the “her” is Randall (Brown) spoke of in a flash-forward scene with his adult daughter.

“What I can tell you is this, it sort of leads to the end game of our show as a whole, not the season, per say,” Brown said of the mystery on May 29. “Who you think the ‘her’ is. is probably not who it actually is … it’ll throw a bit of a curve. But it’ll be something you’ll see at the end of the show.”

This Is Us returns on Tuesdays in the fall.

Photo credit: NBC