‘This Is Us’: Jack’s Final Words to Rebecca Revealed

Since the next episode of This Is Us will not air for a few weeks, fans now have an opportunity to go back and unlock the secrets of season two. One Easter egg from the Super Bowl episode is Jack’s final words, which you might have missed.

Jack’s last word turned out to be his wife’s name. He said, “Bec,” just before his death. Sadly, Rebecca did not hear it.

In the Feb. 4 episode, “Super Bowl Sunday,” we finally learned how Jack Pearson (Milo Ventimiglia) was cut from his mortal coil. The Pearson family home caught fire after the faulty slow cooker was left on. After saving Randall, Kate and Rebecca (Mandy Moore), he went back in the house to save Kate’s dog. At first, it looked like there would be a major twist since Jack survived the fire.

Jack was taken to the hospital and warned he inhaled too much soot and smoke. They thought he would be okay. Rebecca and Jack had one last conversation, as they considered how different their lives will be after their beloved house burned down. Rebecca later went to the waiting room and got a candy bar from the vending machine. While she did that though, the doctors and nurses rushed to Jack’s room. He suffered a cardiac arrest and could not be revived.

Even after learning her husband just died, Rebecca still takes a bite from the candy bar in a moment of total disbelief. It added to the show’s realism.

“Yeah, it’s so human, so simple, just the disbelief,” Milo Ventimiglia told Esquire of the moment. “And if you caught this, when she’s at the vending machine, you hear Jack say ‘Bec?’ I had recorded a lot of different versions of that, some that were a little more ethereal like I was whispering. You’ll have to ask [creator Dan Fogelman], but my belief is that it’s a presence. That was Jack saying ‘Bec?’ She turns her head and everything.”

Thanks to the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, the next episode of This Is Us will not air until Tuesday, Feb. 27 at 9 p.m. ET. The episode’s title has yet to be revealed, but we do know Jack’s service in Vietnam will be a focus. The promo shown after the Feb. 6 episode, “The Car” included a scene from the war and promised viewers that Jack’s story is not over yet.

This Is Us‘ second season will end on March 13. That’s much earlier than other shows, but it is by design. Fogelman successfully convinced NBC to keep the show on Tuesdays in its second season so there would be as few breaks as possible. Aside from the Olympics, the show’s only other break came during the holiday season. The show was already renewed for a third season.

Photo credit: Ron Batzdorff/NBC