‘This Is Us’ Producer Teases Jack’s Appearance as a Senior Citizen

The season finale of This Is Us is days away and we have questions about Jack Pearson’s upcoming appearance at Kate’s wedding.

The trailer for the upcoming episode showed an older-looking Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) at his daughter Kate’s (Chrissy Metz) wedding, talking to his wife Rebecca (Mandy Moore). The Pearson family patriarch wears a suit, glasses and grey hair. The two look at each other in their special “Jack and Rebecca” way.

“Where did the time go, Bec?” Jack asks before the promo moves on.

Executive producer Isaac Aptaker sat down with Variety and revealed the season finale would show present-day Jack but would not play any tricks on the audience.

“We’re not playing any games, but I will say that seeing him was one of the most visceral punches that I think we ever had. It’s so powerful and poignant and haunting and tragic all at once,” Aptaker said.

Aptaker said the goal of the finale, as far past the writers were concerned was to create an episode that has a sense of “hope and joy and optimism” after season that was “so marked by grief and tragedy and mourning.”

But, the show still being This Is Us, viewers can expect some drama.

Randall (Sterling K. Brown) and Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson), as Watson previously teased, will be distracted trying to adjust Deja (Lyric Ross) to being back at their home after her mother left her in their care.

Aptaker also teases Rebecca will struggle with her own emotions, given how her relationship with Kate is far from smooth-sailing.

“Their dynamic took a huge leap forward when Rebecca flew across the country to help Kate deal with her miscarriage, but [she] knows that her very existence is so fraught for her daughter,” Aptaker said. “She’s always stepping in it with her, and she doesn’t want — in any way — to disrupt this perfect day for her daughter.”

Kevin (Justin Hartley) will be taking on the role of wedding planner to ease some of his family’s stress.

“Kevin is basically running around, bending over backwards to make sure this loaded day without their father goes off without a hitch for his sister,” Aptaker revealed.

The episode, however, will serve to help the family — and viewers — to start looking forward after a difficult season.

“It’s about how a family can experience an incredibly, incredibly tragic loss and still fight through it and move forward and find happiness and joy,” Aptaker said. “They can remember the man they lost and still live the lives he would have wanted them to live — lives that just aren’t about grieving him.”

The This Is Us season finale airs Tuesday, March 13 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.