‘This Is Us’ Season 5 Finale Shocker: Chrissy Metz Reacts

This Is Us fans were in for a shock during Tuesday’s Season 5 finale when a flash-forward revealed that the fraught marriage of Kate (Chrissy Metz) and Toby (Chris Sullivan) would be coming to an end within the next five years. While the couple has weathered plenty of rough patches throughout the year, including a job offer during Tuesday’s episode that could have had the two doing long-distance, fans couldn’t believe seeing that they weren’t in it for the long haul.

Fans don’t know how exactly Toby and Kate split yet, but they do know that in five years, she’ll be getting ready to walk down the aisle with Philip (Chris Geere), her British music teacher boss, who has been warming up to her in recent episodes. Following Tuesday’s finale, Metz opened up to Entertainment Weekly about the shocker, joking she wasn’t sure if people would “hate” her or simply have “lots of questions.”

“I hope they understand the love that Kate and Toby have for each other and that it’s not some willy-nilly thing that happens, right?” she continued. “We can see the sort of unraveling this season. I’m hoping that they’ll see through that and not just be so upset that one of their most favorite couples is no longer… fetch. I’m hoping. I’m hoping.”

Learning from This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman about the divorce a while back, Metz said she initially questioned if the writers were “sold” on the idea of the divorce. “And then as Dan was giving me the particulars as far as this season was going to go, it was just very emotional, because anytime, even if it’s a fictitious relationship, I’m attached to the relationship,” she continued, adding that “regardless if their relationship was a reason, a season, or a lifetime, as they say, there was so much growth.”

Learning that Philip would be Kate’s new husband was a “huge, massive pivot” and “wonderful storytelling,” Metz continued, and she’s ready to see the co-parenting aspect of her character’s relationship with Toby as the years go on. “It’s tricky because, of course, we love the relationship so much, and they both have been through a lot in their lives, and Toby is such a great guy, and Kate has had so much hardship, personally, trying to come into her own,” she continued. “And sometimes people are just ushering other people to those places.”

While it would be “really sweet” if they managed to stay together, Metz drew on her own experience with divorcing ex-husband Martyn Eaden, from whom she split in 2013. “My ex-husband, I care about him deeply, but I just know that I was not going to make him happy, and we just weren’t the fit we thought we were initially,” she explained. “People grow together or they grow apart; it’s not a bad thing. It’s worse to stay in a relationship that you’re absolutely miserable in, or that your needs aren’t being met from either side.”