‘This Is Us’ Star Justin Hartley Teases ‘Shocking’ Vietnam Revelations for Season 3

This Is Us will be heading to Vietnam during season three, and this time is for real.

When we last saw the Pearson family, Kevin (Justin Hartley) was headed to Vietnam with his new girlfriend (Beth’s cousin) to learn more about Jack’s life during the war.

The next time fans see Kevin, they won’t get answers right away, but sometime after that, he will start to, Entertainment Weekly writes.

“He’s going there — it’s a healing thing for him — so he’s going to get a lot of information, some stuff that he didn’t know and didn’t expect,” Hartley told the outlet. “And it’s going to jar a few things.”

What Kevin discovers about Jack Pearson’s (Milo Ventimiglia) life overseas during the war is “super heartbreaking” and “shocking,” the actor added.

“It’s not what anyone is expecting,” he said. “No one is going to see it coming. It’s ambitious stuff…. Here’s the cool thing about it: At the end of season 3 when you go back and watch the beginning of the series, you’re going to [be] like, ‘Wow, it all works,’ but you never would see any of this coming. I don’t know what those writers are eating, but it’s brain food. They’re brilliant.”

On the subject of the series’ upcoming Vietnam storyline, executive producer Isaac Aptaaker told Variety during the Television Critics Association summer press tour that the show will be spending “a lot of time in Vietnam.”

The series also brought in real-life veteran and author Tim O’Brien in as a consultant to “really get the story right.” Aptaker shared O’Brien will actually be co-writing with Dan Fogelman “an early episode that really dives into Jack’s life” at war.

Co-showrunner Elizabeth Berger added that it’s “freeing” to move beyond Jack’s death and “get to tell a whole different type of story.”

“To all of a sudden be immersed in the Vietnam war, we think is really significant,” she said.

Other storylines set up in the second season finale that the third season will flesh out include Toby’s (Chris Sullivan) depression, as well as Randall (Sterling K. Brown) and Tess (Iantha Richardson)’s future.

“What’s so cool about the style of our show is we can keep growing and expanding out in time,” he said. “We’ve really only spent 36 hours with [the characters] and there’s so much more” to explore.

This Is Us returns for its third season Tuesday, Sept. 25 on NBC.