The first of three final episodes that will feature This Is Us‘ Big Three began with Kevin (Justin Hartley) as he faced his past and looked forward into the future in “The Guitar Man.” Fans will watch Kate (Chrissy Metz) as she follows her husband Toby to San Francisco in an attempt to save their marriage in “The Hill.” This storyline precedes a Randall-centric (Sterling K. Brown) episode whose name has yet to be released. The final trilogy, per Hartley, promises to be “significant. emotional and dangerous.” What can fans expect as This Is Us celebrates the halfway point to its series finale?
How will The Big Three heed their mother’s life advice?
In the series titular Thanksgiving episode, Rebecca (Mandy Moore) advised her children not to let her early-onset Alzheimer’s dictate how they live their lives.
“When dad died, it was a shock, right?” Rebecca referenced the family’s loss of patriarch Jack (Milo Ventimiglia). “We were all left scrambling, trying to figure out our roles and how to move on. And the one silver lining of this awful disease is that I have the opportunity to make a plan, to try to ease some of the burdens.”
She asked them to live their lives fearlessly.
“You will not make your lives smaller because of me,” Rebecca insisted. “This thing that’s happening to me will not be the thing that holds you back. So, take risks. Make the big moves, even if they’re small moves. Forge ahead with your lives in any and every direction that moves you.”
Justin Hartley promises viewers the trilogy will be ‘significant, emotional, and dangerous’
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Justin Hartley made a bold promise to This Is Us fans, sharing the trilogy featuring The Big Three will be “significant, emotional, and dangerous.”
However, Hartley explained that the word he would use to describe the three episodes is “seminal.”
“I would say that they are significant and emotional and dangerous. Each character is making a decision that will change the course of their life from here. So it’s a defining moment — a line in the sand kind of thing. These characters that we’ve seen for the past six years are all of a sudden leading different lives, which is kind of cool,” Hartley explained.
What can fans expect from Kate’s upcoming installment, ‘The Hill’?
Next week’s episode titled “The Hill” features Kate at a crossroads in both her life and marriage to Toby (Chris Sullivan).
After being appointed the executor of her mother’s wishes if something happens to Rebecca’s husband Miguel (Jon Huertas), Kate’s role in the family takes on a new prominence. However, with her marriage faltering, she went to San Francisco to spend critical time with him.
In a teaser trailer for the episode, Kate and Toby subsequently appear happy, showing that her marriage could be back on track. However, while she acknowledges her marriage to Toby has given her a life she could have never imagined as a young girl, Kate admits she missed “the old Toby.”
“Kate, in a weird way, is finding herself in a place that Kevin’s been in before — she’s trying to figure out how to make this marriage work and come to the realization that some things don’t work out the way that you thought that they would,” Hartley teases.
“Do you adapt and adjust? Or are you even able to do that, and you have to move on?” he suggests.
This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. EST on NBC.