This Is Us season 2 episode 13 review: The slow cooker

How Jack dies

This Is Us season 2 episode 13 entered the night with a lot of promise — Randall was ready to take on his new role as landlord, and Kate was getting set to move into the next phase of her life with Toby.

Also, we were very worried going into this episode that “That’ll Be the Day” would be the one to kill off Jack. Just that title alone is a cause for concern, given that there’s a lyric in this song that reads “that’ll be the day when I die.” That pit in our stomach was there almost every single minute of this episode, especially as we saw Jack and the family prepare to celebrate the Super Bowl. On paper, this should have been a normal day. Kevin was getting together his college application, Jack was fighting with Kate over videotaping her vocal audition, and Rebecca was seemingly the only person excited about the big game coming up.

We saw Jack and Rebecca celebrate the Super Bowl together after most of the family bailed on them, and after that, we saw Rebecca offer up what was a perfect opportunity for the new house-flipping business: It was a new home that they could check out. Through these little clues, we started to realize that we may be just a single day away from the day of Jack’s death.

Here is where things started to get painful — Kevin had an opportunity to speak to his father that night, after he had gone over to Sophie’s. Yet, he decided not to do it. Jack got up the next morning, prepared to head over to the house like it was any other day … and that was it. We’re now ready for the worst, our tissue boxes are stocked up, and we’re ready for the pain to run all over.

How it happened

It was the slow cooker from earlier in the episode, a gift from a couple moving out to Jack and Rebecca. That was what did it. It shorted out, and it caused a fire in the Pearson family residence. Everything started to burn, and then the credits rolled.

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In the present, Kate decided that she wanted to help make Toby’s dream come true of having a dog — she seemed to meet the perfect one in Audio, but it did make her flash back to a specific part in her past with her own dog. It felt as though she wasn’t going to get the dog, but then, she actually did in the closing seconds. Audio has a new home and he’s very much adorable!

Meanwhile, Randall’s attempt to fix the new apartment building didn’t go according to plan. At first, he thought that he was going to be able to do anything and everything that he put his mind to. That turned out to not be the case, since the entire place ended up being infested with roaches. Kevin used that project as a distraction before eventually realizing that he needed to try and get closure with Sophie. The one thing that Sophie told him was to let her remember the relationship back when things were good. He got what closure that he’s seemingly going to have and then he got something else — his father’s necklace. There was a time when it looked like he was never going to get it.

Here’s the problem Kevin faces — the final list on his name is his dad.

CarterMatt Verdict

You can’t be shocked that This Is Us season 2 episode 13 had a sad ending, given that sad endings are what this show does best. The fire is here, and it’s heartbreaking.

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