This Is Us season 2 episode 14: How does Jack die?

Milo Ventimiglia leaving

After a crazy, super-entertaining night watching the Super Bowl, there was nothing quite like the transition from this into bawling our eyes out watching This Is UsThis is, after all, the episode that was all about learning how Jack died.

We were a little bit surprised in some ways to see just how quickly Jack and the rest of the Pearsons made it out of the fire. Jack managed to get all of the family out of there with one exception: Louie. The family dog was still inside and Kate, of course, wanted to see him make it out okay.

One of the biggest theories going into into the episode was that the dog was the reason why Jack died, but it turned out that this was not the case. He was able to make it out of the house with the dog; with that, it did seem like the worst was over. Was the first just a red herring after all this time? Jack had suffered smoke inhalation, but that seemed to be the only thing that he was only suffering from. We know that he did die on this day, so the question that the series really left us wondering is if that was going to be it. Would the smoke really kill him over the course of the hour, or was there something else at play that was not as easy to detect?

This is what happened: It was smoke inhalation. One of the side effects sent him into cardiac arrest. The only thing that made the reveal of how he died (it was sudden, and while Rebecca was getting him candy at the vending machine) was seeing how Rebecca reacted to it — she was in disbelief until she went back and actually saw his body.

We do think it was the right thing for the show to do to not show the character’s actual death — what would have been the point there other than causing more pain? This move gave us the closure that we needed, while also putting us in the position of Rebecca. It does also explain why Kate blames herself: Had he not gone back in for the dog, he probably would not have met the same end.

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