This Is Us is an American television series created by Dan Fogelman that premiered on NBC on September 20, 2016. The ensemble cast stars Milo Ventimiglia, Mandy Moore, Sterling K. Brown, Chrissy Metz, Justin Hartley, Susan Kelechi Watson, Chris Sullivan, and Ron Cephas Jones.
Overview
= Main cast (credited) = Recurring cast (4+) = Guest cast (1-3)
Main characters
Family tree
The characters in green have or had regular roles on the show. Dotted lines indicate a parental relationship through adoption, and dashed lines indicate either divorced, or widowed (or similarly separated), characters.
Jack Pearson
Jack Pearson (August 31, 1944 – January 26, 1998), portrayed by Milo Ventimiglia, is Rebecca's first husband (until he dies), and the father of Kevin, Kate, and Randall. Jack had a brother named Nick.
Jack had a rough childhood because of his abusive, alcoholic father Stanley Pearson, causing them to have a strained relationship. Stanley does not know that Jack has married, so when Jack finds out that he and Rebecca are expecting triplets, he goes to his father asking for money, citing gambling debts, rather than telling him that he intends to buy a house for his family. When Stanley is in the nursing home dying, he meets Rebecca and his granddaughter Kate for the first time. Jack is camping with Kevin and Randall when Rebecca contacts him about his father dying, but Jack refuses to see him.
Jack meets Rebecca two days before Christmas in 1972, and takes her on a date to a carnival; a date that goes awry. Despite that, Rebecca kisses him. The next week they take a trip to Los Angeles and start sleeping together.
Jack enlists in the Army after his younger brother Nick is drafted. Jack and Nick experience a falling out during the war, and Nick is discharged for psychiatric reasons following a tragic accident. From then on, Jack no longer spoke to his brother, and for the rest of his life and for years after his death, Rebecca and the Pearson children believed Jack's lie that Nicky had died in the war. (After Jack takes Randall to Washington, D.C., on a college tour to Howard University, he takes Randall to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and tells him how the war affected him; this may be the first time that Jack has shared about his Vietnam experiences to a member of the Pearson family—including Rebecca.)
After serving in the war, and working as a manual laborer, Jack becomes a construction foreman. When he wants to buy the house for his family, he approaches his boss and gets a raise to $17,000 a year (equivalent to more than $49,000 in 2016), making him the highest paid foreman at the company. He dreams of opening his own firm, "Big Three Homes", but puts his dreams on hold in order to provide a steady income for his children by getting a desk job. However, he later decides to start the business, though the Big Three are about to start college.
Two of the triplets (the third triplet, Kyle, was stillborn) and Randall (who had been left at a fire station) are all born on Jack's 36th birthday. Jack always wanted to find out who Randall's biological father was, and never knew that Rebecca had found him.
Jack struggles with alcoholism while the children are young, but he stops drinking to focus more on his family. (Sometimes he vents his anger on a punching bag to avoid drinking after a tough day.) However, he relapses into alcoholism when he has a drink after a disagreement and argument with his wife, who wants to go on tour with a band with a member she'd once dated. His drinking continues for some time until he decides to deal with the problem by attending AA meetings. His sobriety and AA work continue for at least 6 months.
Jack dies when his children are 17, and Kate keeps his ashes with her. On the night of the Super Bowl, Jack, Rebecca, Kate, and Randall go to bed for the night (Kevin is at a party with his girlfriend Sophie). Previously, a smoke alarm was shown to be missing batteries, and thus was inoperable. An old slow cooker given years previous by a neighbor is shown to have a faulty switch, which sparks and flames, setting a towel and the house ablaze.
Jack saves Kate and Randall from the fire by guiding them to his and Rebecca's bedroom. He then hoists them down from the first story roof. Kate is worried about her dog, so Jack goes back inside and gets the dog and family pictures. Jack is hospitalized for smoke inhalation, which causes stress on his heart and eventually causes sudden, fatal cardiac arrest.