How did Jack Pearson die?
It's one of the simplest and most fascinating questions in the television watching community; the only question that fans of NBC's This Is Us want answered during its second season, which is back and running after the winter break.
Ever since the hit series about the emotional ties that bind a family together over 40+ years took over America last year, creator Dan Fogelman has held a key ingredient over viewers heads: what happened to the patriarch of the Pearson home? An event that divided the lives of Kate (Chrissy Metz), Kevin (Justin Hartley), Randall (St. Louis alum, Sterling K. Brown), and of course, Jack's wife, Rebecca (a stellar Mandy Moore).
Well, guess what? In order to truly care about the fate of a person, even one that is fictional, there must be a fine actor behind that disguise that convinces and invigorates you with poignancy. Meet Milo Ventimiglia, the heart behind This Is Us. An actor who has scrapped around Hollywood for many years, Ventimiglia has truly found the role of a lifetime, because it brings out his greatest talents: good looks, endless charm, and a believably stoic presence.
In order to make Jack as intriguing as possible, you needed a guy who could slip on the canyon like shoes of Jack Pearson, who easily qualifies as one of the make-believe world's all time great family men, if not the greatest. The man can make a mustache work, replace a bad roof, rock a jean jacket, connect with his troubled daughter, and loves the Pittsburgh Steelers. Come on, ladies. In order to fulfill that seemingly impossible mission, the role needed a certain blend of actor. Milo meets the criteria and makes it even better each episode.
When This Is Us dropped on television sets last year, it incorporated an original format: tell one story through many different time periods, spanning from the childhood of three sibling up into their adult life, slowly dropping in tidbits of detail about their journey along the way. For example: we knew Randall was adopted, but who is his father, and what exactly transpired between and Jack and Rebecca? The bones of that subplot are still being distributed in its second season, long after the departure of Ron Cephas Jones' William Hill.
Every story line on the show comes back to the existence, tutelage, and everlasting love dispensed by Ventimiglia's patriarch. It stems back to his life and the mystery behind how it ended, something Fogelman has wisely kept at a slow burn's pace. The spine of the series is not only the cause behind the death, but the details behind it, and how it helped shape, or break, the kids. In particular, Metz's Kate, a woman who builds her own cells that lock her in a permanent state of regret.
Did she indirectly ignite the series of events that took her dad's life? The first episode of the second season confirmed, aided by Damian Rice's cover of "One", the breadcrumb laid out in Season 1 that a house fire may have killed Jack. Last week's episode left open the possibility that a smoke detector with no batteries may have led to the fire taking the house without being put out. Fogelman jumping back and forth between the 90's and the present day lately is extremely well done, like dripping small drops of story clues over the audience's lips.
Ventimiglia makes it all work, because we believe in his Jack. It's been a long road for the actor, a career constructed between screens big and small. Before this show, he was known as the older version of Rocky's son in the sixth installment in the legendary movie series, Rocky Balboa. Milo was the guy who stood frozen like the rest of us as Sylvester Stallone's aging pugilist dropped the speech of a lifetime on his kid about how to carve a life. Jack Pearson, son of an alcoholic, only wishes he had a dad like Rocky.
This Is Us isn't the actor's first foray with NBC. Remember the first edition of Heroes? Back in 2006, he gave life to Peter Petrelli, the younger brother of Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar) who finds out he has the ability to fly. Ventimiglia played Petrelli for over 70 episodes on the series that ran for five years before going off air. While the series returned in new form last year, Ventimiglia didn't return. He had a different hero to play, one that couldn't fly, but certainly made ratings move quick.
The 40 year old actor also voiced Logan/Wolverine in a 2011 television series called Blade. He went toe to toe with Jason Statham in Wildcard. He was Jess Mariano on the popular series, Gilmore Girls, even returning for the Netflix movie in 2016. There were runs on Boston Public, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, American Dreams, The Bedford Diaries, The Whispers, Mob City, and Chosen. Outside of This Is Us, Ventimiglia has appeared in 70 different roles.
When an actor plays a role so well, people think he can get typecast and have trouble being recognized with any other role. I like to think of Milo's run as a long journey that culminated in a great role that should give his career plenty of life.
None of those other characters hold a candle to Jack Pearson. While he was very good in Season 1, the defining moment of Ventimiglia playing this character came in Season 2's premiere. A resilient Rebecca shows up to the house of Jack's best friend, Miguel (Jon Huertas). Jack has struggled with alcoholism for periods of his life, and the latest instance has nearly wiped out his marriage. All of this withstanding, Rebecca wants to take him home. Jack says no-and this is where Milo Ventimiglia blew me away.
In the clip, Jack tells his wife how drunk he has been, and how it's destroying their life. So, instead of agreeing to go home with her, Jack wants to get himself right. He doesn't want to pull his family into the thunderstorm of a terrible affliction. It's a heartbreaking scene that gets better as it grows and builds.
"I'm drunk right now. I've been drunk all day. I've been drunk for weeks."
Ventimiglia could have hammed up this scene, and got away with it, but he didn't. Instead, he just breaks down in front of his wife slowly, a proud man taking off a mask that made him look invincible. Like Fogelman revealing his character's fate, the actor moved slow with his dialogue, making each word seem like a dagger into the heart.
Eventually, Rebecca gets him in the car, but it was this scene where I realized how important Ventimiglia was to the show. Without him, the series is a pretty good, but not great, show. If you don't get the right guy to embody Jack, a vulnerable but Hall of Fame husband and father, the show doesn't work as well as it does.
Seeing an actor land a role that will score him paychecks for years is great. After all, actors are human beings trying to maintain a job like the rest of us, creating people from thin sheets of paper. Seeing an actor land a role that fits him like a glove and makes a show excellent is quite different. I've watching Ventimiglia for years and could tell something was there. He had the looks, but would the talent ever get stretched enough to be fully seen? This Is Us gave him that chance.
He makes the show what it is. Brown rightfully won an Emmy Award for his beautiful work as Randall, and the entire cast is aces down to Chris Sullivan's Toby and Hannah Zeile, who plays the young Kate with elegance while mixing in despair. In the end, though, Ventimiglia is the rock that makes it strong.
If you don't believe in Jack, This Is Us is an ordinary pleasure instead of a powerful series that makes grown men cry harder their wives. If you don't believe in Milo, the "what happened to Jack?" dilemma isn't as fascinating.
That's not bad work for an actor who got his first gig playing "Party Guest #1" on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1995. Thanks for grinding, Milo. Thanks for giving Jack Pearson true life, before and after death.
*This Is Us premieres every Tuesday night on NBC at 8 p.m. CST.
