LOS ANGELES — "This is Us" will take viewers on Jack and Rebecca's first date in the Season 3 premiere (Sept. 25), filling in details from the early days of the couple who became the parents of the Pearson siblings in the hit NBC drama.
Creator Dan Fogelman and cast members gave fans a sneak peek at Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) driving Rebecca (Mandy Moore) home after an awkward first date, punctuated by a drenching rain, during a panel discussion in August to promote Emmy votes for the show, which has eight nominations.
In the scene, Rebecca is about to say goodnight – and likely goodbye – before Jack, a recently returned Vietnam vet, confesses that he only had $9 when he took her to a carnival. He explains his conundrum: "If I bought the umbrella, I wouldn't have enough to play any of the games. … You don't bring a girl to a carnival and not let her play any games."
Rebecca changes her mind (but you knew that), pointing out the first-date failure is outweighed by "the way you look at me. Wow!" She leaves after giving him a kiss.
During the panel, which featured a look back at Season 2 and hints about Season 3, Ventimiglia dropped some casting news: Michael Angarano ("I'm Dying Up Here," "Will & Grace") will play Jack's younger brother, Nicky, seen previously as a child and in a photo from the brothers' joint tour of duty in Vietnam. (In a Season 2 episode, viewers learned Nicky didn't make it back from the war.)
Jack confesses that Vietnam is a sensitive topic during the first-date scene when he tells Rebecca: "I don't like talking about the war or my brother. It makes me sad. It makes me angry. But I like talking to you, a lot."
"Us" plans to film scenes in Vietnam this season, Fogelman said, explaining that another producer had just returned from a scouting trip there. That footage will focus on the decades-old war and a present-day visit by Jack's son, Kevin (Justin Hartley), who was seen flying to Vietnam with sister-in-law Beth's cousin, Zoe, in the Season 2 finale.
"Justin's heading there. Milo's potentially heading there, maybe some of our other cast members," Fogelman said.
With big, lingering questions about Jack's death finally answered in Season 2's big Super Bowl episode, producers feel greater freedom to expand the show's multiple timelines and look deeper into characters' backgrounds.
Fogelman said the season premiere of "Us," known for tear-jerking scenes of emotion and sadness, is one of the show's best episodes. "There is joy in it, in a different way, because we're playing different storylines and I'm really excited about it."
Apart from the origin of the Jack-Rebecca relationship, the new "Us" season will show the first meeting of another Pearson couple, Randall (Sterling K. Brown) and Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson), Fogelman said.
The show also will also flesh out the histories of Pearson spouses Beth and Toby (Chris Sullivan), who married Kate Pearson (Chrissy Metz) in the Season 2 finale. The fourth episode is titled "Toby."
Toby's deep depression, seen in the Season 2 finale, will be examined, Fogelman said, and the show will identify the woman fiftysomething Randall and grown-up daughter Tess were discussing ominously in a scene at the end of last season.
Fogelman suggested that other actors may join Brown, Ventimiglia and Moore in playing older versions of their characters.
It's not all sadness: Metz explained that the newlyweds are happy to have found each other, despite the scenes of Toby's depression.
"Toby and Kate have been looking for this love all their lives, so it's sort of like they're living a honeymoon in a lot of ways," she said. "They're really truly happy, but there's just a lot of things they're contending with as individuals, and how that affects the marriage and the dynamic of the relationship."
Sullivan would have preferred an actual wedding trip for the couple, joking about a recommendation that sounds a lot like an effort to schedule a working vacation. "We were really pushing the writers to write us a honeymoon in Hawaii."
