Warning: The following contains spoilers from the This Is Us season finale.
I’ve made my attachment to the Pearsons clear. They are the TV family we all wish we were a part of, and that’s largely due to Jack and Rebecca. Their loving and unique yet seemingly attainable relationship grounds not just their family but the entire This Is Us universe.
Tuesday’s season finale, which focused mostly on the Pearson parents, left us hanging on the couple’s fate, with Jack, at his wife’s request, leaving home to stay with Miguel after a blow-up fight.
Throughout its season-long run, many, myself included, have compared This Is Us to Parenthood, another NBC weeper made good by its real world take on family. But shift your focus to a different real-as-it-gets drama (Hint: Parenthood EP Jason Katims had a hand in it, too) and you’ll see the very reason why Jack and Rebecca can’t break up…EVER.
That series is Friday Night Lights. FNL told a lot of great stories, but none as rich as Coach and Tami Taylor’s marriage. They had hard times, even times when I thought this is the moment their relationship is going to break. But it never did.
If you watch much TV, you know the drill: couples get together and they break up. Sometimes they get back together and break up again. It’s the nature of TV relationships, and it’s something I’ve come to terms with. But every once in a while, a rare couple comes along that is untouchable. There’s no storyline where they don’t exist together, and if the show chooses to ignore this and split them up anyway, a major misstep is immediately evident.
Friday Night Lights was wise enough to see this in Coach and Tami. I see it in Jack and Rebecca. Knowing that Jack has limited time with his wife and children makes the marital tension cringe-worthy enough. I would argue, though, that even if Jack wasn’t headed for death, he and Rebecca are still a virtually extinct type of on-screen couple that cannot and will not end things.
We won’t know the state of Jack and Rebecca’s relationship until This Is Us returns for Season 2, but I hope the show makes the brave choice and follows FNL’s road less traveled.