Fans of This Is Us have been left brokenhearted again due to a simple, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it detail in the episode detailing Jack’s death.
On Sunday after the Super Bowl, the show’s writers finally revealed how Jack, the beloved character played by Milo Ventimiglia, passed away.
While many thought he would die in a house fire caused by a faulty slow cooker, it turned out that Jack actually died of cardiac arrest due to smoke inhalation stemming from that same fire.
Did you spot it? Fans of This Is Us have been left brokenhearted again due to a simple, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it detail in the episode detailing Jack’s death
Heartbreaking: Jack died of cardiac arrest due to smoke inhalation, while his wife Rebecca, unaware of the complications, bought a candy bar from a vending machine
His death unfolded in a heartbreaking scene at the hospital were Jack was brought to tend to his apparently minor injuries.
Jack’s wife Rebecca, played by Mandy Moore, remained blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding in a nearby trauma room while buying a candy bar from a vending machine.
In the episode, Rebecca didn’t find out her husband had died until a doctor came to find her at the vending machine and shared the news with her.
However, a tiny detail indicates that Jack might have been trying to warn her about what was ahead.
When Rebecca stands in front of the vending machine, Jack’s voice can be heard at one point calling out, ‘Bec?’
The moment is easy to miss, but Rebecca herself seems to hear it, and turns her head as if to look for the origin of the sound.
Detail: When Rebecca stands in front of the vending machine, Jack’s voice can be heard at one point calling out, ‘Bec?’ She is pictured later coming face to face with his dead body
So much sadness: The moment came as a particularly heartwrenching detail in an already overwhelmingly sad episode
Need to talk: Attentive viewers noticed the moment and took to Twitter to ask if others had caught it, while expressing their profound sadness
Emoting: Some shared emotional GIFs after taking notice of the tragic detail
Attentive viewers noticed the moment and took to Twitter to ask if others had caught it, while expressing their profound sadness.
‘That small whisper of Jack saying ‘Bec’ while she was at the vending machine… Like you not only HAD to kill him. YOU JUST HAD TO RIP MY HEART AND SOUL OUT TOO?!’ one person wrote.
Someone else declared they would now cry ‘for a year’, while another Twitter user asked: ‘Am i the only one that got CHILLS when Rebecca was at the vending machine and there was a whisper that sounded like Jack’s voice?’
Milo himself confirmed that viewers were right and that his voice can indeed be heard in the tragic moments right before Jack’s death.
‘Yeah, it’s so human, so simple, just the disbelief,’ he told Esquire of the overall scene.
‘And if you caught this, when she’s at the vending machine, you hear Jack say “Bec?” I had recorded a lot of different versions of that, some that were a little more ethereal like I was whispering.’
While Milo said only This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman knows the full meaning behind the moment, he added: ‘My belief is that it’s a presence. That was Jack saying “Bec?” She turns her head and everything.’
This Is Us hit a viewership high with Sunday’s episode, with 26.8 million people tuning in to watch the tragic installment according to Deadline.