The final chapter in the story of the Pearsons has been written.
After a heart-wrenching penultimate episode which featured the death of Rebecca (Mandy Moore), the This Is Us May 24 series finale was less about grief and more about appreciation. But there were still tears. Plenty, plenty of tears.
The episode began as the previous one ended: with Rebecca and Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) in bed together telling each other "hey." Instead of being on a train, however, it was a flashback to a lazy Saturday without anything on the Pearson calendar. After Jack noticed a scar on Rebecca's eye for the first time, she reflected back on her own childhood.
"I really wish I had spent more time appreciating it when it was all happening," Rebecca said, "instead of just worrying about when it would end."
The episode transitioned back-and-forth between that lazy Saturday and Rebecca's memorial service. As Randall (Sterling K. Brown) struggled writing his speech, his younger self and his brother were shown learning how to shave with the help of their father.
As Jack took a step back and marveled at the maturity of his sons, he urged them to live in the moment, whenever possible.
"That's what we're doing, collecting these little moments," Jack said. "We don't recognize them when we're in them because we're too busy looking forward. Then we spend the rest of our lives looking back trying to remember them, trying to be back inside them."
Back at his mother's funeral, Randall struggled to remember the wise words of his father.
"It all just feels so pointless," he told his own daughters. "I spent my entire childhood worried about losing her. Spent the last decade abjectly terrified of it. Now she's gone, and yet the birds chirp on. I notice that I'm hungry. Five minutes ago, I thought about work. Tomorrow I'll shower. It just all feels so pointless."
In Randall's despair, however, came a rebirth. His daughter Deja (La Trice Harper) told her father that she was having a boy, and that she'd be naming him William, after Randall's biological father.
After the memorial service, the Big 3 sat down together one last time and plotted out their futures: Kate wanted to commit herself to creating music schools for the visually-impaired, Kevin wanted to focus on his non-profit and, with his mother's legacy in mind, Randall vowed to jump head first into his Presidential campaign.
Fried Oreos or bust.
In the episode's final moments, we returned to Jack and Rebecca—this time back on that fateful train. Rebecca told Jack that she's worried to take the final step into the afterlife and leaving her children behind, saying "there was so much left that I wanted to do with them." Jack assured Rebecca that she'll always be with them and the two reminisced about their relationship—including the first day they met.
"When the world puts something that obvious in front of you," Jack tells Rebecca, "you don't just walk away."
The episode ended with two knowing glances from Randall: one as a young boy to his father Jack, and one in real-time to his pregnant daughter. He didn't say anything, but he didn't have to. After all, he learned from the best about appreciating life's big moments when you're actually in them.
We'll miss you, Pearsons.