This is Us co-showrunner Isaac Aptaker has teased a major format change for season three of the emotional family drama.
To date, the show has mainly been set in the present day, supported by flashbacks filling us in on the lives of the Pearson family, with the recent Super Bowl episode finally showing us how Jack died, a moment the whole show had been building to.
The end of that episode also had a flash-forward to Randall and his grown-up daughter Tess, and Aptaker told The Hollywood Reporter that it's "not a one-time thing".
"We didn't just do that to be splashy during the Super Bowl episode. Since the beginning that's been something we've known we were going to get to in the show. We had a lot of story we wanted to tell before we got there, but now that we've visited that time, nothing's off the table and we will certainly be returning there in the future," he explained.
"It's so much fun for us as writers and storytellers, getting to imagine what these people are up to 10-15 years in the future. We haven't put an exact year on it. It's just like the possibilities are endless. It opens up the show in a way. It adds this whole new colour and dynamic."
Before we get to those possible flash-forwards in season three, though, we've still got three episodes to go of season two – and fortunately, Aptaker promises that there is some happiness in store as the finale features Kate and Toby's wedding.
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Happiness on This is Us? We'll believe it when we see it.
This Is Us airs on Tuesdays on NBC in the US. Season 2 will be coming to Channel 4 this summer in the UK.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
