I’ve been counting down the days until the Olympics are over and regularly scheduled TV comes back, and even though there are only a few episodes of This Is Us left this season, fans are already theorizing about what challenges the family could face next season. Since we finally learned about the details of Jack’s death, viewers have a huge guess at which family member would meet their end next.
Refinery29 reports that there could be genuine proof that, depending on how This Is Us explores its future timeline, Beth could follow in the path of Jack and die before she meets her grandchildren. The main point of reference for this is the fact that an aged Randall appeared at the end of “Super Bowl Sunday” meeting a grown Tess without Beth there.
Now, I initially didn’t really take Beth’s absence as a major sign of anything. After all, the flash forward into the future was introduced by Randall telling Tess that he would meet her for lunch as an adult, suggesting that this was a special father-daughter tradition that Beth didn’t need to intrude on.
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— Sterling K Brown (@SterlingKBrown) February 5, 2018
However, fans are insistent that Randall’s hands weren’t shown in the flash forward or the photos of his older self, hinting that he could have removed his wedding ring following Beth’s death. While PopSugar suggests that the couple could have gotten divorced in between present-day and Tess’s lunch with Randall, I think it’s safe to say that Randall took a page out of his parents’ book and found a partner who would stick it out through thick and thin with him.
The Refiney29 piece even hunted up a hint that isn’t even officially linked to This Is Us, but the scoop does sound valid. TVLine runs a column that allows reader to ask for details on upcoming plots of their favorite shows, and one of the latest editions of the column promised that “an extremely popular broadcast drama that’s been on the air for less than three seasons” may use a storyline in which a “pivotal character” is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Fans in the comment have been connecting the unconfirmed gossip to This Is Us.
While Rebecca’s age and previous medical scare also makes her a likely candidate for this possibility, some devout viewers are suggesting that Beth is the one who receives the diagnosis. Perhaps she dies from cancer a few years down the line, making older Randall’s lunches with Tess even more crucial and beloved for the two of them. If you wanted to stretch the possibility even more, folks are even trying to prove that Beth falsely experiencing signs of pregnancy in Season 1 has to do with an impending cancer diagnosis.
Those committed to fan theories definitely have a knack for backing up their beliefs, but for now, I’m choosing to believe that Beth and Randall are safe in their own romantic bubble. We’ll have to see if any of these rumors come true when the show finally returns on Tuesday, Feb. 27.