It’s Super Bowl Sunday in the Pearson house The Steelers aren’t playing, but they still have to watch. (Pretty bummed my theory didn’t pan out.) This is Jack and Rebecca’s last Super Bowl with the kids at home. Before the big game, Jack does some final work on the new entertainment center he’s built. He tells Kevin that working on it has helped him stay sober.
Kevin could care less that his father is trying to open up to him. He’s not really happy with his life right now. Because of his knee injury, Kevin’s college plans have drastically changed. He is now going to have to go to community college to get his grades up. Meanwhile, Kate has heard back from Berklee College of Music. She’s in the final round of applicants and needs to perform an original song. She goes upstairs to start practicing, and Jack films her singing. She flips when she realizes what he’s doing. She doesn’t want to be on camera. Later, when Jack tries to apologize and make her feel better, Kate stops him. “I don’t see myself the way you see me,” she tells him. Jack saying all these things that Kate doesn’t believe hurts. She just wants him to stop.
Randall backs out of watching the Super Bowl with the family to take Allison out on their first real date to see Titanic. Kevin finds out Sophie’s going to NYU. He’s pissed at how everything’s turning out for him. “I was supposed to end up in the Super Bowl, not watch it like you guys,” he snarls at his parents. He storms out and heads to Sophie’s house.
Kate pops in the video her dad filmed of her singing and sees the way he looks at her, so full of pride and joy. She walks downstairs and tells Jack to never “stop trying to make me see myself the way you see me.” But she doesn’t stay and watch the game. She goes over to a friend’s house. So it’s just Jack and Rebecca left. Rebecca has a surprise for Jack — his first house to flip with his new construction company. Jack asks Rebecca to be his business partner on this journey. She happily agrees. They celebrate with Super Bowl sex.
Kevin calls home and apologizes for how he treated his parents. He wants to know whether or not Jack’s mad at him. Rebecca says Jack is not mad and offers Kevin the chance to talk to him. “I’ll just talk to him tomorrow,” he says. But Kevin doesn’t get that chance.
In the present, Beth and Randall buy the building and become new landlords. When the tenants need fixes, Randall thinks he can be a hero for everyone. Kevin arrives and teams up with Randall to repair things in the building. Kevin finds himself doing something very similar as Jack to stay sober. Randall quickly runs into a problem, though. His full-steam ahead approach ends in him having to have the whole place exterminated.
Toby wants to get a dog, but there’s some hesitation on Kate’s part. But she’s trying to move forward. She goes to a dog shelter to look at pups and finds the perfect one named Audio. Kate gets cold feet. She has a lot of baggage when it comes to a dog. She walks out of the shelter without Audio. Rest assured, she does change her mind.
Randall and Kevin open up to each other for the first time since their therapy fight. Randall feels like he’s running out of time. He can’t really think of himself as an old man, and it’s hard to picture himself outliving his father. “He’s already been gone 20 years,” Randall says to Kevin. “He’s already been gone longer than we had him.” Kevin stresses that Randall’s not going anywhere. He’ll live long just like William.
Kevin goes to Sophie’s apartment to make amends. However, she apologizes first for not noticing he was struggling. Even though he’s the only man she’s ever truly loved, no one can hurt her like Kevin does. She wants him to leave her in the past. She says goodbye to Kevin. When Kevin returns home, he has a package. It’s his father’s necklace!
The Super Bowl is over, and all the kids are home except Kevin. Jack and Randall talk in the kitchen, and Randall admits that he kissed Allison on their date. His very first kiss! Jack cleans up the kitchen, loads up the dishwasher, sweeps the floor, and writes a note. “Kevin, if I don’t see you before I go to work tomorrow, I love you,” he writes. “You owe us an apology.” Kevin never gets that note. Before he heads up the bed, he turns the crock pot off. Remember the elderly couple, George and Sally, from the beginning of the episode? They used to live across the street from Jack and Rebecca back in the day. They gifted Jack and Rebecca with their crockpot. George reminds Jack that you have to fiddle with the switch when turning it off. Jack forgets this. The crock pot (!!!!) catches fire. The flames crawl up the stairs of the Pearson house, burning everything in sight, including the note Jack wrote to Kevin. These are the final moments before Jack’s untimely death. This is the beginning of the end for Jack Pearson. ICYMI: Here’s the promo for the highly-anticipated Super Bowl episode!
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