
This will not be a detailed recap. I am getting ready to watch this episode and it is supposed to be heart-wrenching and I don’t want to watch is alone. 🙂 Plus I think we all may need a place to talk about this episode. It looks like I have the last few seconds of the Super Bowl to watch first. It looks like it was a nailbiter! There is more green confetti being dropped than I have ever seen in my life! Did they really have that much in a Patriots color ready to go as well? That’s a shit ton of confetti!
And just when we thought we were right all along, after Jack goes back for the dog after Kate had a fit about the dog dying, Jack walks out of the engulfed house with the dog. How the hell did that happen?Then they go to the hospital and he dies there? So same difference?

I enjoyed this show tonight. I had a really great day tonight and was in a good mood and almost didn’t want to watch the show. But I did and I didn’t even think about crying. I mean we knew he was going to die and was figured out through Kate’s storyline it was about the dog. So all dry eyes over here.
I figured that Kevin would relapse on the anniversary. Glad he didn’t. I didn’t understand what was going on with the little black boy with the white foster parents. I mean why was Randall there. Was that a future clip where Tess is a foster care worker?
I was thrilled that Deja was back. I love her. So what did all of you cry babies think?
Randall’s older daughter Tess admitted she had been leaving the landline off the hook because the foster agency uses that line, not celks. Get she said she believed in fostering.
I think that adorable boy would have been offered to Randall’s family, but instead went to the white blond couple because their phone had been busy.
But Deja then showed up. Good to see her back. I think since they went to the agency it is official.
I wonder if Tess had heard from Deja and was leaving the phone off the hook until they would call about Deja??
Randall’s wife is an attorney and they just bought and started rehabbing the building where Randall’s bio dad lived.
Kate actually said that Jack died that day, early in the episode, so it was just a matter of seeing it play out.
I think this year brought healing for Rebecca, Kate, Kevin and Randall, though he eulogy for Mr Smiley the lizard was over the top considering his audience of little girls.
It is hard to imagine Jack running downstairs for the dog and the video of Kate singing and photo albums, Rebecca’s necklace, all the while breathing in smoke.
Milo did a video for crockpots on Twitter with hashtag #CrockPotIsInnocent so he is maintaining a sense of humor.
The cats will be on Jimmy Fallon.. I am waiting for that now.
Nope….the little boy had not even been born yet in present time. That scene when Rnadall walked into the social workers office was with a grown up Tess, who is now a social worker, and he was meeting her for the weekly dinner he talked about having with her when she was grown. Tess’ assistant said to her when she walked in the room “your dad is here for your dinner”. When Randall walked in she said “hi dad”.
Yes! What a great twist!
Yes! What Saron said.
Arrgh. Cast, not cats.
The lizard was named Mr. McGiggles. That scene with the little boy was not present day, not a flashback…it is FUTURE Tess & Randall! I thought Hot Dad/Randall won the episode, his eulogy for the lizard turned into him speaking about his Dad/Jack. The pain of an unexpected loss-he & Beth were more light-hearted “oh, Snap” regarding her squishing the lil guy. Randall said it best, “Kate wallows, Kevin avoids.” So, he celebrates on Jack’s favorite day Super Bowl Sunday. TT, thank you for the forum to discuss tonight’s show! For me, it was very poignant. Tuesday will be here before we know it.
Yep. Great twist and great way to keep this show going on for a billion years. 🙂 I’m good with that.
As if I couldn’t dislike Kate any more, she hesitates getting out of the house during the fire and freaks out so much that her dad goes back into the fire to get her dog. She’s my least favorite character. Why didn’t the hospital run more tests? He should have been treated for smoke inhalation and been intubated.
Yes! The writers should have done more research into how this all works. Did they even try CPR? It was about 2 minutes of her being on the phone and then he is dead. I know it’s tv but it was not believable.
I started to judge her, but at the end of the day she was a kid…..she was more emotionally dependant than the others.
The hospital was running more tests when he arrested. his was 20 or more years ago, medicine was different then.
Kate was a terrified 17 year old.
Rebecca said it was a widowmaker heart attack.
One site claims it has a 5% survival rate.
Rebecca seemed oblivious to a code being called in back of her as she concentrated on the vending machine.
So I guess we will never know if it was the extra time inside the burning house to get the dog and other items that resulted in the heart attack, or if that was going to happen anyway.
I guess a lot of people are looking it up. From the Time Magazine site: (I hope this is OK with TOS)
When relaying Jack’s death to his best friend Miguel, Rebecca later referred to it as “a widowmaker’s heart attack.” Online searches for the phrase spiked more than 5,000% in the hours after the episode that revealed Jack’s death aired, and some viewers took to social media to tell their own stories about loved ones who had died from—or survived—similar incidents.
But what exactly is a widowmaker’s heart attack, and was the show’s portrayal accurate? To find out, TIME spoke with Dr. Richard Katz, director of the George Washington University Heart and Vascular Institute. Here’s what he says people should know about heart disease, sudden cardiac arrest and the causes of major heart attacks.
When doctors use the term “widowmaker” to refer to a heart attack, they usually aren’t talking about damage caused by smoke inhalation. Although it’s not a technical term, it usually implies a blockage of the left anterior descending (LAD) artery—the largest of the three arteries providing blood to the heart, also sometimes called the widowmaker artery.
The term is used because these types of blockages are very often fatal. “A widowmaker heart attack occurs when that artery suddenly goes from 80% or 90% narrowed to 100% narrowed,” says Katz. “It happens very quickly, and suddenly you’re depriving a large chunk of that heart muscle from oxygen.”
This triggers a very fast, life-threatening heart rhythm called ventricular fibrillation, which causes people to collapse from sudden cardiac arrest. “Sometimes this is transient and people wake back up,” he says. “But when the blockage occurs in the LAD, sadly this is when we see sudden cardiac death much more often.”
It does seem medically inaccurate, unless an autopsy revealed that he was already on the brink before the fire.
When I searched today the term popped up before I got beyond “wido..”
Why didn’t Jack just come down off the roof and open the front door for the dog? He came out that door, and someone said the dog was on the first floor. And why wasn’t he on oxygen at the hospital?
This was kinda messy and kind of anticlimactic.