Milo Ventimiglia opens up about shocking 'This Is Us' episode, Jack's cause of death
— -- After months of speculation, "This Is Us" finally revealed exactly how Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) died.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
His death had been teased for the entire second season, but it wasn't until after Sunday's episode that the exact details were made known to viewers.
The 20-year-old flashback showed that Jack died in 1998 hours after his family's house burned down. He had complications from smoke inhalation, which led to a major heart attack.
It was him going back into the home to save the dog and grab some family mementos that caused him to breathe in so much smoke, which later led to his sudden death.
Ventimiglia spoke to Esquire magazine shortly after the episode to talk about his character's fate and more.
"He sacrificed himself without even knowing that he was doing it," Ventimiglia told the magazine.
How the fire started -- a faulty Crock-Pot -- was important to the actor as well.
"It was nothing that anyone did wrong, and it was nothing that anyone could have stopped," he told Esquire. "In Episode 13, when Jack is cleaning up the house at the end of the night and he turns the slow cooker off, it was important to me personally that I threw the switch, that I turned it off, that it wasn’t left on by one of the kids."
The former "Heroes" star said that watching his onscreen wife, Mandy Moore, was just as heartbreaking as anything else during last night's shocker.
"Seeing Mandy’s reaction, slowly understanding that her husband is gone [in the hospital], is such a powerful moment, without needing to get into the gore and darkness of what death is," he said.
Ventimiglia first saw the episode last week.
"Watching it for me was less about what happens to Jack and more about how the kids responded to the loss. I was personally just so blown away by what the rest of the cast had done, and the stories [show runner Dan] Fogelman gave to all of them in regards to Jack’s death. It was almost a proud father moment, just watching my TV family experience this loss," he said.
But the 40-year-old star said fans can rest easy. Sunday night won't be the last time you'll see his character.
“I’ve been dead from the get-go ... we’re still gonna be bouncing around in different timelines. This is not the end of Jack,” he said. "There are so many questions with Jack. His upbringing, what happened to him in Vietnam, what happened to him after Vietnam before he met Rebecca? And those early days of Jack and Rebecca, I know is an era that Dan is excited to explore."
