The final chapter of "This Is Us" is coming to a close on Tuesday, and fans are just not ready.
Neither is Chrissy Metz, who's played Kate since the show began in 2016. She posted a brief video on Instagram Sunday, face despondent.
“Man,” she says, lowering her arm across the camera as if she’s just completed collapsing into the sofa. Tears are streaming down her face as the light changes (we suspect this is the glow of her TV set, off camera.) “This is hard.”
In the caption, she writes: "If this was me last week, will I even survive the finale on Tuesday? This IS hard 😭 #thisisusfinalchapter @nbcthisisus
We are with you, Chrissy!
Some of the scenes between characters that are only airing now were shot years ago as co-star Mandy Moore (Rebecca) pointed out to Deadline, which means they may feel very fresh to the actors appearing in them (or seeing them for the first time).
Last Tuesday's penultimate episode is clearly the closing of not just a chapter, but a book: The Pearsons are surrounding Rebecca in her final hours in 2032, while a flashback featured Jack again (alive and then dead) in 1998. Scenes of Rebecca dreaming of getting on board a luxury train were clearly a prequel to her final departure ... and both Rebecca and Jack got another scene together, which undoubtedly caused many tissue boxes to be emptied.
Well, expect a whole lot more of that on tomorrow night's show — both emotional scenes and the need for tissues.
"I think people will be very content (with the finale) and I felt like, ‘Wow, this is such an indication of the ripple effects that we have on people.’ Whether we’re still alive, whether we’re a part of their family... there are so many ways that we can affect others’ lives,” Metz told Entertainment Tonight Sunday.
The bright light at the end of the tunnel, though, is that while "This Is Us" will end (with an episode called "Us"), Metz, 41, is down to appear in whatever spinoffs may come.
"Who doesn’t love a spinoff?" she asked ET. "I think that there’s a lot of potential for all of it. So who knows? In maybe a year or two, somebody misses somebody and somebody writes something. But yes, (there’s) a lot of potential... I don’t know, we’ll see."
The finale of "This Is Us" airs on NBC Tuesday, May 24 at 9 p.m. ET.