1 Of The Final This Is Us Episodes Is So Sad, It Made Mandy Moore Throw Up

With just over half a dozen episodes left, This Is Us: The Final Season is rushing toward the finale. The Pearson triplets are finding their way to their future, and the past is wrapping up a few loose ends. More importantly, the actors are getting ready to film the final episodes of the series. Apparently, the ending is hitting the cast as hard as it’s likely to hit fans, since Mandy Moore revealed This Is Us’ penultimate episode was so emotional, it made her throw up. Perhaps fans shouldn’t just have tissues ready, but buckets too.

Warning: Spoilers for This Is Us Season 6, Episode 10, and a bit of speculation about Episodes 11 through 18 follow. This Is Us finished its final Big Three trilogy with all three Pearson siblings conquering their demons. Kevin proved he could be a stable presence for his family; Kate proved she could climb literal and figurative hills. As for Randall, he dropped the last of the weight he was carrying and is about to see how high he can fly.

Fans have an idea of what will come next. The show has already hinted that Toby and Kate’s divorce will be triggered by an incident with the Big Green Egg smoker, the delivery of which is imminent. With the Episode 11 promo hinting Baby Jack will go missing, the show seems to be only an episode or two away from the serving of divorce papers. That doesn’t leave much time for Kate to fall in love with Phillip, Randall to run for Senate, or Kevin to propose to the right woman. But all those things are supposedly happening in the next six episodes.

Whatever happens, it’s going to be emotionally hard — so hard that Mandy Moore, who plays matriarch Rebecca, threw up from too much feeling.

Speaking during the This Is Us panel at PaleyFest Los Angeles, creator Dan Fogelman said Moore reacted viscerally when he sent out the penultimate script. “The second to last script I sent out to the cast ... made Mandy throw up,” he told the crowd. Moore hastened to correct the record that her response was not because what she read was awful or disgusting. “It was so beautiful and upsetting that that was my physical reaction,” she said. “I couldn’t breathe.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean fans should be scared to watch the episode. Moore, after all, has played Rebecca for six years; she is deeply emotionally invested in her character and the outcomes of her character’s children. But fans should take this as a warning; whatever happens, it will be a tough watch, even as it pulls things together in a beautiful way. I’m calling it a “three-tissue box alarm” for the episode.

This Is Us: the Final Season continues with new episodes every Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET on NBC and streaming the next day on Hulu.