'This Is Us' Reveals New, Emotional Details About Kate's Childhood That Will Wreck You

Kate Pearson has been super diligent about her diet since the first episode of This Is Us — in fact, her commitment to eating well has been one of the most prominent hallmark's of her story — but that may have changed in Tuesday's midseason premiere. The new episode delves deeper into Kate's issues with food than ever before, and makes a shocking connection between her eating habits and her father, Jack. Let's get into everything we learned about Kate's history of food issues on This Is Us, and how it will affect her moving forward. Spoiler alert: Don't read on until you have watched This Is Us Season 2 Episode 11, "The Fifth Wheel."

Tuesday night's midseason premiere was mostly a doozy for Kevin, who confronted his family over his memories of being excluded during a court-ordered therapy session, but that massive therapy blowout also brought to the surface a lot of illuminating new details about Kate's struggle with overeating. While in rehab following his DUI, Kevin made the realization that his addiction to alcohol and pills likely stems from his father's similar addiction, but he didn't stop connecting the dots there. Kevin also said that he thinks Kate's tendency to overeat is an addiction as well, and could be something she inherited from Jack just as Kevin did.

Although Kate is initially against Kevin's theory, it does seem like it might make sense. Addiction really can be passed on through genetics, and it's possible that instead of being drawn to alcohol like Jack and Kevin, Kate's addiction was instead focused on food. After all, the flashbacks in the episode reveal that eating junk food was something special that Kate and Jack would do together. Maybe eating sweet treats turned into a coping mechanism for Kate after Jack died, something to remind her of the times they had together.

Although Kate's story has not focused so heavily on her food issues recently, it looks like that will be returning as a major obstacle for her in the next few episodes. At the beginning of the new episode, Toby discovers a bunch of junk food containers shoved in the bottom of the trash can, and Kate later admits to him that she has recently begun overeating again after the devastation of her miscarriage. Now that she has given into her addiction again, we may see Kate struggling even more to stick to healthy eating in the second half of this season.

With seven episodes left in Season 2, there is still a lot of story to come from Kate before the season finale. One thing that we know for sure is coming at the end of this season is Kate and Toby's wedding. This Is Us showrunner Isaac Aptaker confirmed to Glamour recently that Kate and Toby will indeed get married before Season 2 comes to an end, and also teased that the two characters probably want to start a family sometime soon.

Yes. I think we can safely say that. We’re driving towards a wedding for Kate and Toby by the end of our season.

So it sounds like there will at least be some happiness for Kate pretty soon, even though this new episode brought up some pretty bleak stuff for her. Unfortunately, since we all know how This Is Us works, things will probably get worse before the big, happy wedding at the end, so brace yourself for some rough stuff ahead.

The Season 2 finale for This Is Us will likely air in mid-March; there are 7 episodes remaining in this season. And get ready for a big season finale, because it sounds like we are finally getting close to finding out how Jack died.