‘This Is Us’ Ending in 2022: Everything the Cast Has Teased About the Final Season

Enjoy it while you can! That's the mantra the fans of This Is Us are going by following the news that season 6, set to air in 2022, will be the last for the NBC drama, which stars Milo Ventimiglia, Mandy Moore, Chrissy Metz, Justin Hartley and Sterling K. Brown. Although the announcement, which came in May 2021, was a sad one for the viewers, longtime fans weren't surprised, since creator Dan Fogelman has been open through the years about his vision for the award-winning show. "We never set out to make a television series that was going to last 18 seasons, so we have a very direct plan. I have script pages I have written and I’m writing that really are deep, deep, deep into the future," the showrunner told The Hollywood Reporter in 2019. "We have a plan for what we’re going to do, and I know what the plan is." [jwplayer tfJbwWJy-zhNYySv2] Following the official announcement, the Crazy, Stupid, Love writer explained how sad he is to end the show via Twitter. “Whoever casually first said ‘All good things must come to an end’ never had to end their favorite thing,” he tweeted at the time. “While sad to have just 1 season left, also grateful to NBC for letting us end the show how, and when, we always intended. We’ll work hard to stick the landing." Moore also reacted to the news via social media, reposting Fogelman's tweet. "Officially official. One season left of my favorite job. You can bet we will be soaking in every single moment," she wrote via Instagram Story. "I'm already VERY emotional about my favorite job coming to an end. BUT ... We have a whole season to wrap things up the way it was always intended."

Gearing up for the final season premiere, several of the stars — including the “Candy” songstress — couldn’t help but gush over the last chapter.

“Season 6 coming to you January 4th. Man, I LOVE this family and savoring all of these moments together as we begin our journey to the finish line,” Moore captioned a group pic via Instagram in December 2021.

Weeks earlier, the How to Deal star confirmed her directorial debut would occur during the sixth episode.

“I am eternally grateful to Dan Fogelman for changing my life in every way with #thisisus and in our final season, giving me the chance to helm a truly extraordinary episode of television written by the brilliant David Windsor, Casey Johnson and @chrissymetz,” Moore captioned a separate Instagram post of a film slate earlier that month. “I’ve always known we have the BEST CREW in the biz but this process has already given me a deeper understanding and appreciation of just how exceptional every single member of our crew is at their jobs. I’m doing my level best not to mess this up."

Scroll through the gallery below for everything the cast and creator have said about the final season and what to expect from the series finale: [podcast_block]

Enjoy it while you can! That's the mantra the fans of This Is Us are going by following the news that season 6, set to air in 2022, will be the last for the NBC drama, which stars Milo Ventimiglia, Mandy Moore, Chrissy Metz, Justin Hartley and Sterling K. Brown. Although the announcement, which came in May 2021, was a sad one for the viewers, longtime fans weren't surprised, since creator Dan Fogelman has been open through the years about his vision for the award-winning show. "We never set out to make a television series that was going to last 18 seasons, so we have a very direct plan. I have script pages I have written and I’m writing that really are deep, deep, deep into the future," the showrunner told The Hollywood Reporter in 2019. "We have a plan for what we’re going to do, and I know what the plan is." [jwplayer tfJbwWJy-zhNYySv2] Following the official announcement, the Crazy, Stupid, Love writer explained how sad he is to end the show via Twitter. “Whoever casually first said ‘All good things must come to an end’ never had to end their favorite thing,” he tweeted at the time. “While sad to have just 1 season left, also grateful to NBC for letting us end the show how, and when, we always intended. We’ll work hard to stick the landing." Moore also reacted to the news via social media, reposting Fogelman's tweet. "Officially official. One season left of my favorite job. You can bet we will be soaking in every single moment," she wrote via Instagram Story. "I'm already VERY emotional about my favorite job coming to an end. BUT ... We have a whole season to wrap things up the way it was always intended."

Gearing up for the final season premiere, several of the stars — including the “Candy” songstress — couldn’t help but gush over the last chapter.

“Season 6 coming to you January 4th. Man, I LOVE this family and savoring all of these moments together as we begin our journey to the finish line,” Moore captioned a group pic via Instagram in December 2021.

Weeks earlier, the How to Deal star confirmed her directorial debut would occur during the sixth episode.

“I am eternally grateful to Dan Fogelman for changing my life in every way with #thisisus and in our final season, giving me the chance to helm a truly extraordinary episode of television written by the brilliant David Windsor, Casey Johnson and @chrissymetz,” Moore captioned a separate Instagram post of a film slate earlier that month. “I’ve always known we have the BEST CREW in the biz but this process has already given me a deeper understanding and appreciation of just how exceptional every single member of our crew is at their jobs. I’m doing my level best not to mess this up."

Scroll through the gallery below for everything the cast and creator have said about the final season and what to expect from the series finale: [podcast_block]

“It was whole and it was full,” Ventimiglia told Deadline on May 22. “I was happy to end the show with Mandy in a scene together because that’s how we started it. It felt good, it felt accomplished. It felt like we’d been given this opportunity to close things out respectfully, wholeheartedly for the characters. I was grateful.”

Fogelman revealed that Moore had a visceral reaction to the reading the penultimate episode. “The second to last script – I sent [it] out to the cast and it made Mandy throw up,” the showrunner said during the drama's PaleyFest panel via Today in April 2022.

Moore explained, “It was so beautiful and upsetting. That was my physical reaction.”

It was clear from the end of season 5 that This Is Us season 6 would tackle the end of Kate and Toby's marriage. "It's such an important part of relationships to talk about," Sullivan told E! News in March 2022. "It doesn't get talked about a lot, and it doesn't get handled very delicately a lot, and only [creator] Dan Fogelman and our writing staff can take the end of a marriage and still address it with compassion and love."

Still, the actor said it was hard to accept that Kate and Toby wouldn't get their happily ever after. "We spent six years loving each other, so it's a bummer to go out like this," Sullivan added. "But it's also an honor to address this as well as our writing staff is."

Metz agreed and revealed their split episodes were extremely difficult to film. "There were a couple scenes where I was like, 'Chris, I'm, like, physically ill.' And I think it was just the beginning of the end, of course of the series, but the beginning of the end of their relationship too,” the Kate actress said.

Though he promised that fans would feel "a bit of magic" watching the Pearson family's story come to a close, Ventimiglia also advised fans to "get ready" for an emotional ending. "As we're reading the last several episodes ... I'm starting to see loops closed where there was a moment or a story and it hits an end," he told Us exclusively in February 2022. "It may not be happy — or it may be happy. It's just the way that life works."

Even if the family doesn't get their happy ending, Ventimiglia promised that "people will be very satisfied" with the series finale.

Metz hinted at the relatable reason for Toby and Kate’s divorce in January 2022. “We'll come to find that neither Toby or Kate are wrong or right,” she exclusively told Us Weekly. “They're just sort of growing apart, and I think that's such a beautiful way to — we always see these very tumultuous endings of relationships, and we're gonna see that these are two people that love each other desperately but just aren't meant to be together forever. And it doesn't have to be terrible all the time. You can understand each other's perspectives. We’re gonna go through that whole journey of the new and the old.”  

The actress also teased that fans will eventually see Phillips’s “underlying charm” during the final season.

“As an actor, it's a huge challenge to turn that around. I have 18 episodes of TV to go from a really icy, cold, mean-ass music guy who's belligerent and hostile and ridiculous to the guy that one of the lead characters falls in love with,” Chris Geere, who plays Kate’s colleague-turned-future-husband Philip, told Entertainment Weekly in December 2021. “That, for me, is huge challenge. So, I'm just enjoying the journey. Chrissy is just marvelous to work with. She's a lovely person. I'm here for the ride and I'm enjoying it.”

He dished on the characters’ connection in the final season, adding: “It's a working relationship — at first, and then it will, at some point, turn. Whether that is connected with the collapse of the marriage to build up another, I don't know. But I do know that from that flash-forward scene, she ends up happy. So she's not a bad relationship. She's with the guy that she wants. I just hope I can portray that guy."

Susan Kelechi Watson joked that Brown will cry the most when production wraps. "I'm kidding. It might be him, Chrissy or Mandy," she told E! in December 2021, before hinting at what's to come. "It hasn't been emotional yet, but we are starting to walk down memory lane a little bit, and it's starting to get a little realer. But I think all of us are kind of waiting. You kind of don't want to go there yet. I think we're waiting for when we shoot the last episode, which is in April."

The How I Met Your Mother alum doesn’t make a cameo on This Is Us, but her house does.

Hannigan revealed that the NBC series filmed inside her home, which is actually a pretty famous place. “I think my house’s resumé is longer than mine,” she joked on an October 2021 episode of SiriusXM’s The Michelle Collins Show, adding that the former owners used to rent out the space for film shoots. “I would say at least twice a month, [we] get requests [from film productions] because the house is just known,” she said.

It wasn’t until the Buffy alum realized that her neighbor was the director of This Is Us that she decided to offer up her abode. “We were like if we are ever going to do it, we would do it for that show ‘cause it’s so good and … long-running shows, like, the crews are very respectful,” she said.

In fact, the American Pie actress said, “Not only did they give us our house back in wonderful shape, they fixed things that I had damaged,” including touching up some paint and covering up her kids’ handprints on the wall. “They’re like, ‘Would you like us to do that as well?’” she continued. “And I’m like, ‘I know that wasn’t from you, but yeah, thank you.’”

"I think it's wonderful. I think it's incredibly satisfying. I think it's beautiful," Ventimiglia told Us in September 2021 about the way the show ends. "Fogelman and the writers have [created] this completion of the story and to see this kind of an infinite loop of where things start and how it all kind of tailors back into one another. ... This is probably gonna wreck people in the most heartfelt way."

"I think it's very unpredictable," Hartley told Entertainment Weekly in January 2021. "The way that the story has been told to me and the way that it ends seems like the right way to 'end' it. Just like life, everything does end, doesn't it? I think it's full. You're going to have a full heart, just because by that time you will have watched these people and all of their journeys for such a long time. When you invest that much as an audience member, you'll fill up completely, but in a satisfying way. It's definitely an emotional journey."

“We’ve always known the plan for the show because we’re not going 15 seasons,” Fogelman told The Los Angeles Times in 2020. “I think by the time we’re in our sixth season, you’ll have a lot of the information about what’s happened to this family and what will be left is some resolution. I think when the show eventually comes to an end, I think in the best way, it’ll be very quiet and normal. That’s always been the plan, because at the end of the day, it’s a story about this kind of regular family."

"We know where it ends and we know the path for each season. We’ve always had a plan, we didn’t want to get stuck," Fogelman said during a panel in 2018. "The show won’t overstay its welcome, we have a story to tell, we want to do this the right way. I’ve actually already shot pieces of the final scene of the series."

Brown added in 2019, "There are things that we’ve actually already shot for our series finale right, that we’re banking so that when it comes time to show them, it’ll be fun.”

In 2018, Moore noted that the ending is "very true to what the show evokes from all of us," adding, "Dan’s a master at that. People will feel their feelings."

In 2018, while Fogelman discussed the "her" mystery — which later was revealed to be a reference to an ailing Rebecca in bed — he hinted that those flash-forward scenes could be in the series finale.

"Who you think the ‘her’ is is probably not who the ‘her’ is but it’s who you’ll see at the end of the show," he said at the time. Later that year, Moore, added, "Parts of the ending have been shot!”