Bring a box of tissues. You'll need them. It's more of a tear jerker than a typical This Is Us episode, owing in part to the gorgeous musical soundtrack and in part to the gut punch of an ending with Maine's suicide. The shot of the dog outside the garage as Maine commits suicide has been compared to the Futurama episode "Jurassic Bark".
Everything surrounding Jack's suicide:
The fact that he truly was getting better following his stint in rehab and that he did have a chance to continue to recover from his alcoholism and lead a happy life with Ally, and maybe even resurrect his career had he not gone through with it.
Rez' totally uncalled-for Breaking Speech to Jack that ended up driving the latter to end his life in the first place. First of all, regardless of whether you feel Rez was right about Jack eventually relapsing, the fact is, NO ONE has a right to disparage a person in recovery, especially not when that person is making a genuine effort. Secondly, whether Rez did what he did to help Ally's career or to help his own, or both, the fact is, he singlehandedly destroyed a marriage between two people who genuinely loved one another. Jackson is dead and while Ally's career will probably continue to soar, she will likely never fully heal from losing her husband so horrifically; and will likely never find out Rez' role in her husband's suicide.
The shot of the dog sitting out by the garage after Jack's hung himself.
The ending, where Ally is singing the song Jack wrote for her and the scene cuts to Ally and Jack's music room in their home, where Jack is playing the song for her while Ally listens proudly.
When Ally visits Jackson in rehab, she asks, tentatively, whether he still wants to be with her after he gets out of rehab. Jackson is flabbergasted, and Ally admits that while he wasn't drunk the entire time they were together, his alcoholism did get bad during their marriage. On a deeper level, recalling Ally's lack of faith in herself, her own abandonment issues, and how insecure she is about her appearance, it's not hard to see why she would wonder if Jack was going to leave her the way her own alcoholic mother left her.
Going much deeper, although Jack's alcoholism did spin out of control during their marriage, literally from the moment they met and throughout all of their time together (their argument in the bathroom aside), Jack was constantly telling Ally how beautiful and talented she is and encouraging her to embrace these things about herself. So the fact that Ally could somehow think that all that was just drunken ramblings on his part, and that he didn't love her as much as she loved him just speaks to how deeply she's been hurt by his alcoholism and by her mother's abandonment, and also to how low her own sense of self-worth is.
