“Katoby” is also the 100th episode of This Is Us, and knowing this show, we expect the writers will swing for the dramatic fences in honor of the momentous occasion. Whether that means we’ll get some answers to some long-awaited questions—like perhaps where Kate is in the flash-forward?—or are thrown a curveball we weren’t expecting, or just that it will make us cry so hard we can’t feel our faces, is anyone’s guess. Here’s everything we learned from the promo for This Is Us Season 6, episode 12, “Katoby.”
Is there a promo for This Is Us Season 6 episode 12?
The promo for “Katoby” opens with a shocker: Toby has decided to take the job in L.A.—the one that came with a lesser title and a massive pay cut—in order to prioritize his marriage. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to save our family,” he tells Kate as she takes his hand. “Whatever it takes,” she echoes. But apparently it takes more than living in the same city, because the next line in the voiceover is Kate saying, “I was married to a wonderful man and we loved each other a lot, and it wasn’t enough.” Emphasis on the past tense, as we get several happy glimpses of Kate and Toby’s life together (including one of him showing up at Kate’s door carrying Hailey and what appears to be luggage, making us wonder whether this scene actually occurs after they’ve already separated). But as Kate concludes the line, she looks sad, and also has pink hair, implying that some time has passed. The promo then promises “the final moments of Kate and Toby,” leaving little doubt where the episode is headed. We see Kevin opening the door to Kate’s bedroom to find his twin crying on her bed, followed by Kate and Toby standing outside a commercial building (an airport? Toby’s office?) looking somberly at one another, with Toby carrying a bag over his shoulder. Is this his first day at the new job? The day he moves out? Toby deciding to return to San Francisco alone? “I thought if we fixed what was broken,” Toby says in voiceover, “we would find our way back to each other.” Since we know the episode will cover the events of several years, we wonder if Toby is referring to his move back to L.A. when he talks about “what was broken.” It seems, though, that the problems in their marriage went too deep to be solved just by living under one roof again. “This cannot be the way that our story ends,” an emotional Toby tells a tearful Kate as the trailer concludes. And in a way, we know it won’t be; Toby is, after all, present in the flash-forward to the cabin, meaning that the two of them will remain in one another’s lives, somehow (which makes sense, considering they have two children together). But we know that what Toby means is that he doesn’t want to accept that this is the conclusion to their romantic love story. And honestly, we’re not sure that we’re ready for that either.
What happened in This Is Us Season 6 episode 11?
Episode 11, “Saturday in the Park,” finally revealed what went wrong during the incident involving the Big Green Egg smoker, which Kate and Toby’s son Jack will later blame for the dissolution of his parents’ marriage. It turns out that the fateful event happened during preparations for Rebecca and Miguel’s 10th anniversary party, which Kate and Toby were hosting. However, no sooner had Miguel mixed up some signature cocktails than the kitchen ceiling started leaking, followed quickly by the bedroom ceiling. Distracted by the plumbing emergency, Toby forgot to lock the baby gate to Jack’s room, and Kate forgot to lock the door to the house, enabling their blind toddler to wander off unattended through the neighborhood, aimed for the park. Fortunately, Kate had done a great job teaching him a song that would get him to his destination safely, but once he was there, he tripped and fell, resulting in a cut on his forehead that required stitches. The situation only served to compound the growing tension between Kate and Toby, with their constant bickering throughout the day blowing up into a full-fledged fight by the end of the night. Kevin and Randall jumped to Kate’s defense, but that didn’t seem to help, and Kate later admitted to her brothers that she wasn’t sure her marriage was going to make it. Speaking of her brothers, Kevin stumbled onto the knowledge that Madison, his former fiancée—and the mother of his children—is on the verge of getting engaged, which sent him into a proper tizzy. However, Randall reminded him that the reason Kevin isn’t married to Madison is because he couldn’t bring himself to say that he loved her on their wedding day, and that unless that has changed, he has no right to wish ill on her romantic relationship now. Kevin agrees and backs off, but something in his eyes tells us that this may not be the end for Kevin and Madison.
Are there any spoilers for This Is Us Season 6 episode 12?
The official network synopsis for “Katoby” reads, “Kate and Toby’s relationship evolves over a few years,” confirming that we will definitely be skipping through time in episode 12, although we don’t know yet just how far into the future the episode will go. (Might we finally learn what Kate has been up to while the rest of her family gathers around Rebecca’s bedside in the distant flash-forward?) The episode also serves as the 100th episode of This Is Us overall, and typically shows that reach 100 episodes like to make that centennial installment one for the books. When it comes to This Is Us, that might mean a major revelation, a shocking twist, a significant character development, or all of the above. According to Susan Kelechi Watson, who plays Beth, episode 12 “reads like a novel that you just want to keep turning the pages," according to an interview with TVLine. What kind of novel, you ask? Well, “I’m the one in the cast who is not the biggest crier,” Watson elaborated, “but I’m going to tell you now that [Episode 12] hit hard, and it hit different. I know the story of Kate and Toby[‘s split] is coming, we all know that it’s coming, but it hits different when you read it. Beautifully done.” Whenever the split does come, that’s when we hear Kate’s future husband Phillip (Chris Geere) will really emerge as a contender for her heart. “[Phillip] shows up for her,” Metz told Today in January 2022, “which is a good thing, because I think a lot of people think right now that Kate’s crazy from liking this jerk of a guy. But we get to see who he really is pretty soon.” Could it be that Phillip is the one that a pink-haired Kate is confiding in in the promo? We can’t wait to find out. How will This Is Us end? Here’s everything we know about the finale.
