Spoiler alert! This story contains spoilers for This Is Us’ Season 6 episode “The Night Before the Wedding.”
A big mystery was answered on the latest episode of This Is Us, as Kevin’s future wife was revealed. “The Night Before the Wedding” provided explanations for how Cassidy, Sophie, and wedding singer Arielle were all involved in Kevin’s weekend, and in the end, the bond that Kevin and Sophie formed way back in elementary school was too strong to deny, and they decided that the timing was finally right for them to be together. It was a big episode for Alexandra Breckenridge, who has guest-starred as Sophie off and on since the first season, and she opened up about being “half terrified” when she read this episode’s script.
It was always Sophie, wasn’t it? “The Night Before the Wedding” showed the former couple spending the day together in town after the airport lost her luggage, and she revealed that she and her husband had divorced. She went back to Kevin’s hotel room with him that night, but put a stop to things when she became afraid that he was stuck in the past, and revealed that she’d never fully gotten over him. Sophie got another opportunity for a big speech at Kate and Philip’s reception, when Rebecca helped her realize how much they’d both grown. Alexandra Breckenridge spoke to TVLine about the responsibility of taking two big speeches away from the monologue-loving Pearsons:
So, I have these two very meaningful powerful speeches that I had, and I was incredibly nervous about it, coming from an actor’s standpoint. To come back to a show… you know, I’m not on the show all the time. For all purposes I’m a guest star, and coming into a show that’s so extremely successful with all these actors that are incredibly talented, to be given this moment at the end of this episode which has been anticipated for so long, I was like, holy hell! [Laughs] I was like oh, shit. What am I going to do? So I was excited and nervous and half terrified.
She may be a guest star, but Sophie has popped up throughout the series enough that fans already practically considered her part of the extended family. At the wedding reception, she and Kevin seemingly came to the same conclusion about wanting to be together at the same time, but she thankfully interrupted him before he could get too deep into his Uncle Nicky-inspired pinball speech. She said that Kevin had finally grown into the man that she knew he could be. She said she was also the best version of herself, and it was finally the right place and the right time.
Despite her nerves going into the episode, the Virgin River star said that she was validated to see that the take that was used in the episode was the first one, where she’d gone with her instincts, despite doing different versions of the scene with different tempos. It was still a little awkward, she said, to have the spotlight on her, especially when the entire wedding party took time out from doing “the wobble” to stand around and watch their private moment:
We did the scene, and then when we did the kiss part, that’s when everybody was standing there. At first, it was a little bit weird and awkward. Like everybody sort of filed in, and we looked over like, ‘Is this not bizarre, guys?’ They’re just watching us kiss. The kids are there. We’re like oh, this is weird. But I think the way that it played, it was sweet. The whole family was kind of rooting for them to find their way back to each other. It was sweet.
Indeed, the Pearsons gave a round of applause for Kevin finally finding the happy ending he’d been searching for his entire life. So what of Cassidy and Arielle? Arielle was more or less a red herring. She got a little flirty in the hotel bar and gave Kevin a poem she’d written on a napkin, but he only had eyes for Sophie. Cassidy solidified her role as Kevin’s platonic BFF when she showed up to change in Kevin’s bathroom and inadvertently left some stuff.
With that mystery solved, the countdown continues, with four episodes remaining in This Is Us’ final season. The drama returns next Tuesday, May 3, at 9 p.m. ET with “Miguel,” so maybe we’ll finally get an answer to Rebecca’s husband’s whereabouts in the future timeline.
This Is Us isn’t the only series wrapping its season, so check out our spring finale schedule so you don’t miss any big episodes, and also take a look at our 2022 TV schedule to see what shows are premiering soon.
