The 'This Is Us' Season 3 Premiere Introduced A New Love Interest For Rebecca

Ugh, of course This Is Us had to punch us in the gut right when it seemed like everything was going so well! The Season 3 premiere on Tuesday night finally showed fans how Jack and Rebecca Pearson met and what their first date was like, but it did not end on the romantic note that we were expected. Instead of Jack and Rebecca ending up together, we see Rebecca locking lips with some random other dude! Obviously, now everyone is wondering who is the man kissing Rebecca on This Is Us, so let's see what we can we can deduce about this new mystery man.

Spoiler alert: This post will discuss details from the Season 3 premiere of This Is Us, "Nine Bucks." As the cast and crew of the show had promised, the first episode of Season 3 took viewers back to the early '70s (1972 to be exact, which we know thanks to the iconic Steelers game playing on the television) and showed us Jack and Rebecca's first date. Unfortunately, despite Jack and Rebecca's undeniable chemistry, it was not the greatest date. Since Jack was newly back from his military stint in Vietnam, he only had $9 to try to woo Rebecca with, which ended up leaving the couple out in the rain when Jack could not afford to buy an umbrella.

To make matters worse, Jack and Rebecca had trouble finding anything that they had in common. Jack likes dogs and pepperoni, whereas Rebecca prefers cats and mushrooms. Despite all these rough patches, though, the date ended on a high note when Jack came clean about his limited finances and Rebecca could not help but fall for him after the way he looked at her.

It seemed like everything was going perfectly as Jack drove by Rebecca's place to give her flowers afterwards, until another man had beaten him to it. In a quick but major scene, we see a mustachioed Hunter Parrish (you probably remember him from Weeds) lean in to kiss Rebecca while a disheartened Jack watches on from his car.

So, uhhh, who is this dude, and why is he all over Rebecca!? Neither he nor Rebecca speak at all in the scene, so we don't know his name or what his relationship with Rebecca is like, but as Mandy Moore pointed out to Deadline, Rebecca clearly seems surprised to see this person. Moore went on to tease that Rebecca's surprise should be read as Hunter Parrish's character not being a current boyfriend, even though he felt comfortable going in for a kiss right away:

I think Rebecca’s surprised to see him. So that’s like a hint of, this maybe isn’t a current beau of hers, because I don’t think she would have gone on a date with somebody else if she was currently attached and she wasn’t expecting him. It will be resolved in the next couple episodes.

Of course, This Is Us viewers already know that this new dude does not pose a threat to Jack and Rebecca's romance — we have already seen decades into the future where the two are married and raise a family together. Still, this new wrinkle in their love story will definitely make us look at the Jack and Rebecca romance differently as it develops.