This Is Us Finally Revealed How the Meat Smoker Led to the End of Kate and Toby's Marriage

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the This Is Us Season 6 episode "Saturday in the Park." Read at your own risk!]

It's the episode This Is Us fans have been waiting weeks for; the implosion of Kate (Chrissy Metz) and Toby's (Chris Sullivan) marriage and the reveal of how Toby's meat smoker was involved. We're going to go ahead and save you some stress and tell you upfront that the meat smoker was not as involved as we were led to believe, and that's genuinely a relief because we know no one has looked at a Crock-Pot the same way since "Super Bowl Sunday" in Season 2. Yes, the grill arrived and Toby used it to cook the meat for Rebecca (Mandy Moore) and Miguel's (Jon Huertas) anniversary party, but it was not the smoker that caused Jack to get the permanent scar on his forehead or what led to the biggest fight we've seen Kate and Toby get into so far (yes, even bigger than the San Francisco throwdown!). 

The cause of the drama is a bit more convoluted than an errant cooking appliance. Back in Season 5, when Toby was a stay-at-home dad, there was a leak in his and Kate's kitchen ceiling. Since they were low on money, Toby decided to fix it himself. Well, they found out that was a terrible idea during the anniversary party when the kitchen roof started leaking again and the roof caved in on the bedroom from all the water that had been stored up there. Bad news bears! While Kate was yelling at Toby to help with the flood damage, he put baby Jack in his room but did not ensure that the safety gate was locked (you have to listen for the click, Toby, gosh). 

With the adults distracted dealing with wet plaster and a soaked mattress, Jack snuck out of not only his room but the house because Kate forgot to lock the front door after the plumber arrived. Since they've been training Jack how to walk to the park by singing his every move so he could learn to navigate for himself, he made his way to his favorite place, the swings. For a solid two minutes, everyone watching had to wonder if this adorable child was going to get hit by a car he didn't see coming because he's a blind toddler navigating via a sing-a-long, and it was very stressful. He made it to the park unscathed, thank goodness, but he got turned around on his way to the swings and ended up falling headfirst on the pavement, splitting his head open and needing some stitches. 

Overall, it was not the traumatic situation we've come to expect from This Is Us foreshadowed events. And to make things better, Rebecca was the one to realize Jack had wandered off for the park when she noticed he had switched from his party shoes to his puddle-jumping red rain boots. It was a nice moment for Rebecca to feel needed and to remind everyone that her Alzheimer's diagnosis hasn't gotten the best of her yet. 

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However, the fight turned into a giant front-yard battle between Kate and Toby. (Why do the Pearsons love fighting on this lawn so much?) It was a lot of echoed sentiment from the San Francisco fight about how Kate loves rubbing it in that Toby doesn't spend as much time with the kids as she does and Kate pointing out that it feels like Toby would rather be anywhere but with his family and that's why he doesn't remember the most basic things she tells him. The fight ended when Randall (Sterling K. Brown) and Kevin (Justin Hartley) stepped in to defend Kate, and even though Kate and Toby haven't officially said the word "divorce" yet, it feels like this was the final nail in the coffin of their relationship. 

But the real question is, whose side are you on? For a while now, it felt like it was definitely Toby driving this marriage into the ground as he put his job in San Francisco above everything, but it was really easy to see how he got distracted in this episode and didn't realize the gate didn't click. And Kate did leave the front door unlocked because she was distracted. If you go deeper though, they wouldn't have been dealing with so much chaos if Toby had just called a plumber last season as Kate suggested! There are points on both sides, and regardless of who is right or wrong, Katoby is coming to a very painful end sooner rather than later. 

This Is Us continues Tuesdays at 9/8c on NBC, with episodes premiering on Hulu the next day.