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This Is Us: Can We Forgive Miguel Yet?

New information puts him in a different light

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Megan Vick

It might be time to let go of a grudge, This Is Us fans.

After a full season of hating Miguel (Jon Huertas) for marrying Rebecca (Mandy Moore) after Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) died, This Is Us finally let us in on the beginning of that unholy union, and you know what? Miguel isn't a bad guy.

The cast tried to warn us that Miguel was never going to be the bad guy we all thought and that he never was creepily waiting for Jack to disappear for him to make his move on Rebecca. Tuesday's episode, "The 20s" revealed that Miguel and Rebecca didn't reconnect until more than a decade after Jack died. In fact, he lost contact with Rebecca two years after Jack passed away, so there definitely wasn't any lingering or repressed feelings waiting to get out.

How did they get together then? A little invention by the name of Facebook. "The 20s" featured a 2008 storyline where Rebecca visits Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson) and Randall (Sterling K. Brown) for the arrival of their first child -- her first granddaughter -- and decides to set up Facebook at the behest of her friends. She's setting up her profile when a message from Miguel pops up asking how she's doing.

Jon Huertas, This Is Us​

Jon Huertas, This Is Us

NBC, Maarten de Boer/NBC

It's clear that 10 years of loneliness have added up for Rebecca and even though she's still clearly in love with her first husband, she needs something to make her feel whole again. Jack is still her first thought at big family moments, like weddings and the births of children, but did we really expect her to mourn the great love of her life forever?

The people watching the show are lucky because we never feel the full weight of Jack being absent from his family's lives. Every episode where we miss him or wish he was there is paired with a storyline from the past that keeps him present for us. Older Rebecca is a shell of herself in "The 20s," and it's one of the first times we really see the impact losing her husband has had on her.

This Is Us Dropped a Kevin Spacey Mention From Tonight's Episode

So she gets a Facebook account and an old friend reaches out. Miguel's face pops up at a time when Rebecca is missing Jack in a very acute way because she welcomed their first grandchild into the world without him. The universe was on Miguel's side because he was a reminder of Jack that didn't hurt at a time when Rebecca needed to feel close to her husband the most.

If a decade has gone by since Jack's death and Miguel is able to bring a light back into Rebecca's life that desperately needs to be re-lit, isn't it time we cut him some slack? Knowing that their romance started with adequate time for Rebecca to heal from Jack's death -- so it doesn't feel like Miguel stole something from his best friend -- makes it a lot easier to see how he and Rebecca ended up together.

Are you ready to give him a chance? Vote in our poll below.

This Is Us continues Tuesdays at 9/8c on NBC.