This Is Us star Chrissy Metz reveals twist to Kate and Toby's parenting situation

Kate and Toby recently received some promising news on This Is Us: After a miscarriage and subsequent struggle to (re)conceive, the couple turned to IVF and their efforts resulted in a pregnancy. While the road ahead is pocked with challenge — Kate (Chrissy Metz) faces another high-risk pregnancy and Toby (Chris Sullivan) is battling depression, collapsing in tears when Kate broke the good news to him — things are again looking optimistic for the newlyweds to expand their family.

And it sounds like there be a wrinkle to the proceedings down the road. “Toby and Kate are going to have a bit of an unconventional parenting situation,” Metz tells EW. “Not unconventional in that people aren’t doing it, but not what I think either of them ever had in mind.”

Metz also indicates that this development in their story is rather bold. “It’s going to be challenging for me as an actress, which I’m excited about — scared but excited,” she says. “It’s something I don’t think we’ve ever seen, at least not on network television.”

This Is Us executive producer Elizabeth Berger seconds the notion that the hit family drama will venture into new territory with this couple. “We’re going to see very specific struggles that these two have to face, and it’s not necessarily something that we’ve seen up close before,” she tells EW. “But nothing about Kate and Toby’s journey thus far has been pretty conventional, and it’s going to continue to be something that they have to navigate very carefully. We’re excited to share their journey. It’s a really specific one that we’ve been plotting out very carefully.”

Toby and Kate went through the relationship wringer in the first two seasons, and Kate will need to tap into her reserve of maturity and growth to help Toby through his dark and debilitating depression. In last week’s episode, she reassured her husband that she will not abandon him and reaffirmed her commitment to him. (Although in that deep-future flash-forward, Toby was seen sans wedding ring, fueling all sorts of speculation of some sort of split.) “I feel like she has the coping mechanisms and the skills to help him with his journey,” says Metz. “The foundation is very solid. At least for now. But you never know. Those brilliant writers and Dan [Fogelman, the show’s creator] throw you a loooooop!”

This Is Us — which was pre-empted this week due to the midterm elections — returns to NBC (and Vietnam) with a new episode Tuesday, Nov. 13.

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