Producers finally addressed the snafu in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly and confirmed that it was, in fact, supposed to be a pregnancy test.
“It’ll be good to put it to bed because our fans are so awesome and pick up on every little hint,” executive producer Isaac Aptaker said. “As soon as we saw that people were misinterpreting, of course, it drove us crazy. So, let the record officially show: That was [meant to be] a pregnancy test box.”
He added, “Despite the dozens of people who stared at that scene countless times before it went to air, we were all just so fried from all of the COVID [filming conditions] that we missed that one.”
This Is Us executive producer Elizabeth Berger also chimed in and blamed the mistake on “Zoom editing.” “Usually, we’re all in a bay together looking at these giant monitors. And this is the one where we were like, ‘Ah, if we had just been there, someone would have seen it!'’” she explained. “But everyone is just working so hard around the clock under these crazy circumstances. And every once in a while, you’re going to have an ovulation test when you wish you had a pregnancy test box.”
