TV This Is Us return delivers hit's biggest ratings ever By James Hibberd James Hibberd James Hibberd is the former editor at large at Entertainment Weekly. He left EW in 2021. EW's editorial guidelines Published on September 27, 2017 12:05PM EDT Photo: Ron Batzdorff/NBC If only This Is Us could reveal Jack’s cause of death every week! The season 2 return of NBC’s sentimental dramedy hit delivered the show’s biggest ratings ever: 12.6 million viewers and a 3.8 rating among adults 18-49 on Tuesday night. That’s up 36 percent from the series premiere last fall and up 12 percent from the show’s previous all-time best rating. Not only that, it seemingly didn’t even need its lead-in, The Voice (10.6 million, 2.6) — which dropped 23 percent from last season’s opener with new coach Jennifer Hudson. This Is Us ended with (spoiler alert) the reveal of a Pearson family house fire which seemingly resulted in the death of beloved family patriarch Jack (Milo Ventimiglia). Check out EW’s interview with the cast about the premiere twists. This Is Us served as a strong lead-in for the premiere of the colon-filled docu-drama Law & Order: True Crime: The Menendez Murders (6.2 million, 1.7), which had a solid start. Fox’s Lethal Weapon (4.3 million, 1.2) also returned last night, though was down quite aways from last fall.