(kind of? maybe? the episode was already on and we already knew most of this anyway...)
Why is everyone so shocked? We knew the house burned down, we've seen it several times. And the last shot of last week's episode was of the smoke alarm that they forgot to buy batteries for. Aaaand we knew Jack dies when the kids are in high school. They're seniors...there's not much time to go. We knew it was coming soon.
And by the way, let's not blame the crock pot. They used that crock pot happily for 18 years AFTER it was unearthed from that garage. The crock pot did its part.
It is very cool how they tweaked the timing to have the episode after they watched the Super Bowl air after the Super Bowl. And super smart that they warned everyone to extend the DVR recording time.
(p.s. I'm not heartless, it was sad, and I hate fire, so next week should be truly terrifying.)