This Is Us stars on the lines they can't stop thinking about

Even though it's already been, oh, 17 days, since This Is Us concluded its run, maybe you've had a harder time than you thought hopping off the Pearson train. If so, you've arrived at the right place, because you can ride the rails of nostalgia right here with the people who brought you NBC's feelings fest of a family drama.

During a May 22 panel moderated by EW editor-in-chief Patrick Gomez at L.A.'s Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the TIU stars and creator Dan Fogelman reflected on six seasons of family crises and, yes, they welled up with tears as they'd share the stage for the last time before the show officially exited the air two days later. Mandy Moore, Milo Ventimiglia, Chrissy Metz, Chris Sullivan, and Fogelman were joined by virtual attendees Sterling K. Brown, Justin Hartley, Susan Kelechi Watson, and Jon Huertas for a conversation that drilled down on the making of the series finale, but also some of those 105 episodes before it. Moore dissected the challenge of playing a matriarch afflicted with Alzheimer's. ("It was the most terrifying and daunting aspect of anything having to do with this show, from my perspective.") Huertas weighed in on finally getting his showcase episode. ("As much I bothered Dan every year to have a Miguel episode, I think it was really brilliant to wait until the end.") Fogelman explained the merits of having an endgame plan from early on. ("I always knew that this would be the ending, and that the second-to-last episode would end with Rebecca passing away and that the last episode would be a simple day in the life.")

And we mentioned the tears, right? Because Metz opened the Q&A with a few, having just viewed the finale for the first time alongside her fellow panelists and the audience. "It's so overwhelming and beautiful — and all the things, sorry," she said. Sullivan also battled with his tear ducts, looking like he wanted to speak but then struggling to do so. "I was trying to figure out if I wanted to say anything," he said, before losing the battle of emotions and adding: "I left the crying to everybody else for a very long time." Chimed in Brown: "Give him a second, give him a second, he's still processing his boots for the evening." (As you'll see, the always colorfully dressed Sullivan was rocking leopard-spotted footwear.)

LISA O'CONNOR/AFP via Getty Images Milo Ventimiglia, Justin Hartley, Jon Huertas, Susan Kelechi Watson, Chrissy Metz, Chris Sullivan, Mandy Moore and Sterling K. Brown

Asked for the line from the show that resonated the most with them, the cast pointed mostly to the End. Sullivan picked the quote that young Kate (Mackenzie Hancsicsak) gives her family when they asked her how she prevailed in a game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. "I texted [Fogelman] immediately when I heard, 'As long as I know where all of you are, I know where I'm going,'" said Sullivan. "Followed by just an expletive, because I was sitting in my office weeping. I didn't realize that that is how I feel about my life — until Dan said it. That's something I'm going to take with me forever."

Speaking of the forever (now), Watson selected a lyric from "The Forever Now," the chart-topping song that Rebecca sang at Kate's wedding. ("I'm starting to learn some silences shouldn't be broken/just listеned to.") "That was just so deep to me," she said. "I'm a big fan of... how to communicate without words, and something about listening to a silence for information and there being information in it, something to gather there without an overexplanation felt beautiful, and just felt very human, and just felt very poignant to me. That whole song just wrecked all of us every single time it was sang."

Metz was particularly moved by an exchange from the penultimate episode, "The Train." Explained the actress: "When Rebecca said, 'Isn't this quite sad?,' And William says, 'No, if it is, it's because it meant something.' If that don't sum up this whole damn series, I don't know what else does! That one — [overwhelmed with emotion] — whooo!"

Ron Batzdorff/NBC Milo Ventimiglia as Jack and Mandy Moore as Rebecca in 'This Is Us'

And the man who plays the Pearson patriarch went in two different directions. "I've got one from the past where William was explaining what it was like to die and he was trying to hang onto moments, but it's like 'smoke passing through my fingers,'" recalled Ventimiglia. "I don't remember the exact line, but that one has hung onto me for a very long time. Trying to hang onto a moment of life. "

His second selection came from the finale, when Jack echoes a line from Rebecca: "When the world puts something this obvious in front of you, you don't just walk away from it." Ventimiglia's takeaway? "That was a big moment for me to be like, 'Pay attention to life happening in front of you as it's happening. Don't let it pass. Be there. Be present. Recognize those good things that are coming into your life. Recognize when you could be that good thing in someone else's life because the moment will pass, it'll be gone, so just recognize it."

There were plenty more revelations in the panel, which you can watch above. And stick around until the end of the Q&A, when Fogelman reveals his favorite few minutes from the show's run and even offers up a fact about the finale that may help you win a This Is Us trivia night in the future (or as you call it, a flash-forward).

Say goodbye to the Pearsons with EW's special This Is Us edition, available to purchase online or wherever magazines are sold.

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