Fans of This Is Us were left with their jaws dropped open when the show aired its mid-season finale last month on a major cliffhanger regarding Toby's (Chris Sullivan) fate, but thankfully, they won't have to wait long when the show returns Jan. 10 to find out if he made it out alive or not.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, series creator Dan Fogleman promised fans that the show wasn't going to drag things out where Toby was concerned, and fans would know very quickly about how his heart attack and collapse at Randall's (Sterling K. Brown) home on Christmas Eve.

"We're not going to drag out Toby's fate," he said. "You find out if he made it in the first five minutes of the episode."

Toby's collapse was a shock because the character had made a grand gesture towards Kate (Chrissy Metz) by arriving at Randall's after the two broke up because he no longer wanted to diet. In the final moments of the episode, it was revealed he was in surgery, and it was unclear if he would survive it.

Sullivan has fueled speculation Toby would be fine by posting photos of himself on the show's set since the episode aired, indicating he was still filming. However, fans already know that while he may still be a part of the show and filming episodes, it doesn't necessarily mean he is alive, as the show has already revealed that Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) is alive in the scenes set in the 70s, but not in the present-day scenes, as the character died somewhere in between.

As for what else fans may see in the show's return episode, they will also revisit the days before Jack and Rebecca (Mandy Moore) became parents again, seeing how they possibly coped after learning they were going to have a baby-let alone the triplets they wound up conceiving unexpectedly.

"We go back to their pre-Big Three period-actually, we start early in the pregnancy," Fogelman said. "Before they even knew they were having triplets."

This Is Us returns Tuesday, Jan. 10 at 9 p.m. on NBC.

Tags: this is us nbc television