Pedro Pascal (left) as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie in ‘The Last of Us’. Photo:
Liane Hentscher/HBO8
Warning: this story contains spoilers from the April 20 episode of The Last of Us season 2.
So: That happened. What (you ask) is “that”? A momentous shocker on the second episode of HBO’s The Last of Us, season 2, that’s what. A twist that upended the entire show.
Pedro Pascal’s character, Joel, was killed. He was dealt a few brutal whacks from a golf club and then viciously pummeled. He finally gave up the ghost when the spike of what appeared to be a fire iron was shoved deep into his neck.
The death, it should be noted, wouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone who’s played the game that serves as the show’s source. Those folks deserve some credit for having been so tight-lipped about the twist all this time. They could have spent months sniggering and smugly whispering, “Just you wait.”
But what if you never played the game? As it slowly dawned on you that poor Joel was never going to open his eyes again, that this was the sleep of eternity and that his death would leave Ellie (Bella Ramsey) without his fatherly protection, you may have let your jaw just drop to the floor, or articulated something unhelpful along the lines of “Oh my God,” “Wow,” “Huh?!” or just “No. Really?”
Welcome to HBO. Home of Game of Thrones and the Red Wedding. Here’s what happened leading up to the terrible moment:
Pedro Pascal in ‘The Last of Us’. HBO
Early in the hour, we found Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) — who’ll be the one to make a martyr out of Joel —conferring with her nasty little band of Seattle freedom fighters (I use the term with cautious irony). They were up in the hills, in an abandoned, big-windowed lodge that looks down on the survivors’ settlement in Jackson.
Abby was trying to come up with a plan to get her hands of Joel. Her mission was revenge, pure and simple. Joel killed Abby’s father, the surgeon who back in season 1 was going to operate on Ellie to figure out why she ‘s immune to the fungal infection that’s undone human civilization. His research, needless to say, came to naught.
Meanwhile, Ellie was called out on morning patrol with Jesse (Young Mazino), who told her things have gotten more worrisome outside town — the infected have been evolving into predators with their own bag of tricks, even concealing themselves under the snow. (Another disturbing development: Writhing little tendrils are being discovered in the town’s pipelines. They look like organic-baby-carrot roots, but this wouldn’t be much of a show if that’s what they turned out to be.)
This all called for greater vigilance in Jackson: the survivors were going to prep for a possible breach of the community’s defensive walls.
Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) in ‘The Last of Us’. Liane Hentscher/HBO
And so Ellie and Jesse rode off into the cold wilderness, where Joel and Dina (Isabela Merced) were also out on horseback, at some distance beyond the town perimeter as a snowstorm was whirling through the cold, blue air; as Abby, shivering, was on the prowl, alone, with a long-range sniper rifle; as Ellie and Jesse found shelter from the storm in an abandoned 7-11.
Then Abby took an accidental tumble down a powdery slope. She slid down down down to low ground where — right on the money, Jesse! — the monsters poked their mutated heads up out of the snow and began scrambling up and out into the open.
Waving their arms and looking like a disorganized mass of marathoners who plan to eat whomever they find at the finish line, they chased Abby for what felt like forever. Then: Joel rescued her, just in the nick of time, and offered her a horse ride with him and Dina — but to where? Where can they escape the rampaging monsters?
Abby, never betraying the fatal grudge she bears against Joel, suggested they all go up to her lodge. She might as well have invited them to the White Lotus, although there, at least, they’d have gotten a massage and one-on-one counseling before being slaughtered. (Dever, a very good actress, plays the scene completely straight, with the just tiniest shudder of recognition when she hears the name “Joel.” Anyone else might have let you see a malicious glint in his or her eye.)
Oh, but now the monsters have decided — to the extent that they consciously decide anything — to go ahead and besiege the town. Do you know what works as a deterrent against the infected when they’re at your gates? You’ll never guess! Barrels of flammable liquid, ignited by gunfire. But only up to a point. If you happen to have some angry attack dogs, now would be the time to unleash those.
Kaitlyn Dever as Abby in ‘The Last of Us’. HBO
Back at the lodge, Abby didn’t waste any time springing her trap. No hot chocolate, not from this one. Dina was knocked out with a strong sedative, and Joel was shot in the knee.
After he collapsed onto the floor, Abby revealed her identity and spelled out exactly why she’s going to make him suffer and die: Joel, she said, is just “a lawless piece of s—” who shot a defenseless man, her father, the doctor, in the head.
“There are some things everyone agrees are just f—— wrong,” she said.
But it’s not as if the Geneva Conventions apply here. So Abby went ahead and did something that everyone would agree falls into that same “just f—— wrong” category, beating Joel with that golf club and her own fists.
Ellie then entered the room. She had ridden back out into the storm to look for Joel and Dina (word came over the radio that they were still out), then spotted their horses tied up outside the lodge. But she was outnumbered and easily overpowered by Abby’s gang — there was nothing she could do but react in horror as she watched the battered, bloodied Joel trying to rouse himself.
Bella Ramsey as Ellie in ‘The Last of Us’. HBO
His fingers twitched — light flickerings — and he started to lift his head, as if in his last moments he wanted to reassure Ellie. But then Abby delivered the coup de grace, stabbing him with the fire iron.
Ellie howled in despair. “I’m gonna kill you!” she screamed.
But not on this episode, because Abby and the gang were already skedaddling back to Seattle. They were gone, just like that. And so Ellie and Dina hitched Joel’s canvas-wrapped corpse to a horse and dragged him back to town through the snow.
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The Last of Us airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.
