The first season of The Last of Us made Pedro Pascal a star…well, even more of a star. The guy was already famous thanks to his roles on Game of Thrones, in The Mandalorian, and in movies like Wonder Woman 1984, but there’s truly no turning back now.
In The Last of Us, Pascal plays Joel, a hardened survivor of the zombie apocalypse charged with escorting a precocious girl named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across a ruined United States. Over the course of the first season, the two go from being at odds to becoming a surrogate family, winning the hearts of viewers in the process.
The first season of The Last of Us is based on the first The Last of Us video game by Naughty Dog. Season 2, naturally, will adapt The Last of Us Part II (it’s likely that HBO will adapt Part II over seasons 2 and 3, since it’s a bigger game). And as anyone who’s played Part II can tell you, there are some major twists on the way…beware SPOILERS ahead.
Will Joel avoid his fate from The Last of Us Part II on the HBO show?
Okay, it’s time to reveal what happens to Joel in The Last of Us Part II, so if you don’t want to know, this is your last chance to look away.
Joel dies in the second game. Not only that, he dies very early on, and his death sets Ellie on a quest of vengeance that lasts the entire game. He still shows up in plentiful flashbacks, but he is most definitely dead.
I think we can expect Joel to die in the show as well. During an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, showrunner Craig Mazin said that while there can be variation in how they adapt the story, there’s an expectation that they’ll hit the main points, and Joel’s death is definitely a main point.
As for Pascal, he’s hedging his bets. “I don’t know,” he told Variety. “I think Part Two has more leeway. It seemed to be a different immersive experience, while things must happen for the central narrative to occur. It seems it’s a little bit more open. That means I don’t fucking know.”
So there’s some wiggle room, but if you’re holding out hope that the show may change the game completely and keep Joel alive…I might reconsider.
Pedro Pascal thinks people get “so butthurt” over race-blind casting
When Pascal was first cast as Joel, there was some backlash among fans, since Joel is a white guy in the game and Pascal is of Chilean heritage. Obviously that didn’t hurt things at all, because Pascal did a great job and won over pretty much everyone.
Pascal is a big fan of this sort of race-blind casting and wants to see more of it in Hollywood. “I think that the change is really important and that the best way to continue representation is just casting a person into a role that isn’t limiting a character to racial identity,” he said. “Especially if it’s an IP we’re familiar with or a book. People get so butthurt about this kind of stuff, but who cares? Because that’s the coolest way of moving the needle is being open about the casting in every way.”
We don’t yet have a release date for The Last of Us season 2. We don’t even know when filming will begin, mainly because things have been delayed by the Hollywood writers strike. The faster that resolves, the fasting things start rolling again.
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