I'm not going to bury the lede: at the end of the latest episode of The Last of Us, Joel (Pedro Pascal) is brutally beaten with a golf club, and then stabbed through the neck with what remains of it after the head snaps off. Ellie, his surrogate daughter (Bella Ramsey), watches, and swears revenge against the villain who did this.
That would be Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), who came to Jackson with her friends specifically to kill Joel. Remember when he massacred a hospital full of Firefly freedom fighters in the season 1 finale? He was trying to save Ellie from life-threatening surgery. Abby's dad was the doctor about to do the operation, an operation that could have used Ellie's immunity to create a cure to the zombie plague that has brought down civilization. Joel shot him in the head, and Abby hasn't forgiven him.
Actually, that's an understatement. Abby hasn't just declined to forgive Joel; she's made him her white whale, her bleeding north star. We don't know her very well, but her friends are alarmed at how far she's willing to go for vengeance. She kills Joel slowly and cruelly. She shoots his legs out from under him with a shotgun and then bludgeons the fresh wound over and over. She monologues about how much she hates him at such length that Joel tells her to just kill him already. She punches his face to pulp with her fists while her friends look on in shocked silence. They want revenge for what Joel did the Fireflies, but this is brutal torture, and not what they signed up for.
This is an introduction to Abby fans won't soon forget, and Kaitlyn Dever sells it. But Ellie steals the show. She stumbles upon Joel when she sees his horse outside a lodge where Abby and her friends have been holed up. Fortune favors that lot when Abby runs into Joel almost by happenstance; after tumbling down a snow bank, she's chased by infected until Joel saves her life. Joel is out on patrol with Dina (Isabela Merced), who calls him by his name. Abby puts two and two together and lures the pair back to the lodge, promising it can offer them shelter from furious winter storms.
Of course Ellie tries to save Joel, but Abby's friends hold her down. "I'm going to kill you." she seethes after watching the life leave Joel's eyes. "You're all fucking dead!"
There's something so powerful about an earnest expression of vengeance. It promises horrible and exciting things, it dooms Ellie as surely as it dooms Abby. It's the saddest of inciting incidents, and it gave me chills.
After Abby and her friends leave, Ellie crawls across the floor and pitifully cradles Joel's lifeless body. Bella Ramsey is already making a case for Emmy consideration with this scene. Of the three main characters involved in this drama, Joel actually has the smallest part to play; this scene represents him handing the narrative off to Ellie.
When The Last of Us Part II came out for the PlayStation 4 in 2020, this scene inspired an uproar among fans. They were bothered, outraged and bewildered, and damn if they didn't want everyone to know it. Time has been kind to the scene; it's now seen as a bold stroke that pushes the story into exciting new territory. If this new season of the TV show was going to work it all, it was vital the cast and crew pull this scene off. They do.
Review: The Last of Us season 2, Episode 2, "Through the Valley"
For an episode that ends on such a serious note, there were several lighter moments I enjoyed. I liked Ellie's friend Jesse (Young Mazino) teasing her about the kiss she shared with Dina in the first episode; even in the zombie apocalypse, there's room for relationship drama and for friends ragging on each other about relationship drama. I also liked Ellie trying on the bong gas mask when she and Jesse take shelter from the snowstorm in Eugene's 7/11-turned-pot-farm; I'm sure we'll find out more about that down the line. For now, it's just fun to see Ellie act like a goofball. She may have seen things someone at her age should never see, but she's still only 19 years old.
I also liked the moment where Ellie is forced to reconcile with Seth, the drunk dude who called she and Dina "dykes" at the dance. Maria (Ruina Wesley), as the de facto leader of Jackson, doesn't want bad blood between the townsfolk, and Seth does seem earnestly apologetic. But Ellie isn't having it. "Happens to everyone. People get drunk and say awful shit they've never thought before," she quips.
That's a funny line, but Ellie's difficulty with forgiveness foreshadows her journey. If you've played The Last of Us video games, you know that Part II is about a bloody cycle of violence and revenge, with Abby and then Ellie both being consumed by an obsession that destroys their lives. Ellie's inability to forgive Seth foreshadows her inability to forgive generally. Episode writer Craig Mazin is threading that theme in wherever he can.
The Last of Us goes Game of Thrones
The show changes some things from the games for this episode. For instance, in the game, Joel is on patrol with his brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) when he encounters Abby, not Dina. But the TV show had a different idea in mind for Tommy: he's starring in his own action movie.
Yes, we get a full zombie assault on the town of Jackson, which does not happen in the games at all. The hordes throw themselves against the town walls while the defenders roll off barrels of gas and light 'em up. A massive bloater finally tears through and the zombies pour into the town, munching on citizens even as teams of snipers try and pick them off. I like the detail where half of Tommy's flame-throwing brigade scampers away in fear the moment they see the bloater. No judgment; he's terrifying.
Tommy gets the bloater to follow him into an alley where he empties his flame-thrower on it, bringing the monster to his knees just when it looks like all hope is lost. My favorite part of the battle is at the end, when Maria opens a bunch of crates and releases a pack of bloodthirsty dogs who have clearly been trained for an occasion like this. They tear through the streets and tear the throats out of infected, bringing the battle to a close. All the belly rubs for these good boys.
The battle looks amazing; I don't know how much of that snow is real and how much is added after the fact, but I felt cold watching this episode. The mobs of extras are great. It reminded me of the Massacre at Hardhome from Game of Thrones, another battle that pit humanity against the undead as they stormed a walled town in the bitter snow.
That said, it feels a little like the producers made this battle happen because they wanted to have a battle, not because it was necessary. The setup is a little shaky; early on in the episode, Jesse tells Ellie that a pack of around 30 infected rose from beneath the snow outside Jackson. They were hiding under the bodies of other infected, "using their own dead like insulation." He speculates there could be hundreds more out there, even thousands. "Thousands?" Ellie scoffs. "That could never happen."
Okay, she doesn't actually say that second part but she might as well have. And then Jesse would go, "Yeah, you're probably right; I'm worrying over nothing." My point is that it felt clunky. The whole idea of the infected using the dead bodies of other infected as insulation seems a little janky. Winter falls in Wyoming every year, but this is the first time this has happened?
Also, I don't know if this battle served a narrative purpose beyond being cool. No important characters died. The only reason I can think that it might matter to the story is that it would explain why Tommy and Maria don't immediately send a hunting party after Abby and her friends once Ellie tells them what happened to Joel; they'll need every hand they can rebuilding the town.
Maybe I'm overthinking things; the battle was fun to watch. But in an age when new seasons of prestige TV shows take forever to come out, I don't think you should mount a massive action sequence unless you really need it. The big drama of the episode was definitely Abby killing Joel while Ellie watched. That would have been just as potent without the window dressing that was the Battle of Jackson.
Verdict
But what am I doing criticizing an episode for giving me a big battle sequence where dogs attack zombies? I liked watching it, and this is one of the finest episodes of The Last of Us so far.
I'm writing this a couple weeks in advance of when it actually airs, and I'm very curious to see how new fans react to the twist of Joel's brutal death. Will they follow in the footsteps of gamers and excoriate the producers for daring to kill off their favorite character, or will they just want to see what happens next?
Episode Grade: A-
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