Will The Last of Us cut this key death (or are fans fooling themselves)?

The Last of Us is back for its second season on HBO. Over the next six weeks, we'll bear witness to the continuing adventures of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), hardscrabble survivors of the zombie apocalypse.

The second season is based on the second game in The Last of Us video game series: The Last of Us Part II. When that game came out in 2020, the fandom had an epic meltdown over some of the plot twists. Things have calmed down since, but there are still some fans wondering if the TV adaptation will pivot.

Let's get into it before, but be warned that we're about to SPOIL everything.

Joel will almost definitely still die in The Last of Us

Okay, let's just come out with it: Joel dies near the beginning of The Last of Us Part II. He's brutally murdered by new character Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), who's out for revenge after Joel killed her father in the season 1 finale. Abby's dad was the doctor who was going to operate on Ellie. The operation would have killed Ellie, but might have resulted in the Fireflies creating a cure for the zombie plague that has destroyed society. Joel knew that, but didn't want to give up his surrogate daughter, so he went on a massacre.

For the rest of the game, Ellie seeks out Abby to get her own revenge. Joel's death is crucial to The Last of Us Part II; if he doesn't die, the story doesn't happen. That why we expect him to die on the show, probably this upcoming Sunday.

But a lot of fans love Joel, and some are hoping the show swerves in another direction. Below, @pedrospascall clips out an image of Joel and Ellie from one of the trailers for The Last of Us season 2, noticing that they're hanging out together in a verdant forest; in the premiere episode, winter lay heavy on Jackson. Does this mean that Joel will beat the odds and survive to see the changing of the seasons?

This tweet got over 25k likes, so obviously @pedrospascall isn't the only fan hoping for a surprise. "[H]is hair is still long it doesnt look like a flashback," they reason. "I was saying last night…they’ve really fleshed out Tommy’s character…what if they switch it?" suggests someone else.

There are also plenty of fans on the other side of things pointing out the obvious: Joel's gonna die, but will keep showing up in flashbacks. The screenshot above is very likely from a flashback to when he and Ellie visit the abandoned Wyoming Museum of Science and History, a highlight from the game.

So far as TV adaptations go, The Last of Us has stuck very close to its source material, which isn't surprising considering that Neil Druckmann, one of the main driving forces behind the games, is one of the showrunners. No one can predict the future, but if Joel survives the coming weeks, I will personally put all the money I have in the world in a big pile and burn it; that's how confident I am that the show will not deviate that far from the games. There will probably be some changes, but Joel's death has to happen...and it will probably happen soon.

See you Sunday.

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