This post contains spoilers for The Last of Us season two, episode two.
The first season of The Last of Us had it easy. Which is not to diminish the pitch-perfect adaptation from cocreators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann; it’s just that the show’s 2013 source material is pretty straightforward. With a road trip story at its heart, The Last of Us (the game) had a very conventional narrative spine that translated well to television. But The Last of Us Part II, on which both this season and the show’s forthcoming third installment are based, is a much messier affair. In tonight’s shocking episode, “Through the Valley,” we learn the first reason why: The sequel starts by blowing up the thing people loved about the first game, specifically by killing Joel, played in the show by Pedro Pascal. Now, in just the second episode of its second season, the TV adaptation of The Last of Us has followed suit. Joel is dead, at the hands of Kaitlyn Dever’s steely militia member, Abby.
This is daring, Game of Thrones–esque stuff, involving an actor who also died very memorably on that show. The relationship between Joel and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) is the heart of The Last of Us. By killing Joel, especially so soon, the show has abandoned safety in favor of plunging into the unknown.
At the same time, Joel’s death feels fated. Much like this season’s premiere did, “Through the Valley” opens with a flashback. This time, we’re thrust back into season one’s gruesome finale as seen through the eyes of Abby, who is mourning someone whom Joel murdered during his massacre at the Firefly base. Abby and her crew of Firefly remnants—we’re later told they’re members of a militia that calls itself the WLF, but what those letters mean isn’t made clear just yet—are scoping out Jackson, trying to figure out their next move. They don’t seem to have one.
Then destiny intervenes. Back in Jackson, members of the community have found evidence of a large number of infected hiding in the snow, and the fact that the monsters are getting smarter is particularly unsettling. So Ellie, Jesse, Dina, and Joel all go out on patrol, setting Jackson’s residents, Abby’s team, and the infected all on a violent collision course—one that is going to end in tragedy.
Their effort is interrupted by a huge snowstorm. When it subsides, the first person to stumble upon the infected horde is not one of Jackson’s patrols, but Abby. While tailing Joel—who is, as far as she knows, just some guy from Jackson she hopes to torture for information—Abby falls victim to the icy mountain slopes, tumbling down to the surface of a frozen lake. This scene is one lifted directly from the game, but Mazin and director Mark Mylod take the opportunity to play up the horror of the moment, creating a frigid nightmare that makes a meal out of the kind of special effects an HBO budget can afford.
Abby is nearly overcome by the infected until she’s saved by Joel himself. She can’t believe her luck—she’s run into the actual man she was looking for, so far from the safety of his community. With the horde bearing down on them, it’s extremely easy for Abby to convince Joel and Dina to go to a nearby lodge where her team is holed up, luring Joel to his doom.
Once there, things escalate swiftly. Jesse and Ellie get word that Joel and Dina have not checked in with the home base at Jackson after the snowstorm, splitting up to find them. Back in Jackson, workers find the cordyceps growth hiding in the pipes that we first glimpsed in the premiere, and infected hordes suddenly appear on the landscape. Jackson has five minutes to prepare. What follows is one of the biggest action sequences thus far on The Last of Us (they even bring the Big Boy Infected back!)—another expansion from the game, in which Jackson’s residents don’t have to deal with this horde at all.
But unfortunately for Joel, the final moments of “Through the Valley” are extremely faithful to the opening hours of The Last of Us Part II—and even more excruciatingly detailed. Upon arriving at the lodge, Joel and Dina are held at gunpoint. Dina is drugged unconscious, and Abby shoots Joel in the leg, revealing the reason for her vendetta: Her father was the doctor who was supposed to operate on Ellie at the end of last season. Joel killed him in cold blood. As a militia soldier, Abby sees herself as a person with a code, while Joel seems to just be “a lawless piece of shit.” Joel doesn’t care for her speech, so Abby settles for beating him with a golf club.
At this point, Ellie has managed to find tracks leading to the lodge and sneaks in. But she’s outgunned and restrained, able to see but not help as Joel is beaten to a pulp. Much like the scene it adapts, it’s all awful, with Ellie pleading for Joel to get up and Abby paying her no mind. Abby finishes the job by stabbing Joel in the neck with the broken golf club. Ellie vows revenge, promising to kill them all. But Abby and her crew don’t care what Ellie has to say. Having accomplished their grim mission, they leave Ellie there with Joel’s corpse. Jesse, too late, finds Ellie and brings her home to Jackson—with Joel’s body in tow.
For a moment, it seemed like The Last of Us might delay the inevitability of Joel’s death in season two. Its second-season premiere set up the possibility of spending more time with Joel and Ellie, which would have only made his death hurt more. More scenes of them together still might be coming; the continued mentions of Gene, a character we haven’t yet seen but know will be played this season by Joe Pantoliano, strongly imply a pending flashback episode. But like the game it’s based on, The Last of Us is severing Ellie and Joel’s connection hard and fast.
Again, it’s a ballsy move that requires the story to quickly find something else to build its drama around, and the efficacy of this adaptation might not even be clear until the show’s third season. But for now, like cover version of the Shawn James song that plays over the credits and gives “Through the Valley” its biblical title, The Last of Us has plunged us into darkness.
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