The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 2 is going to be remembered as one of the most grim chapters in the show’s history. One of the HBO hit’s original lead characters is brutally murdered while the idyllic settlement of Jackson is overrun by invading hoards of Infected. It’s an inflection point for The Last of Us. The show is no longer focused on the fraught bond that grew between Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), but humanity’s existential drive to survive. What do we sacrifice? What do we leave behind? And who will step up and become an honest to god hero when called?
**Spoilers for The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 2, now streaming on MAX**
Well, according to The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 2, Joel’s brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) is the man with the goods to save the day. Tommy not only leads the efforts to fortify and defend Jackson, but he also gets the most triumphant win of the episode, single-handedly killing a Bloater. It’s a much needed win for an episode otherwise concerned with devastating loss.
The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 2 is one of the most intense episodes of television ever made. On the one hand, you have Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), consumed by vengeance, crossing paths with Joel by chance. (He actually saves her from a band of Infected hunting her during a snowstorm.) Abby repays him with a slow, tortuous death. She shoots him in the leg, beats him with a golf club, and ultimately stabs him in front of Ellie’s eyes. It’s grisly, gnarly, narrative-shaking stuff.
However, while all this is going on, Jackson finds itself under siege. A veritable army of Stalkers â the new kind of Infected who can work together and strategize â has taken advantage of the cover offered by the storm to advance on Jackson. Already prepared, Tommy snaps into action, leading the town’s fighters on the wall.
What follows is maybe one of the coolest depictions of onscreen siege warfare since Peter Jackson’s Battle of Helms Deep. Yeah, Game of Thrones did something similar with the Battle of Winterfell in Season 8, but there the characters made the baffling mistake of initially facing the White Walkers and their Others outside the walls of Winterfell. Tommy’s not that dumb. (I mean he hasn’t dug a ditch around the wall, but he’s done pretty well.) He knows that the basic tenant of holding a fortress is to first hold the wall. He orders drums of oil to be dropped, first to strike the invaders, then to be lit up as makeshift fire bombs.
However, even with additional support, the gate breaks. Infected get into Jackson. Soon, the battle has shifted from holding the line to fighting for everyone’s lives.
While others fall or lose their nerve, Tommy takes it upon himself to single-handedly face down a Bloater. These are the hilariously big Infected and they are especially hard to take down. Tommy lures the monster away from others and begins using everything he’s got â bullets, fire â to take him down.
Eventually, it looks bleak for Tommy. He’s almost completely out of gas and the Bloater is closing in on him, outside of a Mailboxes Etc. shop, no less! However, at the last second, it seems that all the damage Tommy’s done on the creature has worked. The Bloater dies and Tommy survives.
Tommy’s one-on-one fight against the Bloater is the kind of fist-pumping, high-octane fight scene that keeps us tuning into The Last of Us. It’s that glimmer of hope that maybe all the suffering is worth something. It’s that tiny sliver of triumph that suggests there’s a chance humanity can win the day. It’s also just freaking cool.
Also freaking cool? The fact that series showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann intuited that they would need to set up Joel’s successor in this episode. Maybe The Last of Us is losing Pedro Pascal, but in this episode, Gabriel Luna proved that he, and character Tommy, are more than capable of filling the role of protector and hero. Just ask the Bloater.
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