The Last of Us is back on HBO, and it’s back with a bang. The Season 2 premiere, which primarily takes place years after the events of Season 1, continues Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) adventure, and this season will be shocking to say the least. The premiere set the stage for a lot of stuff to happen, and this episode also introduced a major change from The Last of Us Part II video game.
Season 2 opens with Abby and company
We open Season 2 with the introduction of Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby and her group of Firefly friends: Manny (Danny Ramirez), Nora (Tati Gabrielle), Owen (Spencer Lord), and Mel (Ariela Barer). We learn then and there that the group is reeling from the shooting at the hospital in which Joel killed many people and did what he thought he had to do to save Ellie’s life and protect her. They are looking over a graveyard of what seems to be the Fireflies who died in the incident.
“Why would he do this?” asks Manny, with Nora jumping in to say, “I heard rumors about some kid he took that was supposedly…”—she can’t finish the sentence before Mel says that this isn’t true. Abby says that their mission is to find Joel, and she already has her goal clear: “When we kill him, we kill him slowly.”
This is a major change from the game, as when… MAJOR SPOILER ALERT for The Last of Us Part II game below:
A major game-to-series change is revealed almost immediately
Abby kills Joel. The gamer/viewer doesn’t know much about her motivations, and this has led to deep conflicts within the fandom as to the morality of the character and the reception overall of The Last of Us Part II. So far in the show, we don’t know exactly who Abby wants revenge for (we’re not going to say here because we can’t just give away too many spoilers), but we do know it is very important.
As one user wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “#TheLastOfUs opens with rejecting imo the strongest narrative choices of the video game. Hating Abby then learning her reasoning then her redemption to wanting to save her life is something viewers should’ve experienced too. It’s a challenging story. Neil and Craig were scared.”
Another person wrote, “the way they intro’d abby was so weird… like they didn’t even try to build it up, she just showed up like ‘yeah i’m gonna kill’ right away, kinda killed the suspense ngl. didn’t feel anything like the game, thought it was pretty messed up tbh.”
Someone else said, “nice ep but it pissed me off that the season opens with abby’s true intentions. showing the viewer her real motivation this early makes #that scene have less impact and it kinda treats the viewer like a dumbass that won’t be able to connect the dots later.”
Why are Abby’s motivations introduced from the get-go in Season 2?
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly in March, co-creator Neil Druckmann said, “There are two reasons why we moved certain things up in the story. One of which [is] in the game…you play as Abby, so you immediately form an empathic connection with her because you’re surviving as her, you’re running through the snow, you’re fighting infected, and we can withhold certain things and make it a mystery that will be revealed later in the story. We couldn’t do that in the show because you’re not playing as her. So we need other tools, and that context gave us that shortcut.”
He continued, “If we were to stick to a very similar timeline, viewers would have to wait a very, very long time to get that context,” he noted. “It would probably get spoiled to them between seasons, and we didn’t want that. So it felt appropriate for those reasons to move that up and give that context right off the bat.”
What happens in ‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 premiere?
Overall, the Season 2 premiere is relatively quiet while immersing us into this new time jump and with new characters. Five years after the scene of Abby and her group at the graves, we are back in Jackson, Wyoming, where Ellie is training with a new character, Jesse (Young Mazino), and honing her fighting skills. He goes easy on her because of Joel, much to Ellie’s chagrin, and it is clear Ellie and Joel have beef. Meanwhile, Joel is well-integrated in the infrastructure of the Jackson leadership now and is the head of construction. In this role, he mentors Dina (Isabela Merced), Ellie’s friend and Jesse’s ex. Dina asks Joel, “Why is she angry at you?” further illuminating what’s going on between the two. Dina tries to play peacemaker, even inviting Ellie to watch a movie with her and Joel. Though Ellie and Joel’s relationship is strained, it seems like Joel gets a lot from being an uncle to his brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and Maria (Rutina Wesley)’s son, Benjamin (Ezra Agbonkhese). Aside from working on the construction side of Jackson, Joel is working with Maria on Jackson expansion plans.
Joel and Gail’s therapy session
Joel then goes to therapy, and his therapist is Gail (Catherine O’Hara), widow of the late Eugene, who Joel had to kill for some reason, but we don’t know why yet. Joel pays her with weed. She is drunk during their session because it is the first birthday without her husband in 41 years. Gail said she hates him and doesn’t know if she can get over what he did, even though he had to do it. With this truth out, he urges her to tell the truth about what’s at the root of his issues with Ellie. She says he’s lying and continues to ask about it, asking him what he did to her. Joel says: “I saved her.”
The nature of their sessions surrounds Joel’s issues with Ellie, but Gail more or less declares that they’re not getting anywhere since he’s “lying” to her.
Ellie and Dina’s run-in with a stalker
Ellie goes on patrols with Tommy, even though Joel wants her off patrol. Later in the episode, Ellie and Dina are on patrol and go off books and enter a building they shouldn’t. The audience is introduced to a new breed of the infected, “the stalker,” as this version can hide and seemingly premeditate what they want to do. Ellie is bitten by the stalker, but of course, is immune. Dina and Ellie have to report what happened before town leaders, and while Maria doesn’t believe Dina was there, she believes Ellie’s account of what happened, and they now know that changes are happening with the infected.
The barn dance
Earlier, Dina invited Ellie to the barn dance to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Ellie clearly has feelings for her and wrote about it. Before this, Joel tries to talk to Ellie and make peace, even offering to restring her guitar that he sees (she has moved into the garage attached to the house). Everyone is dancing and having fun at the dance while Ellie and Jesse sit back, both realizing how they don’t want to be there, and watching how a drunk Dina is the life of the party. Ellie says she and Dina will be back together soon, but Jesse doesn’t think so. We don’t hear why, as Dina then grabs the rest of Jesse’s drink, then grabs Ellie to dance. They share a kiss on the dance floor, which is interrupted by Seth (Robert John Burke), who says this is a family function and tells them that they are in a church, muttering a slur under his breath. Ellie goes to confront him before Seth is pushed to the ground by Joel.
Joel asks Ellie if she’s OK before she tells him, “What is wrong with you?” she asks. “I don’t need your f***ing help.” When they go home for the night, Ellie sees Joel with the guitar on the porch and walks past him to go to the garage. These two are not OK.
Why is Ellie mad at Joel?
We really don’t get exact reasons as to why Ellie is so mad at Joel in the Season 2 premiere. Several years have passed, and all we really know is that their relationship is very strained. It could be because she knows more about what exactly happened at the hospital and why he saved her life. Or maybe she’s just mad because she knows he’s not telling her the truth and he still won’t reveal what happened. All of this isn’t clear yet.
How does the Season 2 premiere end?
The season premiere ends with Abby and her group arriving at the edge of Jackson, seemingly ready to enact their revenge plan.
The Last of Us Season 2 airs Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.
