[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 2.]
The Final of Us delivered its largest gut-punch but in Season 2’s second episode, which noticed Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) and Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) lastly cross paths.
When you have but to tune into the episode, we’d counsel turning again now as a result of there’s no turning again when you learn the spoilers beneath.
For many who performed The Final of Us Half II, the online game upon which the present relies, Joel’s loss of life was a dangling sword (or on this case, a golf membership) over viewers’ heads, and it lastly got here crashing down, sparking Season 2’s revenge arc for Ellie (Bella Ramsey). Within the episode, Ellie wakes up the day after final week’s fateful New Yr’s Eve celebration, the place she and Joel had a spat over his overprotective actions.
Regardless of the seemingly bitter observe between them, Ellie wished to go on her patrol shift with Joel, however learns she’ll be going together with Jesse (Younger Mazino) after getting a late begin. In the meantime, Joel and Dina (Isabela Merced) set out on their very own path for patrol earlier within the morning. Looming within the background of Jackson, Abby, and her crew are coming to grips with the scale of the group they’re about to go up towards, however she is undeterred from her objective, wanting to seek out Joel as quickly as attainable for her deliberate revenge.
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Because the episode reveals, Abby’s quest for vengeance stems from having discovered her father along with his brains on the ground on the Fireflies hospital in Salt Lake Metropolis. He was the surgeon Joel shot to whisk Ellie away from sure loss of life within the quest to discover a treatment for the an infection that had taken over the world.
In the meantime, at Jackson, precautions had been being taken after considerations about contaminated had been raised, main Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and Maria (Rutina Wesley) to have residents apply for a possible assault. Again at Abby’s camp, she goes exterior to patrol, whereas her crew, notably Owen (Spencer Lord), debate the hazards of shifting ahead along with her plan. He finally says he’s going to try to persuade Abby to show again to Seattle, the place they’re from.
Outdoors, Abby sees riders down the mountain and decides to analyze, however slips within the snow, falling down the slope right into a subject of frozen contaminated. Little does she know, there are energetic hoards beneath, and once they start digging their manner out of the bottom, she makes a run for it. Making intense maneuvers to flee their bites, Abby does an honest job of operating away, however when she finds herself cornered, it’s Joel’s shot that saves her.
He takes Abby to security within the neighboring barn, and whereas she’s clearly grateful for the assistance, emotions shift when she hears Dina name out Joel’s title, realizing that is the person she’s been searching for. Protecting quiet about her emotions, Abby convinces Dina and Joel that it’s greatest they search security at her camp, which is an outdated ski lodge. Ellie and Jesse discover themselves hunkering down in a 7-Eleven to keep away from the snowstorm that’s starting to unfold, however that solely lasts as long as they notice Jackson is having bother reaching Joel and Dina. Splitting up, Ellie units out up the mountain in the hunt for Joel and Dina.
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When Joel, Abby, and Dina close to the lodge, the hoards chasing them flip course in the direction of Jackson, having been summoned by the cordyceps that had been agitated in a cracked-open pipe on the group’s building space. Joel expresses concern when he sees a battle unfolding on the town from a distance, however Abby continues to push for the lodge, claiming her crew might help within the combat.
As soon as they arrive, it isn’t lengthy earlier than Abby directs her crew to detain Joel and Dina, the latter of whom is injected with a sleep sedative for Abby to place all her give attention to Joel. She asks him questions in regards to the Fireflies and the place he final noticed them. Admitting it was in Salt Lake Metropolis, Joel finds himself on the receiving finish of a bullet to the knee.
Abby directs her buddy Mel (Ariela Barer) to tourniquet his leg as a result of she plans to get extra solutions out of Joel, and if he lies, she’ll kill Dina. Furthering the dialog, Abby tells Joel about her father, and he tells her to simply kill him and get it over with. As an alternative, Abby pulls a golf membership from a bag within the nook and begins beating Joel violently.
Ellie’s investigation to seek out Joel and Dina finally finds her sneaking into the lodge to make a grisly discovery. As she goes to combat again, she’s held down by Abby’s crew and made to look at as Abby plunges the stick of the golf membership (which not has the top hooked up after Abby’s brutal beating) into Joel’s neck, ending his life.
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“It’s simply one thing that she’s craving for therefore lengthy,” Dever says of Abby’s quest for revenge. As viewers will recall, the earlier episode started simply days after Joel and Ellie’s Season 1 escape from Salt Lake Metropolis, and even then, Abby was thirsting for Joel’s demise. “After I was engaged on the characters, simply fascinated about that and the way lengthy she had, how a lot time she spent having that revenge and wanting it so badly and the resentment and the frustration and the anger, all of it comes from this deep, very unhappy, and heartbreaking loss,” Dever factors out.
“It’s simply how a lot time she has spent on planning every part out in her head and the search that she is on,” Dever provides. Whereas followers are definitely going to be grappling with Joel’s loss, Ellie’s vow to kill the individuals chargeable for this loss of life positively places a goal on Abby’s again, spawning an analogous quest for revenge that she simply accomplished.
“She’s a really damaged human being, and I wished to essentially form of enable that to return by in her eyes, as a result of finally, she’s simply somebody who’s experiencing excessive loss,” Dever reiterates. “It’s humorous as a result of… many of the different characters within the present have skilled loss in some form of manner and… share these similarities, however the way it exhibits and the way it comes by is completely different for each character given their completely different persona,” Dever factors out.
And as viewers see on this episode, Abby’s grief comes out as “anger and rage.” Now that her mission is full, what different feelings might viewers expertise from Abby? Solely time will inform. However for now, tell us what you considered Joel’s demise and the newest episode within the feedback part beneath, and keep tuned for extra as The Final of Us Season 2 continues to unfold on HBO and Max.
The Final of Us, Season 2, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO and Max