Thanks to the success of the games and the TV series’ first season, HBO’s The Last of Us has been greenlit for a second season that is set to premiere sometime in 2025. The Last of Us season two will pick up where the first season left off and include parts of the Last of Us Part 2’s story – including the game’s controversial beginning sequence. But seeing as people will be viewing things from a different perspective, perhaps the initial twist won’t be as divisive as it was in the video games.
Please note that this article contains HEAVY SPOILERS for The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part 2.What’s the twist?
After a short intro sequence that reintroduces Joel and Ellie four years after the first game, The Last of Us Part 2 pushes Ellie to action when her surrogate father Joel is murdered by a new character called Abby. Unbeknownst to players, the doctor they killed while playing as Joel at the end of The Last of Us was in fact Abby’s father. This prompted Abby to chase after Joel all the way to Jackson County, Wyoming to exact her revenge.
The audience isn’t in control of Joel in the TV series
The Last of Us season one is nine episodes, with each episode’s runtime being about an hour. That is roughly nine hours in total, not all of which focus on Joel. He may be one of the most well-established characters in the TV series but it is hard to compare nine hours of on-and-off screentime to a 15 to 30-hour game played almost solely from his perspective.
Players learn the ins and outs of Joel when controlling him in The Last of Us. While big things like Joel’s strained relationship with his brother Tommy are important, so are the small details like his random musings about missing coffee and wanting to be a singer. Not all of these quirks make it into the TV series (possibly due to time constraints), but they contribute to who Joel is and the player’s connection to him – which makes his death all the more impactful in the sequel.
Joel in the TV series is a different character to Joel in the games
The Last of Us Part II’s story was told in non-sequential order and shifted between Ellie’s and Abby’s perspectives. Joel’s death becomes a little easier to understand once players have experienced Abby’s side of the story but the way it was presented and how it happened to a beloved character is what made it so controversial.
As much as Pedro Pascal looks like Joel, the character he plays isn’t completely the same. Pascal’s Joel is more vulnerable and incapable of stealthily killing hordes of Infected with his bare hands. Those who play the games and watch the TV series afterward will notice that Joel is a different character within the first episode. Viewers may find themselves feeling a disconnection between the TV version of Joel and the video game one – which could soften the blow when the show finally delivers the inevitable Joel death scene.
Joel’s death serves as a catalyst for later events, and is meant to be viewed from multiple angles rather than just that of Ellie or the player. Seeing as Joel isn’t the main focus of the TV series and players aren’t in control of him this time around, perhaps viewers will find his death less shocking when it appears on HBO in 2025.
