The Last of Us season 2 showrunner Craig Mazin says he was both terrified and excited to film that harrowing Joel scene from The Last of Us Part 2.
Warning: Spoilers for The Last of Us season 2 ahead!
“I think the one that I was the most eager to create on screen and terrified to create on screen was Joel’s death,” Mazin said at a press conference attended by GamesRadar+. “And specifically, really, when I think about it, it wasn’t so much the mechanics of Joel dying – you don’t want to recapture what somebody did, but what Ashley Johnson did in the game is heart rending. Something like that is so traumatic and binds you to this character in a way that you weren’t bound before you were bound in a different way to that character before you were bound to Ellie in season one in the first game, as the person that Joel loved after being unable to love for so long. Well, here we’re bound to Ellie now in a very different way. And what Bella did there was pretty shattering.”
If you’ve played The Last of Us Part 2, you know how what happens to Joel – and you know that it’s absolutely horrifying. Johnson did the voice and motion capture for Ellie, with Troy Baker as Joel. Because Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) was introduced in just the first few minutes of The Last of Us season 2 episode 1 as someone who wants to kill Joel, we already knew her motives when the fatal scene began. In the video game, it’s a bit more harrowing given the fact that Abby doesn’t get the chance to tell Joel why she’s about to kill him – mainly because he tells her to shut up and get on with it.
The TV adaptation of the scene, which takes place in The Last of Us season 2 episode 2, sees Abby tell Joel that he killed 18 soldiers and one “unarmed doctor,” asking if she remembers the latter. She explains that the doctor was her father, and point-blankly tells Joel she’s going to kill him. And you’ll never look at a golf club the same way again.
The Last of Us season 2 is streaming now on HBO in the US, and on Sky and NOW in the UK. For more, check out our lists of the best HBO Max shows and the best HBO Max movies to stream right now.
