“Swear to me that everything about the Fireflies is true.”
When we last saw Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), they were standing on a cliff overlooking Jackson, Wyoming; their future home and the destination for season two of The Last of Us. The reason – why Ellie makes Joel make such a definitive declaration about the fireflies is because the entire first season (which detailed the first video game in the popular series from Naughty Dog studios) is leading up to our young hero being handed off safely by her protector and friend so she can be used to find a cure for the virus that has spread around the world, making for the apocalypse that has lost millions of lives. But while she was knocked out, Joel discovered the truth behind the Firefly’s intentions of using Ellie’s DNA to make a cure, resulting in testing that will ultimately kill this person that Joel has become deeply attached to; an adopted child who has replaced the missing piece of his heart that was lost when his daughter died years before. Upon hearing this, Joel goes on a violent rampage, killing everyone in his path (filmed brilliantly in the finale with no sound, letting the audience just see the destruction Joel has left in his path to save Ellie). He’s made a choice; save one life to save over the millions that could be saved potentially by the cure created by the demise of Ellie. So when he tells her “I swear,” lying to her, hiding her from the reality of her true fate, Joel sets a chain reaction that forms the thesis for the second season (and second game) of The Last of Us; every action we make has a consequence.
Picking up five years after the events of the first season, we find our two main heroes at odds as Joel and Ellie aren’t on speaking terms. Call it the growing pains of living with a spirited young adult, or that she is starting to see through the lies that Joel told her, but Ellie has shut herself off to anything related to Joel. Inferred by Ellie herself, the reason the two have grown apart is because of Joel being too protective of her, not allowing her to grow up the way she wants to; a helicopter parent. Even the mere mention of his name puts her off, like when we see her doing a defensive skill lesson in the barn against another member of the patrol team in Jackson and he holds his punches. This realization that she didn’t win the sparring match fairly irritates Ellie to her core, showcasing Ramsey’s perfect grasp of their character’s frustrations, making you feel throughout the first episode the time that has built to this emotional response to Joel.
When she isn’t spending time working on things in the garage (which doubles as her bedroom), Ellie has become a fixture in Jackson, working on the town’s patrol team alongside Joel’s brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna). With Tommy, and mostly everyone is in Jackson, Ellie can be herself, the playful, sarcastic character we’ve come to know in the game and in the first season. But because of her experience against the infected and out in the world, Ellie has tendencies to go rogue and out improvise on patrol runs, putting the lives of those with her in danger. “Do it by the book,” Tommy tells her, knowing that she is just like his brother, too important to their way of life to lose, therefore being careful is the best thing for everyone involved. But it is hard for Ellie to not want to be adventurous and show off her skills, especially when she is around Dina (Isabela Merced), a close friend of hers that works in patrols whom Ellie has a crush on. Merced’s Dina is a perfect addition to the cast and has incredible chemistry Ramsey not only in action sequences (we see them go on a mission to hunt down a couple of clickers before their patrol moves out), but as two people discovering a connection to each other that is both romantic and hopeful in a world full of despair and terror. It’s a reminder that at the heart of The Last of Us is a story about who finds humanity in the face of a horrific world; one is reminded of the acclaimed third episode of season one following the Bill and Frank (Nick Offerman, Murray Bartlett) storyline, where we got to see love thrive in darkness. It’s something the showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have shown to be a calling card of this show and it pays off beautifully already within the first hour of the new season.
As Ellie is blossoming into her own, Joel is doing the only thing he knows best; fixing things. He works as the head of housing construction in Jackson, and there is never a day off as more and more people are out finding the town, looking for refuge. Maria (Rutina Wesley), co-leader of the survivors in Jackson and Tommy’s wife, is urging Joel to keep going and build more, expansion is key for the community, but the resources and manpower is not enough to keep up with the demand. Mirroring how we were introduced to Joel in the first episode of the series, he’s integrated himself into the fabric of this town, and the work he is doing is essential. But the difference between one season of television and a time jump is the toll the work has taken on Joel, as well as the emotional weight of keeping his secrets from Ellie. In one of the best scenes of the series so far, we see Joel sit down with Gail (an always excellent Catherine O’Hara), the town’s therapist who’s become a shell of herself, drinking heavily during her sessions since the passing of her husband Eugene (Joe Pantoliano); a death Joel is responsible for and we will see how later in the season. In her greiving, she sees right through Joel and wants him to confront the demons of his past. “You can’t heal something unless you are brave enough to say it out loud,” a statement Gail makes as we see Joel struggling to find the words to open up, not just about relationship with Ellie, but all of his other transgressions and shortcomings in life . Pascal is excellent throughout this episode, capturing the pain of man that has lost everything before, and is slowly realizing that he history might be repeating itself if he doesn’t face the reality of his actions. But he is on borrowed time as a reckoning is heading its way to Jackson.
The second part of the opening of season two introduces us to a new batch of characters, most notably Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), who have gathered together to bury their dead. They are surviving members of the Fireflies that were slaughtered by Joel at the end of season one, one of which was the surgeon that was going to operate on Ellie, which happened to be Abby’s father. It is a bold choice by Mazin and Druckmann to introduce Abby and her people this way in the series because in the video game, this is a reveal that takes a while to bloom over the course of a couple of hours of gameplay. But the show’s creators understand that this shift in storytelling is necessary to ramp up intensity of what we saw from last season and what we are going to see as things unfold within these new episodes. While maybe being the most controversial character in modern video game history (mostly because of online nerd boys in their mother’s basement), Abby is without a doubt a fascinating figure within the lore of The Last of Us, taking the idea of revenge and retribution to extremes rarely seen. In the game, she is a menacing figure that shows no mercy to those who stand in her way, and within the first glimpses of Dever’s incarnation of the character, Abby is no longer the physical presence she is in the game, but all of the intensity, anger, and ruthlessness of the character is packed into Dever’s diminutive frame, ready to go off like a powder keg of vengeance. At the very least, if the show’s creators stay true to the original source material, Dever has a chance of delivering a special performance of a series-changing character that will stand up next to the iconic character of the famous past flagship dramas on HBO.
As per usual with The Last of Us, the production design of this broken world stands shoulders above any other show on television. Each set piece feeling lived in, like the thriving town of Jackson itself, seeing a massive town being reshaped from the first time we saw it last season, with brand new homes for people to live in during an apocalypse; with even small details like lights hanging outside on the town trees the night of New Year’s Eve, giving it a real sense of normalcy at the end of world. Contrast that with the worn down locations outside the walls of Jackson, like the store Ellie and Dani get caught in while fighting with a newly spawned version of a clicker. Mazin’s direction, alongside the show’s cinematographer Ksenia Sereda, is impeccable and lays the groundwork for the rest of the season as they continue to expand the world they visually put together in the first season, and the character’s explore new dangers that they’ve never faced before. Mazin has promised this season to feel like “The Empire Strikes Back,” and while that is a lofty goal to reach for, given the story within the second game, and the promise that he, Druckmann, and Halley Gross have of expanding the story for the second season beyond what gamers have played, there seems to be a real plan in place to make sure the show sticks a landing that the game already successfully made. Will it divide people; probably. But it will spread and provoke discussion, much like Game of Thrones, Succession, The Sopranos, and the other classic HBO shows that were able to start small within season one and expand into a infectiously grander appointment television. The Last of Us season two looks to lay down pipe and establish itself as the premier drama on television, effortlessly balancing the spectacle of its action set pieces and world building with the deeply emotional, tender character moments found at its core.
Grade: A-
The seven episode second season of HBO’s The Last of Us begins April 13 on HBO and will be available to stream on Max with new episodes every Sunday.
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