The Last of Us Creators and Cast Break Down Making That Scene

Just two episodes in, the second season of The Last of Us hit a key moment from the games that lays the path for the rest of the season. Ahead of the episode’s airing, series co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, plus actors Pedro Pascal (Joel), Bella Ramsay (Ellie), and Kaitlyn Dever (Abby) talked with press about making that crucial moment and teased what’s in store for the show’s next two seasons.

“Through the Valley” ends with Abby doing as she does in the games: beating Joel to death with a golf club while her buddies hold Ellie down and force her to watch. It’s a moment those who played the sequel know all too well—this was the big spoiler back when the game was leaked in 2020—and wondered when the show would have it happen. Turns out, this is something even Mazin and Druckmann had some back and forth about: In their interview with Variety, Mazin recalled “every option [being] on the table.” Different versions where it occurred later in the season felt like “dragging our feet,” according to Druckmann, so they chose to just put it in “early enough” that audiences could feel it.

“If people know it’s coming, they’ll feel tormented, and people who don’t know are going to find out,” explained Mazin. “Our instinct was to make sure that when we did it, that it felt natural in the story and was not some meta-function of us wanting to upset people.”

Abby and Joel’s scene was Pascal and Dever’s first together, and her first scene as Abby in general. Entertainment Weekly’s coverage revealed the shoot schedule was revised for Dever to take time off to grieve her mother’s passing from cancer, an event that changed up her acting process. Normally, she would’ve had a monologue like Abby’s nailed weeks before shooting, but because of what was going in her life, she felt able to “let it go and not think about it too much. I had a different approach, and I think that it really served the character in a lot of ways.”

The when of Joel’s end didn’t change, but the moments and characters leading to it did. Before she does the deed, Abby delivers a monologue to Joel revealing he killed her father during last season’s hospital attack, a scene Mazin specifically wrote for the show. He told EW it was needed so Abby could convey “that what he did was wrong. The end. Guilty. Sentenced to die. It was about imagining how angry she is and how hurt, but also how correct she is in her mind. […] We kill for the people we love, and what Joel did is what she’s doing now.”

In The Last of Us Part II, Joel’s brother Tommy is with Ellie when they see Joel die. The show shakes things up by keeping him in Jackson to protect the settlement from Infected, so Joel’s instead paired with Ellie’s eventual girlfriend Dina (Isabela Merced). Druckmann, co-writer and creative director on the second game, said the change was to help convey how much Dina cared for him and give her more of a reason to go on Ellie’s vengeance quest. “To put her in that spot and make her a front-row participant in this murder, connects us more to her. Her choice to stay by Ellie’s side through thick and thin from this point forward is motivated just as much by her loss as it is by her friendship with Ellie.”

Ramsey thinks both women losing their surrogate dad makes them “trauma bonded” and adds another wrinkle to their relationship. Dina was in the woods with Joel before they met Abby (and knocked out prior to his death), so there’s some “real jealousy” in Ellie’s mind. “Dina got to spend that last day with him, and there’s a lot of guilt and regret on Ellie’s part,” Ramsey continued. “That was just a little thing that I was laced into, what I took afterwards, especially when they speak about it for the first time.”

Like with the game, Joel’s death has garnered a large wave of reactions online that’s left viewers as devastated as Ellie. Whatever happens next, Dever told EW she’ll be taking reactions to Abby’s actions as they come. “I don’t know how to plan for it, or how people will react. All I can really do is hope people appreciate what I did with the role. […] With the help of Craig and Neil developing who that character was going to be, I’m very, very proud of it.”

Pascal, who’s no stranger to dying in genre work, admitted to being in “active denial” over his end. Despite his time with the show being over, he’s excited to see Ramsey come into their own as the sole lead forward. “There’s an obvious parental dynamic between the characters of Joel and Ellie,” he said. “Bella was never my child, but I did feel this sort of pride that I had nothing to do with but was able to observe how effortlessly they stepped into a position of leadership.”

Entertainment Weekly’s full coverage dives into the larger episode, including insight on Tommy’s defense of Jackson and directing Joel’s death. You can read it here.

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