While it would inevitably upset many viewers (particularly those who haven't played the games), The Last of Us season 2 had to kill Joel. That happened in last night's "Through the Valley" when he encountered Abby, the daughter of the surgeon he shot to "save" Ellie.
There were some changes from the game; Dina takes Tommy's place on patrol, and Joel dies after being stabbed through the neck rather than having his head caved in. Much of the violence also takes place off-screen.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter (via GameFragger.com), co-creator Craig Mazin revealed new details about shooting the sequence, including why Joel never attempts to plead his case with Abby.
"When Abby tells him, 'I’m going to kill you, because there are some things we all agree are just f*cking wrong,' there is this slight moment of agreement," he explained. "Joel know what he did is capital-W Wrong. But he also had no choice [but the kill the Fireflies last season], as far as he saw it. He did what he needed to do. So we already know that he has some guilt about it from the therapy scene in episode one."
"It’s also one of the reasons we made a change from the game to have Joel in that room with Dina, as opposed to Tommy (Gabriel Luna), who’s a big, tough guy. Abby is basically saying, 'Make one mistake and we’re going to kill her," Mazin added. "And if there’s one thing we know about Joel, it’s that he’s sort of the ultimate dad. We know he cares very much about Dina and that he would never let her suffer in any way, shape or form, to defend himself."
Asked about the brutality of Joel's death, Mazin talked in detail about ensuring it wasn't too "gratuitous" and admitted they put a lot of thought into how much should be shown and what that meant for the story being told.
"Well, that’s something that [director Mark Mylod] and I talked about. We had to do quite a bit of planning about how graphic we wanted things to be, because we have a lot of prosthetics [on Pascal’s face]. We felt that the point we needed to get across was that Abby was not in control of herself. That despite her reasoned, carefully articulated point to Joel, that this is not rational. She’s going too far."
"There is a rage in her that I think we should understand is not the kind of anger that goes away simply because you killed someone. That’s the irony, or, I guess, the tragedy really of being consumed by something like this — there is no way to fix it except to somehow make your peace with it and let it go. Killing Joel isn’t going to fix this for her. She’s doing something wrong. And we needed to show how lost she was and we needed to show that other people in the room are horrified by this."
"But if those things that pushed us towards showing more brutality, the thing that restrained us is a concern that we would be somehow glorifying or celebrating this violence against somebody that we love. We care deeply about Joel and if you dwell on [the violence] too much, then it is gratuitous. Still, we needed Ellie to see him like that for several reasons."
Mazin also shared a blink-and-you'd-miss-it moment that only serves to make Joel's farewell that little bit more traumatic. "It was important, that beautiful moment where Ellie says, 'Joel, please get up' — that’s us," he explained. "And he tried that finger movement. It’s just heartbreaking."
"Mark and I spent so much time just talking about where everybody would be. We spent the day on the floor, trying different positions, finding that perfect place of connection and where everybody else would be. It was so much about making sure that Bella and Pedro and Kaitlyn were able to do this maximally upsetting thing," Mazin concluded.
Will The Last of Us suffer the same drop in viewership that The Walking Dead received when Negan murdered Glenn? Whether Joel's death is a step too far for some or a moment that makes this story all the more compelling remains to be seen in the weeks ahead.
Ellie has vowed revenge for what Abby did, and that alone should be reason enough for people to come back and see whether she's able to avenge Joel's violent demise.
You can watch the promo for next week's episode of The Last of Us in the player below.