The Last of Us faithfully recreates iconic queer scene in season two premiere – but changes the game’s major twist

Posted on by Samantha

The Last of Us has kicked off season two with a faithful adaptation of an iconic scene from the game in which Joel knocks out a homophobe for harassing Ellie – and also changed a major reveal.

Warning: Major spoilers for The Last of Us season two follow.

That’s right, everyone’s favourite (and most harrowing) post-apocalyptic zombie survival series is back, with Pedro Pascal returning as Joel Miller and Bella Ramsey on screens once more, complete with the attitude of his pseudo-daughter, Ellie.

Season two (14 April) picks up in the same place as its video-game source material, The Last of Us Part II; having escaped the Fireflies at the end of the first season/ game, Joel and Ellie have made it safely to a ranch of survivors in Jackson, Wyoming, and have been living in relative peace for five years.

The premiere episode, named Future Days, largely follows the same set-up as the opening hours of its game – just as they’re about to arrive in Jackson, Ellie makes Joel, “Swear to me that everything [he] said about the Fireflies is true.” He replies, “I swear.”

Five years later, and the pair are not without their struggles; Ellie suspects that Joel is not telling her everything about their escape from the Fireflies (she’s right), and Joel is consumed with guilt for murdering the surgeon that was to perform the operation on Ellie that would have killed her, but also provided a cure to the cordyceps fungus that kick-started the whole ‘rage-induced zombie pandemic’ situation.

The fractured relationship of the game’s central duo is exemplified during the premiere’s climax; during a dance in the ‘village centre’ Ellie and love-interest Dina are harassed by a homophobic onlooker, who tells the pair this is a “family event” after they kiss, calling them “d*kes”.

Ellie starts on the man, but not before Joel pushes him to the ground, telling him to “get the hell out of here.”

“I don’t need your f**king help,” Ellie tells him. It’s hard to watch. Still – Joel Miller for ally of the year, even in a post-apocalypse.

How is The Last of Us season two’s premiere different to the game?

In The Last of Us Part II, the 2020 video game, we have no real idea as to why Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), whom players briefly control at the start of the game, is going after Joel.

She is firmly established as the antagonist of the series, turning Joel’s head into a golf ball in the opening hours along with the WLF militia, leaving Ellie alive and traumatised and kickstarting her quest for revenge.

It’s only much later in the game (over half way), when perspective shifts back to Abby, that players learn why she went all Tiger Woods on our beloved Joel – and it’s because her father was the surgeon that Joel killed at the end of the first game/ series to save Ellie.

In the premiere of The Last of Us, season two, however, we get this information from the off, with perspective switching to the Fireflies (the resistance group Abby’s father belonged to) burying their dead following Joel’s hospital massacre.

“Why would he do this?” Abby asks the group, before laying out a bang-on description of Joel: “Fifties, grey, beard, 6-foot tall, scar on his right temple, and yeah, they say he’s handsome.” Heavy on that last part.

Abby then makes one more harrowing promise to set up season two: “When we kill him, we kill him slowly.”

It’s a departure from the game, when the reveal comes after the mid-way point – but with the TV series’ track record for successfully adapting its source material by Naughty Dog head Neil Druckman and series creator Craig Mazin, we’d say we’re in safe hands.

The Last of Us airs on HBO on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET and on Mondays in the UK on Sky Atlantic and Now. It is also available to stream on Max.

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