The Last Of Us Season 2 Premiere Recap: Joel Is Hunted (And Haunted) Five Years After The Hospital Attack — Plus, Grade It!
Ready for some fun, guys? (And some more bad mushroom puns?)
The Last of Us is back for Season 2, which gets underway with a lay-of-the-land episode that serves mainly to get a lot of the five-year time jump exposition out of the way. Who are the new faces? What's life in Jackson like after all this time? And most importantly: How are Joel and Ellie half a decade after he saved her life by taking so many others'... and lied about it?
Find out as I recap the highlights of the Season 2 premiere, then make sure to check out my post-episode chat with executive producers Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann and co-executive producer Halley Gross here.
SALT LAKE CITY AFTERMATH | The hour opens on Joel and Ellie, exactly where we left them: She makes him swear that everything he told her about the Fireflies at the hospital in Salt Lake City is true, and he lies to her and says it is. "OK," she says, and after a heavy moment, they continue on their way.
Next, we're with a group of teens standing by some Firefly graves. They're talking about the assault on the hospital; it seems like they're the only Fireflies left at their location. They talk about heading toward Seattle, where someone named Isaac will take them in. "Not until we find Joel," says one of the women, Abby (played by Dopesick's Kaitlyn Dever), who's standing a bit apart from the others. It's been three days since Joel took Ellie from the hospital, and Abby is angry and sad and ready for retribution. It's implied she lost someone in the attack, but we don't know who. One of the guys, Owen, points out that they don't know how or where to find Joel and they don't have many resources. But when they do, he promises, they'll help her find and kill him. "Slowly," she adds, tears in her eyes. "When we kill him, we kill him slowly."
BACK IN JACKSON | Five years later, it seems like Ellie is fighting for her life in a barn against a guy much bigger than she is. Turns out, they're just training, and even though he's winning, she's certainly developed some skills. She eventually gets his arm behind him and twists so hard he taps out. The practice is run by Jesse (BEEF's Young Mazino); when he mentions that he had her opponent pull his punches because he didn't want her to get knocked out and make Joel angry, she bristles. They talk about how they'll all be at a community event that night — though she very much doesn't want to — and then she steps out into the bustling Jackson, Wyo.
The place has expanded in footprint and population since the last time we saw it, and now Joel — older, greyer, dad-er — is the foreman of a work crew. He's tinkering with some breakers inside when he looks up and says, "Hey kiddo." As much as we all want it to be Ellie, it's not: Instead, it's Dina (100 Things to Do Before High School's Isabela Merced), a young and plucky member of his crew who charms him by asking him to show her what he's working on. She also happens to be Ellie's best friend. They talk about how Ellie is mad at him; he chalks it up to normal dad/adolescent daughter static. "I can't hold myself responsible for another person's emotional state," he finishes, which gives Dina license to tease him about being in therapy.
Meanwhile, Ellie and Tommy are practicing shooting on a snowy ridge, which is going well until Tommy tells her that he's taking her off patrol and making her work the fence because Joel is worried that she's getting a little reckless when she's out and about. She reasons that there's no need to be so worried about her getting bit, because she's immune — he quickly hushes her, saying, "You know we don't talk about that." Still, she strongarms him into going against Joel's advice, and he allows her to join that evening's patrol as long as she listens to her captain's commands.
'YOU WERE A REFUGEE, TOO' | Joel and Maria are discussing city planning — long story short, they can't build quick enough to keep up with the population influx — and he grumbles that the town's council should stop letting everyone in. "You've gotta look after your own first, or you're no good to anyone," he says. His grousing is interrupted by some very cute uncle moments with Maria and Tommy's son, Benji, then Joel takes off just as Tommy gets back. "Joel," Maria says firmly but not meanly as he goes, "you were a refugee, too."
Joel had to go, we learn, because he has an appointment with Gail, his psychotherapist. He pays her in marijuana, and they briefly discuss how it's Gail's first birthday in 41 years without her husband, Eugene. Then the session begins and, as you might've guessed, it's all about Ellie.
The teen is living in the garage at Joel's and she barely talks to him, which bothers him immensely. "See, Dina understands me, like she's my kid or something. But she's not," he says. "Neither is Ellie," Gail points out. Then — and here's where it becomes clear that Gail's a little drunk — she starts to berate Joel for being stuck in his problem with Ellie and lying in therapy. "You are definitely leaving something out," she says. She goes on to say that there's something she wants to say, but it scares her to do so. Still, "You can't heal something unless you're brave enough to say it out loud," so she gathers her courage and confesses that she hates Joel because he shot and killed her husband. "And yes, I know you had no choice... I know I should forgive you," she adds. But she says she can't, "because of how you did it." While they're on the topic of truth-telling and its transformative powers? "Say the thing you're afraid to say," she urges him, and "I promise I will help."
He's got tears in his eyes, and he's literally vibrating with the words that are trapped in his throat. "What did you do?" Gail prods. "I saved her," is all he says as he stands and leaves.
ELLIE'S GOT A CRUSH | Ellie is cleaning her gun and listening to music when there's a knock on her door: It's Dina, who's come to pick her up for their shared patrol. They're definitely friends, but there seems to be something more on Ellie's part; she's super nervous as Dina comes in close and helps her adjust her holster.
The girls join three other riders on a recon ride, where Ellie and Dina hang back and chat about the New Year's Eve dance that night. We learn that Ellie is a lesbian, Dina and Jesse recently broke up (again), and Ellie has a crush on someone she won't name. The conversation is interrupted by the group coming across some blood in the snow.
It looks like some infected took down a bear (!) and are hiding out in an old grocery store. Dina and Ellie volunteer to go inside, and they have a very funny pantomime about how they're going to proceed, then Ellie takes down an infected. Easy peasy, right? Except she then falls through the rotting floor, and while she's waiting for Dina to find a way down to help her out, Ellie encounters a female infected that seems to have the ability to fight strategically instead of just by brute force/gnashing teeth. And though Ellie eventually dispatches her, the infected takes a bite of Ellie's belly first. Ellie hides the nip from Dina, and then they report what they've seen to the council before Ellie heads home for a little standing self-surgery (she cuts the bite off her abdomen — yep, still a badass) before the big dance.
DRAMA AT THE DANCE | If you hadn't guessed, Ellie's crush is on Dina. C'mon guys, she made a bad pun while they were on patrol — that's Ellie's love language! Joel swings by the garage to awkwardly ask if Ellie is going to the dance; he does that dad thing where he looks for problems to solve to show his love, and finds one in her guitar, which he says he'll restring and get back to her the next day.
Dina is wheeling around on the dance floor, high and happy, when Ellie gets there. She brings Ellie onto the floor just as a slow song is starting up, and though their interaction starts off jokey, pretty soon Dina is pulling Ellie closer to her. Ellie says that the guys in the room are staring at Dina, and Ellie says she's no threat. "Oh Ellie," Dina breathes, "I think they should be terrified of you." And then the ladies kiss for the first time.
"Hey," some gruff voice behind them says, and I see it's Olivia Benson's nemesis-turned-implausible-love-interest Tucker. JK, the character's name is Seth, and I'm sure the actor (Robert John Burke) is a lovely guy, but how in two seconds' time do I already want to punch his character more than I did the one he played when he was on SVU? He's mad the girls are kissing, and he hurls a gay slur at them.
Ellie rounds on him, ready for a fight, but she barely takes a step before Joel enters from the left and shoves Seth to the ground. As Maria hustles Seth out of the party, Joel turns to Ellie to see if she's OK. She's not, but not in the way he thinks. "What is wrong with you?" she yells, so angry. "I don't need your f—king help." It hurts him, but he just says, "right," and leaves.
When she comes home that night, he's sitting on the porch, guitar in hand. She says nothing and goes inside. Meanwhile, in some of the pipes running under the town, new tendrils of cordyceps raise their ugly little spindles. And outside the city's walls, Abby and her friends approach under cover of night.
Now it's your turn. What did you think of the episode? Grade it via the poll below, then hit the comments with your thoughts!