‘The Last of Us’ season 2 review: Revenge and grief can destroy us (even in the apocalypse)
5/5 bad coping mechanisms
The show that made us all afraid to eat mushrooms is back, and The Last of Us season 2 is a stark reminder that what doesn’t kill you can make your heart shatter into a million pieces that are impossible to pick back up.
The Last of Us season 2 jumps forward in time five years, much like the beloved game, and starts with Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) and Joel’s (Pedro Pascal) life in Jackson Hole. As was the case with season 1, we’re reminded that grief can be all-consuming, manipulating you into making decisions that may not be in your best interest. That certainly has been Joel Miller’s entire deal since Sarah (Nico Parker) died in his arms.
As the musical Les Misérables once said, “There’s a grief that can’t be spoken, there’s a pain that goes on and on.” That feeling of loss and misery, the inability to move on from it, has been a driving force of this story. One of the reasons many gamers, both experienced and inexperienced, flocked to the game, was due to the storyline, not the actual gameplay.
Season 2 has a little more freedom with its narrative than season 1 did. It isn’t as faithful to the source material, which allows its characters to make their own mistakes and choices. I think that makes this a stronger season, especially with the introduction of its new characters.
What makes TLOU season 2 different from its predecessor is that even though we are still exploring themes of loss and the pain that causes, the show adds another layer to the grieving process: Revenge.
The embodiment of what “revenge” looks like
Abby Anderson (Kaitlyn Dever) is the daughter of a Firefly, looking for revenge after what Joel Miller did at the hospital in Salt Lake. While her anger and drive can be interpreted as cold, I felt like I understood Abby. When you lose someone you love abruptly, especially at the hands of another, it will inevitably stay with you and darken the parts of your soul where compassion used to lie.
Dever brings an edge to Abby that works perfectly for the show. In the game, Abby is an imposing figure, especially physically; one look at her and you wonder how Ellie would ever be able to go head-to-head with her (our Ellie wouldn’t stand a chance). In the show, however, the two are more evenly matched, both driven by their anger at the world around them.
People will judge Abby and her actions but I’d like to pose one question: What would you do as a young woman who lost everything in the apocalypse? It is a rule-free world and without the tethers of the justice system to hold you back, who is to say you wouldn’t also let revenge consume you completely? That’s why I think I watched this entire season and gave Abby a lot of grace. She lost her father. I understand that pain and I can see why she’d allow it to change her and erase her humanity.
I did not feel that way in the game. I saw Abby as a villain and someone who I wanted Ellie to take on and defeat. In the show, I understand her a bit more, and that is entirely down to Dever’s performance.
Love can help heal
This season brought Dina (Isabela Merced) into Ellie’s life. Fans of the game have already met Dina. She’s Ellie’s first real girlfriend in the game and the show does a great job of telling their love story in that apocalypse-inspired kind of way. Everything is heightened because you are forced to live each day as if it were your last.
Dina is lively, smart, and creative, and she brings out a softness in Ellie that we haven’t yet had the chance to see. In season 1, Ellie was constantly defensive with Joel, and rightfully so. He didn’t want to take her across the country and she never had someone looking out for her. But in season 2, Ellie is more grounded in her family and with her loved ones and we get to see her as a young adult just trying to navigate love and her relationship with her surrogate father.
Dina understands Ellie and Joel, and, in those first few episodes, is a smiling happy light among the darkness of the clickers. Merced and Ramsey do a beautiful job of allowing these two characters to trust each other and love one another in that accelerated apocalypse kind of way.
Mistakes have a way of coming back
Joel Miller is a man filled with regret. His daughter died in his arms, he spent years shut away from others and it turned him into a cold shell. Then Ellie came into his life and dad Joel Miller was back in full force. What we see in season 2 is a man who is trying but his past mistakes keep eating away at him and whatever work he’s putting into himself.
You know how some people say that a man would rather fight a zombie than go to therapy? That doesn’t apply to Joel. Gail (Catherine O’Hara) is Jackson Hole’s resident therapist and we see Joel working on himself and his relationship with Ellie. He’s not a fully changed man. Joel is still quick to anger, doesn’t listen when people try to tell him things, and constantly thinks that he knows what is right for Ellie. But he’s trying.
Pascal’s performance as Joel continues to mesmerize me. Both Pascal and Gabriel Luna, who plays Joel’s brother, Tommy, are from Texas, and they use their shared background to connect these two brothers and bring them together. Getting to watch Joel a bit more settled in his life, turning to music and craftsman work, felt oddly comforting, like watching my father in his 60s find something to enjoy and relax with.
He’s not perfect, but I like that Joel isn’t trying to be. The point is that he’s just a man trying his best and I love that about him. But if season 1 was about Joel’s grief and coming to terms with losing Sarah, season 2 is fully about Ellie.
This is Ellie’s story
Ramsey is an incredible actor. We already knew this about them from their work on Game of Thrones and in season 1 of The Last of Us. But watching their journey with Ellie this time around firmly placed Ramsey as one of our best young actors. The work they’re doing this season is unlike anything I’ve seen and it all comes down to the subtle moments.
Ellie is brash and funny, but she’s also someone who isn’t afraid to show her anger. That is what makes her relationship with Joel so fascinating. He’s quick to anger, too, and he’ll yell, but she’ll yell right back at him. At one point this season, Ellie does something behind his back (as teenagers do) and she starts screaming at him. Joel screams back at her, and two seconds later they’re both calming themselves down and talking about how cool what she did is.
As someone with a complicated relationship with my dad, I always found comfort in this kind of dynamic. Fathers do not always have to be overly protective—even though Joel is. They can allow their kids to grow and fend for themselves and Joel eventually learns to do so with Ellie. What I loved about The Last of Us season 2 is that Ellie is the one allowing her determination to lead her, which means she makes a lot of mistakes.
Joel Miller was trying to prevent both his girls from repeating his mistakes. There are moments in this season when Ellie sees what she’s done and it’s clear that she recognizes what Joel was trying to protect her from. It’s beautiful and heartbreaking, and perfectly encapsulates why this season works as well as it does.
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The Last of Us season 2 is, in my opinion, better than the first, because it allows itself to be different from the game and lets these characters take us somewhere new. Just make sure you’re prepared for the emotional rollercoaster that awaits you.
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