3 weeks Ago By Ayaan Ali
SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 2 of The Last of Us. Fans of The Last of Us season two have been reacting to the intense second episode , as many were left ‘heartbroken.’ The second season of the hugely popular post-apocalyptic drama returned on April 13, 2025, premiering on HBO with a second episode airing on April 20.
In the gut-wrenching episode titled Through the Valley, Joel ( Pedro Pascal ) meets a violent and unforgiving end at the hands of Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), a new character introduced in the season’s first episode. Consumed by vengeance, Abby’s brutal act of revenge comes after Joel killed her father, a doctor who was going to operate on Ellie to create a cure for the Cordyceps infection. The moment is based on a major scene from The Last of Us Part II video game .
Fans who played the game knew it was coming, but it still proved devastating to watch for many. In a brutal scene, Abby savagely takes Joel’s life with a golf club, as Ellie is forced to watch. The season stars Pedro Pascal as Joel Miller, Bella Ramsey as Ellie, Gabriel Luna as Tommy, Joel's younger brother, Isabela Merced as Dina, Young Mazino as Jesse and Kaitlyn Dever as Abby.
After the episode aired, many fans took to X to share their reaction. Viewers were quick to say they were heartbroken and upset to see Joel die. One person said, “there aren’t words strong enough to capture the immense pain i’m going through right now #TheLastOfUs2.
” Another wrote, “Genuinely was distraught, entire body was shaking, throughout this entire episode.” A third person added, “okay that wasn’t just an episode, that was an EXPERIENCE. I swear I stopped breathing at times, this episode was THAT f------ intense.
” Another added, “Even after playing the game, that scene still broke me. The pain hits just as hard. I’m drowning in tears.
” A fifth fan of the show chimed in, “The Last of Us has truly delivered an ALL TIMER episode that will go down in TV history.” It comes amid a recent interview in which Pedro Pascal opened up about the emotional weight of saying goodbye to his character. Despite knowing Joel’s fate from the very beginning, the actor, 50, admitted that facing it head-on was more difficult than he expected.
"I was always sidestepping how I really felt, that in a big way my experience was coming to an end on the show," Pascal told Entertainment Weekly. "I guess that was the strangest thing to step through because I felt so bonded to everyone in the show after going through the gauntlet of season 1 together, not just with Bella, but with the entire cast and crew. He added, “So to have this goodbye was very sad for me, and I had such a physical manifestation, a violent mirror of how sad it was for Joel to die.
To be honest, it was quite dreamlike." The Last of Us continues on Sunday, April 27, 2025. Click here to follow the Mirror US on Google News to stay up to date with all the latest news, sport and entertainment stories.
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