Editor’s Note: The following story contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 2 of “The Last of Us.”
Pedro Pascal knew that Joel’s fate in “The Last of Us” Season 2, Episode 2, would be devastating for fans.
In keeping with the early events of Naughty Dog’s game “The Last of Us Part II” — one more time, spoilers are ahead — Joel is brutally killed in this week’s installment of the HBO series. He succumbs to his wounds after being beaten by Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), a former Firefly chasing Joel in Jackson, Wyoming, to avenge the murder of her father at the end of Season 1. Back in the Season 1 finale, Joel killed the unarmed surgeon in cold blood, as well as the Firefly soldiers swarming the hospital, while saving Ellie from a procedure that would’ve killed her, too — one meant to harness her immunity against the infection in order to find a cure.
On Sunday night’s episode, in a mountain lodge, near where Joel’s town is being ravaged by infected, Abby beats Joel with a golf club and then shoves a spike into his neck.
While “The Last of Us” was recently renewed for Season 3, it would seem that Pascal will no longer be a part of the franchise save for potential flashbacks — his body seen wrapped in a bag being dragged across the now-ravaged, snow-covered Wyoming expanse at the episode’s end by Ellie (Bella Ramsey), Dina (Isabela Merced), and Jesse (Young Mazino).
“It’s not like they said, ‘Hey, we kill you at the beginning of Season 2,’” Pascal told Entertainment Weekly in a Sunday night cover story about the latest episode. “But it was always an understanding that it would stay true to the source material in a specific way and that the, let’s say, practical and exclusive obligation would be for Season 1. It was just a matter of how and when.”
Pascal, meanwhile, added that he is “in active denial” about Joel’s exit. “I realize this more and more as I get older, I find myself slipping into denial that anything is over,” he said. “I know that I’m forever bonded to so many members of the experience and just have to see them under different circumstances, but never will under the circumstances of playing Joel on ‘The Last of Us.’ And, no, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it because it makes me sad.”
In HBO’s post-“Last of Us” after-show (via Variety), Ramsey said of the twist, “I knew that Joel was going to die, but reading it in the script, I was dreading getting to that bit… and I cried. I actually sobbed my little heart out. It’s the first time I’ve cried from reading a piece of writing.”
As for fans’ reactions, Pascal can relate to the frustration at witnessing a favorite character die onscreen.
“I have nothing but respect for the level of investment that people have in a video game or a TV show or movie or book,” Pascal said in the same post-show. “I experience that myself. I’ve flung books across the room because its impact is so profound on me… I think it is incredibly painful for people, and that’s obviously a brilliant achievement of the storytelling.”
The actor will be in a slew of other projects, though, for audiences to still enjoy post-“The Last of Us.” Pascal leads “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” and also stars in “Materialists,” both in theaters this summer.
