When The Last of Us decided to change the way Abby was introduced to us, it was an easy choice really. It would’ve been practically impossible to keep the mystery of Abby’s purpose under wraps had they chosen to keep us in the dark for longer. But that’s not the entirety of the reasoning that went behind that decision. The irreparable trauma that would push Ellie to become who she’s meant to be needed to be pushed up the schedule. Otherwise, there simply wouldn’t be enough time for us to truly buy the changes that would rob Ellie of the last scraps of her innocence.
Spoiler Alert
The righteous path isn’t always the right one
There were a lot of things that Abby and her group didn’t expect when they came to Jackson. They don’t have nearly enough supplies to survive the freezing cold mountains. And since they wildly underestimated how fortified Joel’s community would be, they didn’t quite prepare to face these odds. Abby is lucky that her friends have stuck around for this long considering they don’t even believe in her mission. I think there’s an unspoken understanding between the rest of the group about only going so far to support Abby. They don’t want to hurt people, and they definitely don’t want to lose their lives in a mission that’s solely fueled by Abby’s untamable rage. So even though they’re mostly playing along, Owen has a plan to get Abby to come to her senses. Knowing they can’t possibly ambush the community without getting killed, they’ve decided to keep an eye on them from afar. But to what end? That’s not a question Abby wants to think about. So to make her do the right thing and retreat, Owen asks her to do the first patrol. He figures that standing outside unprotected against the piercing cold weather would weaken Abby’s resolve. And he’s not wrong either. Abby does seem to be close to giving up on her plan when the cold gets too hard to bear. But the kind of trouble she’s in is only compounded by the fall she takes. What she thinks is a pile of dead zombies in the ice is cover for things far worse. If the smart zombie that Ellie ran into in the first episode wasn’t unsettling enough, now there’s even more signs that the undead are evolving. Just a while back, we heard Tommy talk about this group of zombies that a patrol team had had a rough brush with. They’d taken cover under the dead to keep the cold from getting to them. And from the looks of it, Abby’s fallen into a similar situation. In a refreshingly terrifying chase scene, which is a wildly rare occurrence in the genre, we see Abby survive the horde until one of them grabs her. It has to be fate’s sick joke that the person who saves her is Joel. When she ran, Abby ended up near the copper mine. Joel and Dina were out patrolling that area. It’s in Joel’s nature to save people. So it really works out in Abby’s favor. Not only was her life just saved, but she also found the man she’s been after, just when she was about to leave too. Who knows if Joel would’ve saved Abby had he known what she plans to do to him. He was only doing the right thing when he saved a helpless girl from a zombie. But knowing how much it’s going to cost him, it’s safe to say that doing the right thing was the wrong way to go in this situation.
The battle in the community
Tommy hoped that he was being paranoid when he’d gathered the people of his community and made them brush up on the do’s and don’ts of a crisis. They have systems in place to handle the challenges of the world they live in. But every now and then, it’s not a bad idea to go over the protocol. It’s not necessarily a routine reminder this time around. The council is understandably spooked by the tale of the stalker and the patrol team’s experience with the zombies that learned to hide under the dead. But this is a community of people who’ve taught themselves the ways of staying ahead of anything that can come at them. And a big part of that preparation is learning how to stay calm before it’s time to take action. So it makes sense that they’re doing okay as of now. But the bad thing is, one of the reasons they’re okay is the sense of security they feel at the place. They’re protected by people who’d put their lives on the line in the blink of an eye. So they can afford some amount of peace in the unpredictable world they live in. But even the best kind of precaution couldn’t really keep them safe in the situation they find themselves in. Joel and Dina had already left for patrol. And after Jesse and Ellie went out on their horses, the community depended entirely on Tommy and Maria. If it wasn’t hard enough with the ever-evolving zombies, a snow storm has wrapped itself around Jackson at the worst possible time. Tommy can’t reach Joel on the radio. And the incident with Abby has directed the horde to the community. Tommy and his people could have handled a couple dozen undead. But this is an army of thousands of undead who can’t be held back by the bullets and the fire. What makes matters even worse is the emergence of the bloater. Once they breach, the people show just how much they care for the community. It’s not every man for himself. Alongside Tommy and Maria, the people of the Jackson community seem ready to protect their sanctuary with their lives. It does get pretty unnerving when the bloater corners Tommy right before his flamethrower runs out of fuel. But thankfully, Tommy managed to scorch him just enough for him to drop. They’ll be reeling from this wreckage for quite a while. They were already going through a pretty difficult time managing the whole place. The pain of losing their peers will only pile on. They’re gonna have to start a lot of things from scratch after this unthinkable devastation. And let’s not forget that Cordyceps have found their way into their home.
How Did Joel Die?
We have yet to know what exactly has been going on between Joel and Ellie. But it’s gotten to the point where everyone knows that they’re fighting. It’s all that anyone can think about when they mention Joel to Ellie. So it makes sense that Ellie’s getting kind of tired of that. With that frustration on her mind, Ellie went out on patrol duty with Jesse. Lucky for Ellie, Jesse’s kinda happy about the spark between her and Dina even though she’s just broken up with him. He doesn’t wanna give her a hard time. So Ellie’s off the hook. Ellie and Jesse didn’t expect the storm to get that bad when they headed out. But that’s kind of the running theme of The Last of Us episode 2. No one expects things to get as bad as they do. Luckily, Jesse knew a spot they could crash when the storm got bad. Judging by all the pot plants in this 7-Eleven, this is where Joel scores the payment for his therapist. But before Joel made it his own, the place and the plants had belonged to Eugene, Gail’s late husband. When Ellie found a Firefly charm with Eugene’s name engraved on it, Jesse told her that Eugene used to be a Firefly before he got sick of killing people. But the awkwardness between Joel and anything and anyone related to Fireflies probably didn’t have anything to do with Eugene’s death. Since “putting down” is mentioned, it sounds like Eugene was bitten, and Joel had to take care of him.
Ellie’s qualms with Joel haven’t made her worry about him any less. When she heard that the council couldn’t track down Joel, she headed out to look for him without a second thought. Jesse knew better than to try and hold her back. So he did the best thing he possibly could and joined her. What Ellie didn’t know is that Joel’d been making the wrong decisions time and again. He’s been too trusting of Abby, and maybe even too sure of his capabilities to find the idea of meeting a group of strangers in the middle of a snowstorm scary. Even when he sees the mayhem at the sanctuary from a distance, he chooses to take Abby to her friends because she promised him their ammo. It’s not Joel’s fault really. He must’ve thought that he’d be useless going back unprepared. Outside of the show’s world, Joel’s fate has been known to us all along. Even non-gamers have heard of that brutal death. But even then, even though you know that the show can’t really take a different route when it comes to Joel, you can’t help but hope that Abby would have a change of heart. But Joel having saved her has done nothing to change her mind about what she wants to put him through. There was a point in time where everything changed for Abby.
In the second episode of The Last of Us season 2, we’ve seen Abby revisit that moment in her mind and try to stop herself from seeing something she shouldn’t have. After Joel’s rampage, Abby walked into the room and saw her father’s brains scattered all over the floor. And from that moment, torturing Joel has been the only thought that’s kept her going. So however much her group might hope for her to stop when she gets Mel to drug Dina and brutalizes Joel, she’ll see this through. Since Joel lets Abby talk and doesn’t tell her anything about why he did what he did, we’re always gonna wonder what she would’ve done if she knew. Would it have changed her mind if she knew that Joel was just a dad trying to save his kid? Even now, Joel practically sacrifices himself for Ellie’s sake by keeping the truth to himself. He could’ve tried to plead for his life. But telling them that Ellie’s immune would have put her in danger. Joel couldn’t do that.
In episode 2’s ending, when Ellie finds Joel’s horse and follows it to him, she’s in for a world of pain. It’s already terrible for her considering the state she finds Joel in. Abby meant it when she said that she wanted Joel to die a terrible death. But for Ellie to helplessly watch as Abby kills Joel, that’s the worst kind of trauma that she could possibly go through. Her worst fear has come true. She’s lost the last person she could call family. It’s going to hurt her even worse knowing that his last memory with her was unpleasant. The cycle of pain has just passed down the baton from Abby to Ellie. One grieving daughter creates another.
