Last week’s episode of HBO’s The Last of Us delivered one of this year’s most shocking moments in television. Viewers who hadn’t played the game or learned about the twist of Joel’s fate were more than surprised when he was murdered as an act of revenge. The same scene happened in the game five years ago, so players had been on edge to see when the show would pull the trigger. Episode 3 allowed for something they couldn’t pull off in the game: Having Jackson give Joel a mourning period.
In the game, after Joel is killed, Ellie starts planning to track down the people who did this, continuing the circle of revenge. Here, though, with Episode 3, it showed the town mourning Joel, feeling his loss, and gave both Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) scenes to feel their grief.
“There’s this really beautiful scene where Tommy comes in, and he has to clean up his brother’s body,” Luna said during the Making Of featurette. “I thought about that scene quite a bit. You know, I call it the one-man wake. It was definitely a very long night shooting that scene.”
This is also the first time we see inside Joel’s house, so an entire set had to be built. The exterior had been previously used, but now we find it covered in flowers and memorials as Ellie does a solo walkthrough of the place, and the void left by Joel is felt.
“Ellie’s headspace at the beginning of Episode 3 is dark. It’s like the stages of grief, right? I think she’s so broken and numb, and then becomes incredibly angry,” Ramsey added. “Shooting the scenes in Joel’s house were sad, really sad. There were a couple of takes where I really cried into his jacket.”
There was an additional scene that showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann wanted to put in to change the game’s narrative in how Ellie decides to go off to hunt down Abby and the WLF.
“There’s a town hall meeting, which is something Neil and I thought would be an interesting addition to the way the plot unfolds in the game, to give everyone a chance to comment on how this ought to go. And there are two very particular points of view that are articulated here,” Druckmann explained. “One is to forgive and forget, and the other comes from a very unexpected person, Seth.” Seth was the bartender in Episode 1 who was bigoted towards Ellie and Dina but spoke up to support Ellie in going after the WLF during the meeting.
“The result of the council isn’t the highest stake ever because she knows,” Ramsey added. “She’s already decided that she’s going to go after whoever killed Joel.”
