Spoilers below.
The cast of The Last of Us has a lot to process.
Last night, HBO aired season two, episode two of the hit zombie drama series, and it was a doozy. By the end of the episode, titled 'Through the Valley,' Joel (Pedro Pascal) is dead. The survivor compound of Jackson, Wyoming, is ravaged. Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) is vindicated but no less haunted. And Ellie (Bella Ramsey), like all of us, is in shock.
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Within hours of the episode’s release, cast members shared their reactions both on their social media accounts as well as in official interviews. Both Pascal and Dever shared a selfie of themselves in costume on set, snapped whilst filming the storm scenes in episode two. 'Blizzard Buddies,' Pascal captioned his post, going on to call Dever 'a little miracle.' In her matching post, Dever wrote, 'My best snow buddy buddy buddy.' (Appropriately, comments flooded in displaying a mix of adoration and dismay, such as one that read, 'I JUST finished the episode Pedro, how dare you 😭😭😭')
In a behind-the-scenes 'Inside the Episode' featurette that debuted on HBO after episode two, show co-creator Craig Mazin described how Joel’s death was 'as hard for us to write and to shoot as I think it was, probably, for a lot of people to watch.'
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Ramsey agreed, telling viewers that — though they knew from season one that Joel would eventually die — they wept reading the death scene in the script. 'I cried,' Ramsey said. 'Actually sobbed my little heart out. It’s the first time I’ve ever cried from reading a piece of writing.'
Both Pascal and Dever shared that, despite the horror exchanged between their characters, they were surprised by how much the scene brought them together as actors. 'Meeting Kaitlyn was amazing,' Pascal said. 'And it’s very ironic that something so violent and tragic between its characters can immediately bond you to the actor.'
Added Dever, 'Getting to do that opposite Pedro was just an actor’s dream. I felt really taken care of working with him, because it is so heavy; it’s so loaded.'
As Pascal told Entertainment Weekly in an interview, he’s still 'in active denial' about Joel’s death and the end of his time on The Last of Us. 'I’ve never experienced anything like I did that day where I stepped onto set in full makeup and then killed the vibe completely as soon as anyone set their eyes on me,' he said. 'This kind of shock and heartbreak…it was weird to be on the receiving end of that. It’s like the extreme version of, "Is there something on my face?" I really could see this sort of grief take over everyone’s look in their eyes.'
Dever, too, shared that it was 'heartbreaking' to watch the scene as a viewer, not merely as the actor portraying Joel’s killer. 'I watched you guys in season one, and your relationship was so beautiful,' she told Ramsey and Pascal during a group interview for EW. 'And watching the end of you guys was really, really hard for me, as a viewer.'
Mazin and his co-creator Neil Druckmann, who also worked on the PlayStation games from which The Last of Us adapted, shared that they, too, are mourning the loss of Joel. 'Even as writers, we want Joel to get up,' Druckmann told Variety in an interview released after episode two aired. 'We love this character.'
Added Mazin, 'I’m crying in [this] interview. It’s fucking horrible. Listen, I’m suffering like everybody.'
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