SPOILER WARNING: There are massive spoilers for The Last of Us Part II in this article. If you haven’t played the first two – three hours of the game and seen the inciting incident, come back to this article later.
The Last of Us Part II has been incredibly divisive. While there’s a lot of stuff later in the game that’s super subjective, the game’s opening is what has caused the most amount of controversy.
After a little while, a blizzard hits while Joel and Tommy are out on a patrol. They find a woman named Abby and save her from a horde, to repay them, she takes them to her camp.
Once they return, Abby and her crew kill Joel in an act of revenge for reasons revealed much later. The death is brutal, it’s not a hero’s death, and it’s truly upsetting. In Kinda Funny’s new spoilercast for the game, host Greg Miller had on Troy Baker (Joel), Ashley Johnson (Ellie), and series creator Neil Druckmann. For about half an hour, the group talked about the big opening including what it meant to them, addressing the outrage, and more.
One of the criticisms this scene has faced is that Joel wouldn’t give his name to this group or give them details. Besides the fact he already appears reluctant to give any information and Tommy is the one that offers all of that up, Druckmann and Baker give more reason to it all.
Druckmann notes that there are people who believe they know the characters better than them but this is a Joel has changed. In The Last of Us Part II, it’s 4 years later and he lives in a community that is built on trust. There are people constantly coming and going to trade or gather supplies, it’s a community that helps people and there are clues all over to support this. He goes into further detail about this specific encounter, though.
“It’s not an ambush. They’re not walking into an ambush. Troy and I had a lot of conversations about how they size them up. They don’t want to stay there, they want to lead them back to Jackson because Jackson is safe. What Joel is doing is sizing everyone up except for Abby because this girl that he just saved that’s the same age as Ellie is safe. That wouldn’t be the threat, that’s what catches him off guard. It’s also the fact these guys aren’t hunters. Joel is looking for hunters, these are regular people just like the people who live in Jackson.”
Druckmann also noted this is a world where no one gets a death based on who they are. No heroes, no villains. This world of The Last of Us Part II gives everyone cruel deaths.
Baker jumped in to give his thoughts on this criticism as well.
Troy Baker said that of the two times he and Druckmann have argued across the three games they’ve worked on, this was one of them. He noted that the reason the scene was done because he believed Druckmann was right and agreed with where it went.
“It was not haphazard, it was carefully, lovingly curated. There’s a specific moment in that scene, the thought that Joel has: This is what happens when you drop your guard. I allowed myself to trust, I allowed myself to love, I allowed myself to feel, I allowed myself to be safe, and this is what you get. It’s a moment of regret. Even inside that moment, he thinks I’d do it all over again because I got the girl.”
Baker notes maybe his performance doesn’t represent that as much as he thought and that’s his fault but the moment is there.
Ashley Johnson noted that it was her least favorite day of shooting, seemingly because of how hard and intense it was. That said, no one is more protective of those characters than the three of them. Both Ashley and Troy gave a very emotional background to the process of making this scene, shedding some tears in the process.
I highly recommend listening to the whole podcast, especially the first half an hour for context on that whole scene. Druckmann also discussed what it was like to see the scene leak months ago.
The Last of Us Part II is out now on PS4, you can click here to read our review of the game where we gave it an 8.5/10.
