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Episode 3 of Season 2 leans into that brutal truth, offering a quieter but no less devastating chapter. It focuses not on clickers or chaos, but on Ellie, stubbornly refusing to heal, refusing to bend to Jackson's safe haven, and instead following her broken heart right into another brewing storm. In a world where survival is often synonymous with selfishness, Ellie’s grief threatens to become her new guiding light — and it’s leading her somewhere dark.

The Good: A World That Refuses to Heal

This episode slows things down — and smartly so. After Joel’s death, the show doesn’t rush to the next big explosion. Instead, we walk through the wreckage.

Bella Ramsey continues her masterclass in devastation. Whether it’s Ellie silently wandering through Joel’s empty home or burying her tear-streaked face in his jacket (a heart-wrenching nod to Brokeback Mountain levels of emotional destruction), Ramsey sells the full weight of loss without needing to say a word.

Meanwhile, Gabriel Luna’s Tommy might just be the season’s secret MVP. His quiet, aching delivery of "give Sarah my love" is a gut-punch, showing a man who’s accepted this world’s cruelty even as Ellie tries to fight it.

The political drama inside Jackson adds a fascinating new wrinkle. Expanding what the games left off-screen, the town meeting shows that civilization — no matter how many apple orchards and barn dances it has — still carries the same tribalism and moral compromises. Democracy isn’t dead in Jackson; it’s just quietly rotting.

And then there's Dina. Isabela Merced brings a much-needed flicker of levity, layering her performance with a mix of flirtation and vulnerability. It’s the kind of chemistry that promises both warmth and inevitable heartbreak — a perfect fit for this brutal universe.

The Bad: Sometimes a Little Too On the Nose

Despite all its strengths, Episode 3 occasionally mistakes show for tell — and tell for sledgehammer.

Seth, the town drunk who once slung bigotry at Ellie and Dina, weirdly becomes the guy handing them steak sandwiches and opening the gate for their revenge quest. It’s ironic, sure, but also a bit forced. Similarly, Gail (played by the legendary Catherine O'Hara) delivers lines with a flashing neon sign that reads "Here is the theme of the episode!"

One of the reasons The Last of Us Part II worked so well was that it trusted players to wrestle with their own emotions. The show, so far, occasionally seems nervous you might not get it unless it spells things out for you. Abby’s motivations were teased out slowly in the game; here, they’re practically projected onto the Jackson movie theater screen.

The Ugly: A World Where Violence Breeds Violence

As Ellie and Dina leave Jackson’s relative safety, the show gifts us some truly breathtaking shots — wide, sweeping landscapes that would make John Ford reach for his camera.

But beneath the beauty lies horror. A young girl’s gleeful reception of a hammer, followed by her eventual brutal death alongside her father, paints a grim picture: no child is born a killer, but this world molds them into one. Ellie, projecting her hatred onto the faceless WLF, mirrors Abby’s own warped image of Joel. It’s a grim cycle — and no one is exempt.

By the final shot, the stakes are unmistakable. Ellie and Dina aren’t facing a few scattered enemies. They’re standing alone against an army — a heavily armed, brutally organized militia. As the camera rises over the shattered remains of Seattle, the message is clear: this is not a rescue mission. It’s a suicide march.

Verdict: A Quiet Storm Before the Next Collapse

Episode 3 isn’t as explosive as last week’s heart-shattering installment, but that’s precisely its strength. It gives the story — and the audience — room to breathe, grieve, and prepare for the darkness ahead.

The Last of Us thrives when it explores the blurred lines between heroism and villainy, selflessness and selfishness. And even when it stumbles a bit with heavy-handed storytelling, its emotional core remains intact.

If salvation ever was possible in this world, it’s clear now: Ellie no longer wants to be saved. She’s chosen her path — and it’s paved in blood.

By Episode 2, HBO has already pulled out the emotional flamethrower, burning our hopes, dreams, and most of Pedro Pascal’s face right to the ground. Joel — beloved smuggler, bad-decision machine, and unofficial king of tragic dad energy — is brutally killed by Abby, the daughter of the surgeon Joel casually murdered back in Season 1’s bloody finale. If karma had a loyalty program, Joel just redeemed about ten years' worth of points.

Abby’s Nightmare and a Disaster Waiting to Happen

We open on Abby caught in a nightmare: two versions of herself wandering the empty Firefly hospital — one armed and determined, the other pleading and breaking down faster than my Wi-Fi during a storm. She wakes up in a sleeping bag inside a ski lodge, staring out over Jackson, which looks less like a rustic getaway and more like a heavily militarized suburb of Aspen.

Abby, burning with vengeance but planning like she’s watched one YouTube tutorial on "How to Lead a Mission," convinces her skeptical friends they can find Joel without bloodshed. Owen, the resident beard-and-conscience combo, mutters to the others that he has no intention of letting this spiral. Translation: This is a terrible idea, but here we are.

Patrols, Breakups, and Apocalypse Weed

Meanwhile, back in Jackson, Jesse wakes Ellie for patrol. They bond over the universal constants of the apocalypse: awkward exes (hi, Dina), rotting mushroom corpses, and the quiet, mutual understanding that Joel is basically Ellie’s angry, brooding, emotionally stunted dad.

Tommy runs a town hall meeting about emergency protocols — because in Jackson, "emergency" is a lifestyle — while Jesse and Ellie detour to what can only be described as the world's chillest abandoned weed farm. Turns out, Eugene, a former Firefly and apparently Jackson’s answer to Snoop Dogg, had quite the operation. The apocalypse may have wiped out civilization, but somehow, it spared premium indica.

Joel's Worst Good Deed

Back on the ice-covered slopes of terrible decisions, Abby spots two riders and follows them... right into a frozen field full of infected lying in wait like horror-themed whack-a-moles. Abby’s desperate sprint for safety ends with Joel — in true weary hero fashion — saving her life without asking a single follow-up question.

Because when Joel is wrong, he’s wrong.

Dina and Joel, clueless that they’ve just rescued their future murderer, agree to ride with Abby to shelter. Meanwhile, Ellie catches a worrying radio message from Tommy and — trusting her gut instincts and absolutely ignoring every survival rule ever invented — bolts off into the storm.

Meanwhile, in "Worst-Case Scenario" Town

Jackson, of course, picks this exact moment to discover that its plumbing is basically cordyceps city. Fungal vines rupture a pipe, and within minutes, a massive horde of infected — picture a zombie-themed Black Friday sale — is storming the gates.

Tommy, the town’s unofficial apocalypse MVP, grabs a flamethrower (because of course Jackson has a flamethrower) and leads a desperate defense in the middle of a full-on blizzard. In the most chaotic snow day since the Donner Party, infected pour through the breaches, people are getting bitten, and the air is basically 70% fungal spores, 30% raw panic.

Somehow, Tommy manages to lure a bloater — basically a fungal linebacker on steroids — into an alley, where it collapses from exhaustion or poor cardio. Small miracles.

Betrayal with a Side of Golf Clubs

Back at the lodge, Joel realizes just a tad too late that Abby’s hospitality was about as genuine as a scam call about your car's extended warranty. The trap springs: guns are drawn, Dina is drugged, and Joel’s fate is sealed.

Abby, through gritted teeth and barely restrained sobs, reminds Joel exactly why she's here: he murdered her father, an unarmed surgeon, with the kind of casual detachment most of us reserve for deleting spam emails.

Joel, being Joel, meets his end with the same stubbornness that got him into this mess: "Shut the f—k up and do it already." Peak Joel. No regrets. Also, apparently, no survival instincts.

What follows is less a murder and more a demolition, with Abby using a golf club in a way that would make the PGA file an immediate lawsuit. Her friends — and honestly, the audience — watch in horror as Joel is beaten into something barely resembling a human being.

The Final Goodbye

Ellie arrives just in time to see the aftermath. Bella Ramsey delivers a gut-wrenching performance, screaming Joel’s name with the rawness of someone realizing there’s no time left to fix anything. Joel tries — God, he tries — to reach out. But he can’t.

Abby, still riding the dark side of grief, finishes the job in one final, sickening blow.

Aftermath and Ashes

Jackson, battered but standing, reels from the fungal attack. Ellie, Jesse, and Dina transport Joel’s body back to town, "Through the Valley" playing like a funeral procession for the moral center of the show.

Nothing will ever be the same. Not for Ellie. Not for Jackson. And certainly not for any viewers who thought this season would be a casual Sunday night binge.

If Season 1 of The Last of Us taught us anything, it’s that the world ended not with a bang, but with a mushroom. And in between fungal jump scares and cult leaders who think human flesh pairs nicely with a sermon, the show established itself as a masterclass in emotional ruin. Season 2? Oh, it’s not here to play nice. It’s here to shatter.

Titled “Future Days,” the Season 2 premiere doesn’t so much return as it rears back and lunges. We open not with Joel or Ellie, but with Abby — played by Kaitlyn Dever, who brings the kind of quiet fury that could curdle milk. Abby, as it turns out, has good reason to be mad. Joel, our rugged dad of the apocalypse, once made the kind of morally complex decision you only see in therapy flashbacks — namely, murdering her father to save Ellie’s life and torching the last chance at a vaccine along the way. You know… casual hero stuff.

So now, Abby’s not just angry — she’s calculated. She delivers one of the most spine-splintering lines in the series so far with a single word: “Slowly.” That’s how she wants Joel to die. Not ideal, considering he’s currently spending his golden years in the humble Wyoming commune of Jackson with Ellie, doing dad things like bonding awkwardly and avoiding conversations about trauma.

The episode fast-forwards five years after that grim opener, and while Jackson has grown, so have the cracks in Joel and Ellie’s relationship. There’s tension. There’s guilt. There are lingering, unspoken truths. And right on cue, there’s Abby — circling the gates like vengeance in hiking boots.

Casting Dever as Abby was no random dice roll. Years ago, she almost played Ellie in a film adaptation. Now she’s stepping into a role with more weight than a clicker-filled elevator shaft. And she crushes it. There’s grief under her rage, complexity under her coldness. She’s not just the villain — she’s the mirror. Dever’s performance carries that same steely soul she brought to Justified's Loretta McCready, another daddy-trauma-fueled role that reminds us: you do not want to be responsible for killing Kaitlyn Dever’s fictional dad. It never ends well.

Backing her up is a tight cast of new faces, including Isabela Merced as Dina (Ellie’s future heartbreak, er, love interest), and Young Mazino as Jesse, Jackson’s resident ride-or-die. And the showrunners? Still cooking with confidence. Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin are clearly allergic to weak sauce, casting with precision and writing with scalpel-like sharpness.

But the real magic — or rather, horror — of this premiere is how it repositions the narrative. Abby isn’t introduced as a monster. She’s introduced as us, if we’d lost what she lost. The apocalypse doesn’t breed villains. It breeds people with shattered hearts and too many weapons.

So yes, Abby is dangerous. Yes, she’s divisive. And yes, she will almost certainly commit some unspeakable acts that fracture the fandom all over again. But she’s not just a scream queen — she’s the scream you let out when grief has nowhere else to go.

In short: welcome to Season 2. Hope you brought tissues… and armor.

New episodes of The Last of Us drop Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO and Max. Bring emotional support snacks.