(SPOILER ALERT) Just two episodes into season 2, The Last of Us shocked fans with a major character death on Sunday.
Much like in the video game on which the show is based, Pedro Pascal’s Joel meets his brutal end at the hands of Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby, who’s hell-bent on revenge after Joel killed her father in the hospital rampage that ended season 1. Bella Ramsey’s Ellie, Joel’s surrogate daughter, witnesses the whole tragic scene.
In a new cover story with Entertainment Weekly, Pascal says shooting the death scene was “dreamlike” and he’s in “active denial” that his character is really dead.
“I realize this more and more as I get older, I find myself slipping into denial that anything is over,” he tells the mag. “I know that I’m forever bonded to so many members of the experience and just have to see them under different circumstances, but never will under the circumstances of playing Joel on The Last of Us. And, no, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it because it makes me sad.”
But before fans get too sad, Pascal’s Joel will still appear this season in flashbacks — some of those scenes were teased in the season 2 trailer. “We’ve shown that we screw around with time,” showrunner Craig Mazin tells EW. “So characters are gone but not forgotten, and sometimes they are remembered in interesting ways.”
The Last of Us airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.
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