‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 Episode 2 Recap: “End It”

Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 2.

The second episode of The Last of Us Season 2, “Through the Valley,” is a big one, one that completely alters what this story is to its very core. While this episode brings to life one of the most shocking moments ever in a video game, writer Craig Mazin and director Mark Mylod find a way to somehow make this moment even more unbearable and life-altering, which is truly saying something. It’s a powerful episode that is handled as well as one could imagine, so let’s dive right into this emotional hour of television.

Abby and the Fireflies Arrive in Jackson

“Through the Valley” begins with Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) walking down a dark hallway of the Salt Lake City hospital, armed and scared, as alarms blare. Another version of herself makes mention of someone being dead, to which the first Abby says, “I don’t know you.” The second Abby tells the first not to go into the room at the end of the hallway. When the first Abby refuses, the second says that “his brains are on the floor,” but the first continues. As the first goes into the room, and we can hear her crying, the second also bursts into tears. The alarm blares almost too loudly until we realize this is all a dream Abby is having.

She wakes up with her crew in a ski lodge outside of Jackson. As the team starts to rise, they’re taken aback by how huge Jackson looks in the light. It’s bigger and more prepared for outsiders than they expected, particularly how well guarded it is, complete with its massive gates, its guards, and many patrols. As they try to figure out a plan to get Joel, it’s mentioned that they’ve agreed to hurt no one else but Joel in this quest for revenge. As Owen (Spencer Lord) considers the beginnings of a plan, Abby says she’ll take the next watch and heads out into the snow. Once Abby leaves, Owen admits that his plan is to convince Abby to go back home, because if not, she’s going to get them all killed.

Jackson Prepares for the Worst

The next day, after the New Year’s Eve party, Ellie (Bella Ramsey) is awoken in her garage bedroom by knocking; it’s Jesse (Young Mazino), coming to pick her up for their patrol, and Ellie lets it slip that she and Dina (Isabela Merced) kissed at the party — which leads Jesse to fake outrage that she kissed his ex-girlfriend, before revealing he already knew, and he’s joking. As they head into town, they find the people of Jackson are on alert after a group of frozen infected were found, followed by 30 other infected bursting out from underneath them, as if they’re now using their fellow dead for insulation. Now, the town has no idea how many infected could be hiding under the snow.

When Jesse gives Ellie a hard time for spooking the council about the smarter infected she found, Ellie says she’s going to do her patrol with Joel (Pedro Pascal) instead. Jesse finds this strange, since Ellie has been avoiding Joel, especially after the fight at last night’s party, but Ellie says they’re doing better now. Ellie admits that things between her and Joel are complicated, but she’s still her, he’s still Joel, and nothing is ever going to change that. But Jesse mentions that Joel and Dina have actually already left on patrol together (a change from the games); instead, Jesse and Ellie head to the restaurant because Maria (Rutina Wesley) wants to talk to her.

In the restaurant, Tommy (Gabriel Luna) is telling the people of Jackson to prepare for the worst but hope for the best. Tommy mentions that if things go south, the young and old should shelter in their homes, while others will hit the rooftops and second floors to protect the rest of the town — and if there’s a breach of the gate, everyone should stay off the main street. Once the meeting ends, Maria asks Ellie to bury the hatchet with Seth (Robert John Burke), who leveraged some homophobic language in Ellie and Dina’s direction at the New Year’s Eve party (which led Joel to knock his ass down). Seth apologizes to Ellie and gives her and Jesse steak sandwiches to atone for his mistake, and Ellie begrudgingly accepts before heading out with Jesse on patrol.

Abby Is Saved by the One Person She Hates Most

Abby is still on watch alone, but as she gets ready to head back, tired of the cold, she spots two people on horseback in the distance. Back at Jackson’s main gate, the snow is getting so bad that the radios are breaking down. Tommy sends a message out to give everyone on patrol a heads-up to come back, but Jesse and Ellie are too far out and decide to hold out in an old abandoned 7-11. Inside, they find tons of weed, and Jesse says this was Eugene’s secret hideout. Ellie discovers Eugene’s old Firefly pendant, and Jesse says Eugene quit because he was tired of killing people. Jesse mentions it’s a shame that Eugene had to go out the way he did, being killed by Joel, but he couldn’t be saved — which seems to indicate that Eugene had been at risk of becoming an infected prior to his death.

Abby has made her way down the mountain, following the two people on patrol, but as she continues to climb, the snow underneath her breaks, creating a small avalanche. Once at the bottom, Abby discovers she’s surrounded by frozen infected buried in the snow, but then, the ground underneath them starts to shift as a massive number of infected claw their way to the surface and start chasing Abby. When she thinks she’s found her way to safety, she finds herself trapped behind a chain-link fence, which the infected have toppled, leaving her crawling under the few inches between the fence and the ground. As she narrowly escapes, an infected jumps on top of her, but she’s saved by Joel who shoots it in the head.

As Joel and Abby make it to safety in a room where Dina is waiting, Dina calls out to Joel, and Abby realizes the man who just saved her life is also the man she’s wanted to kill for the last five years. Joel and Dina try to figure out their next move to escape the infected, but it’s too far back to Jackson. Abby seizes her opportunity and says that her friends are holed up in the lodge nearby, and they can head there. Back in Jackson, all patrols have radioed in, except for Joel and Dina. While Ellie and Jesse are camped out in the 7-11, they catch word that Joel and Dina are still AWOL, so they head out, splitting up to try and find the missing pair.

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I’m Sorry to Jackson, the Infected Are For Real

With Joel, Dina, and Abby riding to safety, hundreds of infected head to Jackson. As the town fortifies against potential attacks, one person discovers that the infected tendrils have made their way into the pipes, as we saw at the end of the last episode. As the people at the gate spot the gigantic horde of infected coming, the town prepares to fight for its survival. While the people of Jackson put up a good fight against their attackers, as this is clearly a possibility they’ve prepared for, all it takes is one humongous bloater to breach the gate.

Tommy arms himself with a flamethrower and stands his ground on the main street. From the rooftops, Maria shoots at the bloater, who starts heading towards her. Seeing this, Tommy makes his way to the bloater, distracting him and causing the bloater to chase after him. Running away, Tommy finds himself at a dead end, and uses every last bit of fuel in the flamethrower. Just when it seems like the bloater will get the best of Tommy, the infected stumbles and falls dead at the last second.

Abby Finally Confronts Joel

Abby leads Joel and Dina to the resort, where they all go inside to meet Abby’s friends. Joel watches the attack on Jackson from a distance, while Dina, struggling with potential frostbite, notices the group has bags bearing a “WLF” patch. Joel tries to rally these new troops to Jackson, but Abby introduces herself and her team to Joel instead, mentioning both of their names, which takes her entire group by surprise. They proceed to hold Dina and Joel at gunpoint, saying they’re going to put Dina to sleep for a while. Joel says their group looks like military and asks if they’re Fireflies. Abby says they used to be, but now, all the Fireflies are gone. Dina is injected with something that will knock her out for an hour, leaving the group alone with Joel.

Abby says she’ll give Joel one chance to tell the truth, and if he does, he’ll let Dina live — but potentially killing Dina wasn’t what the rest of the group signed up for. Abby asks Joel about the last time he saw the Fireflies, and he tells the truth: Salt Lake City. Joel says that he saved her life just now, to which Abby replies, “What life?” before she shoots Joel in the leg. Abby forces one of the others to tourniquet Joel’s leg, so she can make this torture last.

Abby tells Joel he killed eighteen soldiers and one unarmed doctor, whom he shot in the head. That doctor was Abby’s dad. Abby saw the wreckage that Joel caused, as well as her father’s body, when she was only 19 — the same age Ellie is now. Abby mentions she’s been in the Seattle militia for five years, and that their commander told them to follow a code: that they don’t kill those who can’t defend themselves, and right now, that’s Joel. Abby says she will kill Joel, since no matter who you are, there are some things everyone agrees are “just fucking wrong.” As she continues her speech, catching sight of a bag of golf clubs, Joel tells her to get it over with already. Abby grabs a club, calls Joel a stupid old man, and angrily states that he doesn’t get to rush this, before she swings the club as hard as she can into his wounded leg.

The Death of Joel Miller

Meanwhile, Ellie finds horse tracks leading to the resort and heads in that direction. Meanwhile, Abby is beating Joel to a bloody pulp as the rest of the group realizes things are going too far. Outside, Ellie discovers Joel and Dina’s horses, and enters the resort to the sound of screaming and thudding. When she walks into the room, she finds Abby beating Joel to death. Ellie tries to shoot and cut her way out, but the group is too much for her to take on alone, and they hold her down. Ellie cries out for Joel, who can barely even move his finger in her direction. While Ellie yells for Joel to get up, Owen tells Abby to “end it.” As Ellie watches, Abby takes the golf club, which has been broken from the beating, and stabs Joel in the neck, killing him.

While in the game, we never see Joel’s face after his death, here, we earn a front-row seat to the brutality that Abby has caused. Ellie screams in rage, promising that everyone involved here is going to die, before one of them, Manny (Danny Ramirez), kicks her in the stomach. In the game, Manny’s blow knocks Ellie out, but in this version, the team leaves, and Ellie crawls her way to Joel’s lifeless body. She yanks the broken club out of his neck, holds his hands, and sobs while draping herself on top of him. It’s a heartbreaking goodbye to the closest thing she’s ever known to a father.

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As the episode ends, Abby and her team head back to Seattle, while Jackson lies in ruins. Tommy and Maria have survived, but the city is covered in the corpses of the infected and their people, with buildings still burning. In the final moments, we see that Jesse has reunited with Abby and Dina, and the three bring back Joel’s body, covered in a sheet and dragged behind their horses.

For those who have played the game, this is a turning point that we’ve been curious to see how the show would handle. If anything, the series makes this huge moment even more heartbreaking, as we witness the violence that has been caused and are forced to live with the fact that Joel, a character we spent an entire season with, is now dead. With Jackson also now forced to rebuild, Episode 2 finds a way to suck any hope out of this story in an almost staggering way. Joel ruined the lives of Abby and her people, and now, in actions both inadvertent and direct, Abby has returned the favor. It’s a daring, shocking, and almost unbelievable moment for this story, but Mazin and Mylod bring this sequence to life with just the right amount of pain and brutality that it needs. Nothing will ever be the same after this moment.

New episodes of The Last of Us Season 2 premiere Sundays on HBO and Max.

The Last Of Us

The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 2 brings one of the most shocking moments in video game history to life in a way that’s even more heartbreaking.

Release Date

January 15, 2023

Network

HBO

Showrunner

Craig Mazin

Directors

Craig Mazin, Peter Hoar, Jeremy Webb, Ali Abbasi, Mark Mylod, Stephen Williams, Jasmila Žbanić, Liza Johnson, Nina Lopez-Corrado

Pros & Cons

• Director Mark Mylod does an excellent job of making this pivotal moment even more staggering in live-action.
• Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are tremendous in their final moments together.
• Little changes from the game, like the attack on Jackson and the way Joel’s death are filmed, make this story even more brutal.