One Abby Line In The Last Of Us Season 2’s Opening Scene Sets Up A Moment I’m Absolutely Dreading

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us season 2, episode 1, and The Last of Us Part II.

The Last of Us‘ season 2 premiere begins by revealing who Abby is right off the bat — and one of her lines ominously foreshadows the scene I’m dreading the most. The Last of Us season 2, episode 1, “Future Days,” picks up five years after season 1. But before the five-year time jump, the episode shows a different perspective of Joel’s massacre at St. Mary’s Hospital. The surviving Fireflies bury their dead, and while the others are focused on finding a new home, one of them is singularly focused on a different goal: finding Joel and making him pay.

This is Abby Anderson, played by Kaitlyn Dever, the third playable character in The Last of Us Part II and the most important new addition to the TV show’s cast in season 2. In the game, players don’t find out who Abby is or what her motivation is to kill Joel until halfway through the story, when flashbacks go back to fill in her past. But the TV show tells us who Abby is and what she wants to do upfront, and one of her lines sets up what will be the season’s most horrifying moment.

Abby Reveals She Wants To Kill Joel “Slowly” In The Last Of Us Season 2’s Opening Scene

Abby Doesn’t Just Want To Kill Joel – She Wants Him To Suffer

From her first scene, it’s clear that Abby wants to kill Joel. She despises him for killing all her Firefly comrades and depriving the world of a cure for the Cordyceps infection, so she wants to find him and kill him. Her friends reluctantly agree to go along with her quest for revenge, but Abby doesn’t just want to kill Joel; she specifies that she wants to kill him “slowly.” She really wants him to suffer for his actions.

Abby’s First Scene In The Last Of Us Teases Season 2’s Most Heartbreaking Moment

Joel’s Death Is The Most Shocking & Emotionally Devastating Scene From The Game

Abby’s introduction instantly sets up the most shocking and emotionally devastating moment from the game: Joel’s brutal death. In the game, Joel and Tommy run into Abby while on patrol and flee from a horde of infected back to a chalet where Abby and her friends are staying. At this point, Abby reveals that she knows who Joel is, and she came to Jackson to kill him. Just as she promises in the TV show, she kills him slowly — with a golf club.

What makes the scene even more heartbreaking in the game is that Ellie finds them before the deed is done. Watching Joel get tortured to death would be horrifying enough, but having Ellie pinned to the ground, forced to watch it happen, is so much worse. This will undoubtedly be the most upsetting sequence in The Last of Us season 2, and the premiere episode telegraphs it right from the offset.

The Last Of Us

8/10

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

Writers

Neil Druckmann, Craig Mazin