ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - Last of Us Season 2 Premiere - Ending Explained and What’s Next

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

Last of Us season 2's premiere teases a HUGE departure from the games--as Abbey is outside the gates, the cordyceps fungus is literally under their feet. But what happens next? We explain. Written and Hosted by Ryan Arey http://twitter.com/ryanareyEdited by Harriet Lengel-EnrightRandolf NombradoLee MazzioElias KenouryiakisEthan LavinskyFeaturingDodson Seitz https://twitter.com/BaneWruseCameron KaskySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the Grandview's shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series.

Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Slowly. What? When we kill him, we kill him slowly. Hey, welcome back Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Erie. And let's talk about the ending of Last of a Season 2's first episode,

and where this could lead us the rest of the season. I think they're going to make some major changes to the game that I can't wait to talk about with my good friends, Dotson, Sides, and Cameron Kasky. And I know that we're all excited for The Last of us to return, but we should also take a moment to remember the fallen with these new designs we just made for our merch store. We have this Firefly logo, look for the like shirt, and this broken watch to commemorate Outbreak Day 2003. Where were you when that happened? Or you could also become a member of the Alpine Clicker Patrol. Links for all of these are below, and now you can become a store member to earn rewards and get free stuff.

And don't forget to listen to Screen Crush on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere you get your podcasts. Now, I think The Last of Us is by far the best video game adaptation that I've ever seen. But the problem with any adaptation is that we already know where the story is going, and that means that most of the time adaptations have a hard time justifying their existence outside of the pursuit of squeezing money from an existing IP. But the best adaptations understand that it's not about knowing how the story ends, it's about seeing how you get there, how to use the strengths of a medium to tell a broader story. For instance, in season one, there was the episode long, long time.

So this expanded on like a quick joke that Bill turned out to be gay. But in the show, we saw this play out over 20 years as two men learned to open up and love each other. And that one episode ended up encapsulating the theme of the series, how these characters express and share their love. Now, this was not an episode that would have worked in a video game. It would have been like some kind of farming game like Stardue Valley or a bunker builder like Fallout or even a tower defense game. Like the story they told in that episode simply did not fit within the format of The Last of Us games, but it's perfect for TV.

So, while gamers knew that the first season was going to end with Joel Massacring the fireflies, his emotional journey was the real hook. Pedro Pascal gave Joel humanity and nuance that you just can't get from the games. So time heals all wounds, I guess. It wasn't time that did it. The show also largely removed zombies from the last few episodes so they could focus on the human drama. But season two has a huge, huge problem. And okay, so from here on there are spoilers ahead for the game. But we're only going to spoil something big that happens at the

start of the game. We're not going to talk about how the game ends. So you have been warned for this big spoiler involving Joel's story. In the game, Joel dies super early in the gameplay. Wait, what? Spoilers! Dude, I just gave you a spoiler warning. Well, I wasn't paying attention. Yeah, right, figures. So, Joel dies early in the game, and he is murdered by Abby, you know, the doctor's daughter that we saw at the start of this episode. The ending of the first season was so brilliant because it left us with these moral and philosophical arguments. Was Joel right or wrong? And the second game carried on with this debate. You play as Ellie seeking vengeance,

but then you're also forced to play as Abby, the person that you hate for killing Joel. And throughout this process, you really get to know Abby. You get to like her. As Ellie, you have to go into stealth mode and kill dogs. But as Abby, you're friendly with the dogs, and there's even a mission that you have to play where you have to feed one of the dogs that you know Ellie is going to kill.

Person, that is just messed up on so many levels. I'm going to tune you out again. Go for it. So, it's a sure bet that seasons two and three of the show are going to adapt like these different aspects of the game. Now, the question is, How do we get there? How is this show setting up a story that explains how revenge can rob us of the love that's in our lives?

I think that Abby and Ellie will still be the protagonist. Episode 1 has come and gone and Joel is still alive. So maybe, because they have Pedro Pascal as their lead, they're actually going to hold off on his murder for most of the season. Like in the game, there are tons of flashbacks where we see what Joel and Ellie did for those five years, including a great sequence where you travel to an abandoned museum and sit in a space capsule. So maybe we'll see more of those flashback moments. Like, we could even see what Abby was doing for those five years,

how she joined the Wolves in Seattle, or how her hatred of Joel has taken away her ability to love others and be a functioning member of her new society. The game also features a kind of civil war in Seattle, so maybe we'll see the run-up to that. Now, here's where I'm going to spill a little insider tea for you guys. HBO is being, like, crazy guarded with these episodes. They only released a screener of the first episode to most outlets

because of their high security, which tells me that there has got to be something different about this show from the game. There is no way they would have this high level of security if the only spoiler was the potential death of Joel. Ursa, what secrets are they guarding? Well, the big clue came in the cordyceps fungus we saw growing in the pipes. And this is a huge departure from the game.

Like in the game, the fungus spreads through spores. But in the show, it's more of an underground root network. So, if the fungus touches you, then it can alert the zombies, you know, like a giant hive mind. So this idea that the corticeps could infiltrate Jackson from underground is totally new. In this episode, we see that the people of Jackson are getting comfortable. They're too casual on patrols.

They're smoking reaper, throwing parties, and they're taking in refugees that has caused a housing crisis. So maybe, while Ellie is off on her revenge tour, we'll get frequent episodes showing us what's happening in Jackson. Or maybe this is all just groundwork for season three or four. Now, I want to talk about the cordyceps and what it means for this show's future, but first, I am joined by our very own Dotson Sites and Cameron Casky, the intern that we fire every week.

first of all guys i want to get your thoughts on this episode before we get into predictions and talking about that incredibly creepy ending with the cordyceps inside the pipes cam what were your thoughts on the premiere of this episode i mean it's simultaneously some of the most enthralling television i've seen in the past couple years you know season one has still left such an effect on me because i didn't know how much a tv series could hurt me you know better call saul really had me cry at the end but i was crying these tears of sadness, sure, but also redemption, and there was something beautiful to it. Whereas, well, Last of Us has so much beauty in it, it hurts to watch. I can't look away because the performers are also brilliant. The script is amazing. Craig Mason is so good at it. But it's,

you know, it's a uniquely painful experience watching this show because you care so much about these characters. We'll get further into this, but even Joel, who's done. such atrocious things and has, you know, displayed such a disregard for the value of human life. Watching him suffer has an emotional effect on me as well. So it's a great show. I mean, there's so little to even pick apart other than just, you know, being grateful for the miracle of its very existence. But it just hurts. Well, you talk about like how Joel has little regard for human life. And I think that's interesting because that usually happens in zombie apocalypse stories because whenever you have you know these monsters who look like people walking around

that you can kill willy-nilly it's a very thin line between killing them and also killing the living and you know jill for 20 years had to do whatever he could to survive so all that apart though did you like how this first episode took that ending of the first season and didn't leave it there like it seems like everything that's happening now between them just like in the game is an outcrop of that so what your thoughts on the premiere i mean it is you're already seeing the consequences of his actions. You are already seeing how even the, we knew when Ellie told him at the end of last season, okay, I accept this thing you're telling me. I accept that the truth as you have laid it out is the truth. You knew that there was a sense of

distrust there. You knew that Ellie just wanted to believe and Ellie, but she's five years older now. She's been living with Joel for a while. And the therapist points this out. It is very obvious that Joel is holding something back. And I don't think Joel and Ellie's relationship was able to grow in an organic and healthy way because Joel lacks the emotional intelligence to withhold this lie. Joel is like kind of a, you know, a classic man. He, the way that he relates to his own feelings isn't necessarily the healthiest. So of course, a wedge has been driven between the two. he knows what he's done and he can't hide it.

Well, at least he's in therapy. I mean, that actually, I mean, I'm serious. That's a new thing from the game. It sounds like I'm transitioning into an ad. But I think all of us here talking right now believe in therapy. And we talked about how season one was really about Joel, like that famous meme of him, like when millennials get a phone or sorry, when Gen Z gets a phone call and it's him leading against the post. Yeah. You know, and about him processing all of those feelings.

So I think there is for him a desire. to fit in in this town and to have L.A. as his daughter and he's willing to do whatever it takes to get to that point, just not that little extra bit to confess his sin. Dot, what are you thinking about this first episode so far? Um, you know, to a lot of Cameron's points, um, I think to me, what this first episode did, especially when he contrast it with like the opening of the game, um, you know, the game was really controversial, mostly because of Abby and a lot of the things that happened with her storyline. And I think that the first episode really, really, really sets up a very, very good argument for why Joe is not a good person.

You know, like, yes, he's in therapy. Yes, he's working on some of the things inside of him. But like, to Cameron's point, right, as soon as he started spitting out therapy, you know, kind of like emotional intelligence or showing any signs of it, Dia immediately goes, are you in therapy? Because it's so, like, converse to what he is and what he's doing. Throughout the show, we see just little signs that I think really build up Joel better than the game did, right? I think the game tried to make it so that, you know, he dies right off the bat and you're like, oh my gosh,

Joel, this really great character just died. And then afterwards it goes back and kind of builds up these things of like why Joel wasn't good. But this episode, we started to see like little teasers of that. Like, one of the biggest things for me that stuck out was when he's talking about the

settlement of Jackson in general. And like the first thing she says, or Maria was like, hey, we need to build more, we need to expand more, we got more people coming in. And then Joel's like, well, we wouldn't have this problem if you, you know, would stop letting people in, right? And took her jabs.

Right. That's a very xenophobic stance. Refugees are taking her jabs. Right. He's been there for five years and he forgets that he was a refugee, even when Maria reminds him, right? And so, and if anything sets it up, it's the reverse parallel of the giraffe in that very first scene, right?

because you have the giraffe, right? We zoom in on it. We remember the giraffe from last season is this like sign of hope, sign of Joel healing from his trauma, right? Realizing there's a lot of these things in the apocalypse. But the giraffe for Abby was those things that were standing on the side of her father's grave

when she was burying everybody that Joel massacred out of a mass grave. Like giraffes for Abby are always going to remind her of the saddest moment of her life. And so like when I was watching that scene, I felt like that set up Abby and her motivations and like the whole, you know, Seattle crew, the Seattle Firefly Remnants crew, like their motivations better than anything the game ever did.

So like I do like the slower approach that the TV show is taking and I think that in doing so, they're really kind of building up on their points even better while still maintaining that emotional whiplash that makes last of us so good. You know, you bring up a point about Joel Zinafo And I like how that, which is also new to the show and is not in the game, I like how that's an extension of his decision with Ellie in the end.

You know, with Ellie, he very much chose us over them, right? And, you know, we can get a whole, maybe we'll talk about this conversation next week about whether Joel was right or not. But this whole idea that he has is within Jackson is us, outside as them. And he even does it with the kid. He says, what's in here, says us, what's out there, monsters. So he's very, that's a real. really good point. Cam, do you think at this point that the show is going to surprise us, that it's going to have, like, what kind of surprises do you think that Craig Mason and Neil Druckman

have in store for us, similar to, I don't know, what we saw in the long, long time episode in season one? I think they're going to take a few more liberties with the story, not only just to give it another season, but also because, you know, this adaptation shows us that you can, can improve source material as you're moving it from one format to another while staying true to the themes and the larger beats of the original material. So, like, when Last of Us is doing these new things, they are making the, they're making the story even more of itself. Things like Joel's xenophobia trying to keep people out.

Not only does that obviously speak to the overall themes of Joel and not only does it make audience members question what they would do in that situation that is a reflection of how good the writing is it also makes Joel even more Joel than he was in the game and that's the best type of adaptation the one where phrasing yeah they the mazen respects the material and he's not adding things and changing things out of disrespect for the material like other adaptations that we won't get into right now he's doing it to because he loves the material and because moving it to the format of a TV show gives you more time to explore things that are supplementary. So in terms of surprises, I don't completely know what to expect.

I can't imagine what's going to happen when Jeffrey Wright comes in. I can't imagine what's going to happen when we see the atrocious and horrifying things that are going on with Seattle. But what I can say is I think we are going to get to explore things that are true to these characters even deeper. Because, I mean, the best thing about the writing on this show is like when Joel shoots up that hospital to get Ellie back and when Joel is saying, you know, we can't let these people in. We need to take care for us. That doesn't align with my personal values at all. You know, I want to believe that if I was in Joel's position and people were trying to come into my settlement, I'd say, great, we're going to figure it out. We're going to build more houses.

But you watch Joel make those decisions and you get it. You know, even if it's not what you would do when push comes to shove. you understand why he feels this way, and it's very human. And the fact that this show is able to turn murdering dozens of people at a hospital into something that feels like an extremely human choice goes to show that Mazen understands these characters, he loves the material. I feel like Dodd's going to have some more ideas about surprises that are coming up, so I'm going to let him cook.

Yeah, and before we let Dodd cook, I do want to just add to your point and say a truly brilliant thing about stories like this is we have no idea how we would react in that situation. I mean, in The Walking Dead, Rick starts off saying, we don't kill the living, and he starts breaking that rule pretty damn fast, you know? So I think that's what's really interesting about the last of us is it puts people in situations we could never even imagine ourselves in. So I don't think we have any kind of moral frame of reference. Like Joel dealing with PTSD for 20 years, of course he's going to shoot up a hospital. But Dodd, what do you think about the groundwork that was laid in this season?

And I don't know, what kind of surprises do you think they have? because it is very strange that HBO would only release one episode. So I can't just be because of the Joel death. There has to be like some other really cool thing that they're cooking in these next seven, eight episodes. What are your thoughts? Two things. First off, just to kind of respond to the first side about, like, particularly the human elements of Joel. I think what this season...

By the way, I love how civil we're being. It's like we're like trying to get elected assemblymen in our local. awards. You know, we're all just being very respectful. Right. I want to respond to the previous point over here. Can I just respond to the previous point real quick before with the time I'm a lot of not answer your question? Go ahead, Dodd. I'm really sorry. Cam's on a lot of talk shows, so he knows all about hitting these marks and talking in sound bites. No, I think that the thing that I think this episode really brings up more than anything, right, is like, while we relate to Joel on the human aspects, we would do this in his shoes because it feels very human. This

episode really puts a light on whether or not it was right whether or not it was a good thing right I think that all the evidence it lines up to me categorizes Joel as more of like a rosal ghoul kind of character he does bad things with good intentions but they are still inherently bad they're still inherently hurtful they're still inherently harmful um and like that i think is is really the beauty in in the storytelling of this episode and how they've and how they've paced everything thing out in this episode, how they've really expanded things out. As far as surprises go, I'm almost led to believe that Ellie doesn't know yet what Joel did, right? At this point in the game, she does know. We know this from flashbacks. I think she knows at this point,

but keep going. I like where you're going. I think we're led to believe that, especially for people that played the game, right? I think that right now, the thing that she's really mad at is that she knows that Joel is lying to her, but she doesn't know why. And that has been building up against her for a very long time. But the conflict that I keep seeing build up with her is that while she hates the fact that Joel is taking choices away from her, she still admires Joel deep down in her heart. She still wants Joel's admiration deep down. She still keeps the guitar. She still talks about playing the guitar. She still holds him like a father figure, right? Which is the same trauma that Joel has in reverse. Joel did everything that he did in the hospital because

he didn't want to lose his daughter again. He actually did not heal from his trauma. He gained a new trauma. So I definitely think that like there's a chance that, um, you know, Ellie doesn't know exactly what it is that Joel did. The other thing that I think is, uh, could be possible is mutations within the zombies. We've already seen like within the first, um, season, they changed things about how the zombies work. They remove the aspect of spores. Now, spores come into a very important part in The Last of Us part, too, as far as Ellie's immunity, and how that she shows

that and stuff like that. I think that's a lot of reason why we saw the stalker bite Ellie, right? I think that's going to be a way that she proves that she is immune to Dina in the future. But I also think that, like, the way that she's, Ellie is talking about the stalker in particular with the council is trying to insinuate

that this is a new thing that they haven't seen before. They haven't really seen clickers that are this intelligent, so are they adapting and growing? With the roots in the pipes, I think we could possibly see this come into play, and with some of the enemy types that we see later on in the game that are a little bit more advanced, this could be a good way to kind of explain how that happened instead of just like, hey, it was the second game, and we had to make new enemy types to keep things interesting, you know? So those are the things I think.

I like your idea that Ellie doesn't know yet, because that would also explain maybe Joel's death and we're not going to spoil much in this video except what I've already talked about but that means they could push Joel's death to episode three or four and we could actually see Ellie travel to Utah maybe with Dina give them like a little side road trip adventure and they could you know we could see that play out kind of in real time whereas in the game all of those Joel scenes were kind of doled out during flashbacks there is that cool scene I talked about where the two of them like went and found a space capsule and sat in it together That is them like when they're at their happiest and we probably won't see that play out.

That'll be in a flashback. That's all very, very interesting. When it comes to the adaptation of the zombies, my only criticism of season one was how like in the last, I thought there should have been zombies in the last episode. There should have been like a look just to show us the stakes, you know, give us like a little bit in the tunnels and the sewers, things like that. I wonder what that means for the show other than like escalation and the zombies need to be like thematically. You know, Mason is so brilliant. On the podcast, he talked about when Tess was exposed to the corticeps, how it was like a kiss. And he said, because in its own way, according to him, the fungus loves. The fungus wants to spread. Now, I think he's wrong. I think the fungus is, you know, it takes instead of gives and loves an act of giving. However, I thought that was very interesting that you're saying, okay, so they're going to evolve. So I wonder what thematically, Camdy, that these evolutions are going to mean. You know, is it like humanity has to evolve? because the cordyceps evolve, we have to evolve past our hatred, because the cordycepses evolve, we need to work together.

What do you think is going to happen? Well, in terms of themes, I didn't know that Mazen said that the fungus loves, but you're saying that and then following it up with, but I think it takes more than it gives, that brings to mind. Do you think Mazen thinks that Joel is not so different from the corticeps, right? Because if the corticeps multiplying and turning these people into zombies is their form of showing affection. We've learned Joel is convinced that his form of showing affection is murdering dozens of people. And I hate to evoke, I hate to evoke crazy, stupid shit from TV shows that at their best

were amazing and at their worst were unwatchable. But it brings to mind when Rick Grimes said, what if we are the walking dead? Yeah. I mean, that's a famous speech in the comics, too. And it's what the show is about. It's about, you know, like Battlestar Galactica. Are we worthy of survival? Go ahead, John. No, I think that I was going to say something. similar. I think that, you know, as the infected, just like in a natural stage of infected, stalkers is one of the early stages and you have bloaters later on and all that stuff. We've seen that early in the season. But basically, essentially, the fungus gets worse and worse and you become more and more disgusting and monstrous and it festers and rots. And I think that

developing and creating even higher layers, we're starting to see Joel's one act from season one, making him into arguably a worse or person, right? It's kind of festering and developing and rotting him at his core. And so I think with an evolution of that, with an evolution of the fungus becoming an even greater threat, it's

supposed to be a metaphor for alongside how humanity at this time is growing into, like the worst rotten sides of humanity are rotting, are becoming more infected, or becoming this more monstrous as we go through. So that's

I think that the possible kind of metaphorical connections between like having the fungus evolve and grow. I mean, it's supposed to be like a network of brain. So, you know, that is a big difference from it from the game. So that to me makes sense of why it could be like becoming at least more intelligent. Well, you know, you look at the fungus in the opening credits and it always has looked like the spread of humanity across the globe, like the view of like roads and cities at nighttime. So given all that, I agree with you guys. I think that's what the fungus kind of represents metaphorically, but literally within the show, you know, we've got this beginning and Jackson. Do you think that we're going to see a lot more of Jackson this season? Or do you think that

there will be a point when they return to Jackson and it's overrun? God, that would be so sad. What are your thoughts on how that pipe and that's scary as hell? It's like the scariest thing in the episode, even more scary than the stalker. What do your guys' thoughts on that pipe and where that's going to lead us? I think that it, you know, there's sort of a Murphy's Law in The Last of Us where whatever the most depressing thing, that can possibly happen is, it's going to be sadder than you think. And I think that, you know, very often in the world of The Last of Us, it's not like evil is rewarded and goodness is punished.

They're both punished. And, you know, evil is really going to take center stage and the humans are going to be a lot scarier than even the most advanced corecepts when we start seeing what some of those people in Seattle are up to. Obviously, we won't go too far into spoiler territory. but humans are more f*** up this season than ever. And there are people this season that make... And that's saying something.

Yeah. There's people this season that make Joel's mass murder look like a f***ing tea party at a kindergartner's birthday party. But, you know, I think that we will get more time in and with Jackson because I think Craig Mason is really interested in the way that a society like this functions, right? The moment we got with the council, the experience we're having with Joel's character and fleshing out how he exists in this city and the relationship that he has to the leadership of the city. And the way that a lot of these human situations pan out in a way that isn't really part of the video game experience.

The things that happen... It would be a different video game. Exactly. It would be a tower defense or fallout like I mentioned earlier. Yeah. And a lot of the stuff in Last of Us that's added, like I said, it makes it more of itself and it fleshes it out because that's what you get to do in TV. It's why Game of Thrones couldn't have been a trilogy of movies like so many people tried to get George R. Martin to do because the Game of Thrones is the smallest moments. You know, Game of Thrones isn't Battle of the Bastards and Hard Home. Game of Thrones is those moments where you're watching these characters sit around and experience. the emotions that they have about what's going on around them. So now that Last of Us is a TV series, you get to flesh these things out more in a way that in the video game, only X amount of time can pass in between situations where you are shooting

stuff, right? Like, you can only spend so much time. And it is such a narratively rich game. So it makes sense why it's become such a well-adapted piece. But we really get to spend more time with that stuff. I think we're going to spend more time in the weeds of how these people live. their lives. And to answer your question, I think that the cordyceps tragedy with the water pipes is going to be all the more tragic, however it plays out, because we will get to know the

human beings in this city even more. And I really fucking hope that Joel's nephew is okay. I hope he makes it out of it because that kid is the cutest. Yeah. Dodd, what about you? What are your final thoughts here on the pipes and what do you think we can expect coming up? well the record with cute kids and last of us is not good so we'll see on that one um i think you just brought up a scary prediction for me there um occum's razor approach would be uh so we look at us getting into all these theoretical principles here on screen crush by the way right right so i think the simplest approach here would be um that so when abby and joel meet in the game it's really because she's kind of trying to stumble upon jackson

and she gets kind of like she runs into a horde of walkers she fires her gun or you kind of have to run away from it it kind of is avoid unavoidable situation where there's just you're overwhelmed by uh walker or uh clickers or stalkers infected um and then Joel kind of saves you uh that of course made her look a lot more clumsy and so they're kind of redoing that she's already over like at the end of the episode she can visually see jackson right so what i think is going to happen is she's going to get loaded up rage to go and all that kind of stuff and then the roots there are going to trigger a horde kind of very similar to how we saw in the first season when they kind of introduced the concept that was like the fungus kind of kind of thinks through its roots kind of thing yeah in episode too right i think that

that's the simplest approach that essentially triggers that first wave that causes um abby and joel to meet um the more complex uh i think theory with what is going on there is that they're going to take out all the roots that are in those pipes anyways, but those roots have essentially left maybe spores or residue. Maybe they didn't see those roots actually in there. And then when they go to reuse those pipes, they could create an infection that starts within the walls, right, with someone getting sick from the water. And maybe they even use that as a thing to turn against Joel, hey, you said this is what we're supposed to do, but you didn't make sure the pipes were safe, being that he's in charge of construction. So I think that that could be a kind of

of a if they really try to go with something different but that also means that Joel has to stick around for a lot longer right and that's what I'm saying I think I think he might I think he might be around for a bit maybe we'll even see him and Abby have a whole episode together yeah before he tells her his name like you know you you guys you guys bring it up the most exciting thing about this show is even though we know we don't know and that's right thing I loved about this premiere but that's I got to leave it there so I want to hear from all of you guys what you thought about the first episode of the last of us and all your predictions for season to down in the comments below, or at me or my friends here on Twitter, Blue Sky Threads,

or any of that stuff, or on our free-to-join Discord server. And don't forget to get your Fume discount by clicking our link in the description. And if it's your first time here, please subscribe and smash that bell for alerts. Cam, you're fired. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie. Thank you.