Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”

Summary

HBO's The Last of Us Podcast: Episode 2 - “Through the Valley” Summary

Release Date: April 21, 2025

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Introduction

In the second episode of the official companion podcast for HBO's The Last of Us series, host Troy Baker, alongside showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, delves deep into the intricacies of Season 2's episode titled "Through the Valley." This episode explores pivotal moments, character developments, and the creative decisions behind adapting the beloved video game into a gripping television narrative.

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Major Plot Developments and Controversial Moments

Death of a Beloved Character

A central focus of this episode is the shocking death of a beloved character, paralleling the impactful losses fans experienced in the original game.

• Craig Mazin reflects on the inevitability of the character's death:

  "There was never a question that we were going to do this. The real question was when." [02:16]

• Neil Druckmann emphasizes the narrative necessity:

  "It wasn’t chasing some shock value. It’s what the story needed." [05:26]

This bold move was intended to strip characters of their "plot armor," highlighting the brutal realities of the show's post-apocalyptic world.

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Abby’s Character Development and Grief

Exploring Abby’s Grief and Motivation

The introduction of Abby brings a new emotional layer to the story, showcasing her grief and the driving force behind her actions.

• Craig Mazin explains Abby's internal struggle:

  "Abby is torn apart by grief. Grief is the pain that is left when something that is entwined with you is ripped away." [09:09]

• The episode highlights a powerful confrontation between Abby and Joel, underscoring the depth of Abby's pain:

  "Do you know how many you killed that day? Did you count as you went?" [11:41]

• Neil Druckmann discusses the complexity of Abby’s motivations:

  "Ellie is putting herself in harm's way for someone she loves, and even Abby is putting herself in harm's way for someone she has loved and lost." [32:43]

This exploration of Abby adds moral ambiguity and challenges the audience's sympathies, making her a multifaceted character.

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Community Tragedy: The Attack on Jackson

Depicting the Epic Battle

The episode delves into the massive attack on Jackson, portraying both the chaos of battle and its emotional aftermath.

• Craig Mazin describes the planning and execution of the battle scenes:

  "Mark did a brilliant job working with Alex Huang, our visual effects supervisor, to create pre-vis for the entire battle." [28:22]

• Neil Druckmann reflects on the scale of the threat:

  "Season one, when you saw one bloater how dangerous that was... Now what happens when you multiply that by some crazy number?" [25:16]

The battle sequences aim to balance large-scale action with intimate character moments, such as Tommy and Maria's emotional exchange post-battle:

"We always try to capture some change... It's something new that Maria didn't know would happen." [29:04]

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Production Insights: Filming the Battle

Behind the Scenes of the Epic Confrontation

The discussion provides an in-depth look at the logistical and creative efforts behind bringing the attack on Jackson to life.

• Craig Mazin shares challenges faced during production:

  "It was prepped and shot like its own movie. I can't remember the total number of days, but movie length, days, movie length." [28:22]

• The collaboration with visual effects teams like Weta and Dneg is highlighted to enhance realism:

  "Weta is creating... stunts people in with CG people." [28:22]

These efforts ensured that the battle was both visually stunning and emotionally resonant, maintaining fidelity to the game's atmosphere.

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Thematic Elements: Love, Justice, and Moral Clarity

Exploring the Core Themes

The episode examines how themes of love and justice drive character actions and shape the narrative's moral landscape.

• Craig Mazin discusses the absence of traditional moral dilemmas:

  "Nobody seems to be wrestling with what to do. Joel's a very clear goal." [14:46]

• The exploration of personal value systems versus communal survival is emphasized:

  "How do you win? Does this method of pursuing my own value system actually work?" [16:15]

• Neil Druckmann expands on the motivations behind characters' actions:

  "Each person has their own motivation and their heart is kind of in the right place." [14:46]

These discussions highlight the series' commitment to portraying complex characters driven by deep-seated emotions and moral convictions.

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Musical Integration and Emotional Resonance

Significance of "Through the Valley"

The inclusion of the song "Through the Valley" adds a poignant layer to the episode's emotional depth.

• Neil Druckmann explains the choice of the song:

  "The lyrics... spoke very much the theme of what we wanted to get into in the story of the game." [39:22]

• The song underscores Ellie's turmoil and determination:

  "Ellie makes this slow, painful crawl across the floor to Joel's body... settling in with the only person in her life that she truly loved." [40:25]

This musical element serves as a bridge between the game's narrative and the show's expanded storytelling, enriching the audience's emotional engagement.

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Character Interactions and Emotional Dynamics

Joel and Ellie’s Relationship

Before the tragic events, the podcast explores the evolving relationship between Joel and Ellie, setting the stage for the emotional climax.

• Craig Mazin notes Ellie's conflicted feelings:

  "Ellie tells him she didn't need his help... But she's still... nothing's ever going to change that." [22:36]

• Troy Baker reflects on moments of hope amidst despair:

  "You gave me hope that maybe what she set out to do, she wouldn't achieve." [16:15]

These interactions highlight the fragile dynamics that lead to the series’ heart-wrenching moments.

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Conclusion and Forward Look

Anticipating Future Episodes

The episode concludes by tying current events to future narrative developments, leaving listeners eager for more.

• Craig Mazin reassures that Joel’s story isn't over:

  "This is not the last we will see of Joel." [43:29]

• The thematic promise of exploring the consequences of actions sets up anticipation for upcoming episodes:

  "The storm is here. Let's talk about just envisioning what that looks like." [23:49]

The discussion wraps up with acknowledgments to the production team and a teaser for the next episode, maintaining momentum and audience interest.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Craig Mazin on character death:

  "You have to take plot armor away at some point." [03:56]

• Neil Druckmann on Abby's grief:

  "Grief plus injustice is driving her a little mad." [10:53]

• Bella Ramsey (Abby) on vengeance:

  "I'm gonna kill you. You're gonna die." [19:50]

• Craig Mazin on moral clarity:

  "These characters... they’re making their own systems of values and sticking to them." [14:46]

• Neil Druckmann on the nature of the show's world:

  "It's force feeding the fundamentals of narrative physics." [37:56]

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Closing Remarks

Episode 2 of HBO's The Last of Us Podcast offers a profound exploration of the show's pivotal moments, character motivations, and the intricate balance between large-scale action and intimate emotional beats. Through insightful discussions and behind-the-scenes revelations, Troy Baker, Craig Mazin, and Neil Druckmann provide fans and newcomers alike with a comprehensive understanding of what makes "Through the Valley" a standout episode in the series.

Transcript

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[Unknown]

It's funny. I have waited.

[Craig Mazin]

So shut the fuck up and do it already, you.

[Unknown]

Stupid old man. You don't get to rush this.

[Troy Baker]

Welcome back to the official podcast for the HBO original series, the Last of Us. I'm Troy Baker, and I play Joel in the Last of Us Video Games. Joining me, as always, are the showrunners of the HBO series, Craig Mason.

[Craig Mazin]

Good to see you.

[Troy Baker]

And Neil Druckmann.

[Neil Druckmann]

Hi, Troy.

[Troy Baker]

Today we are unpacking episode two of the second season. And listeners, here is your warning. You will want to have watched this episode in its entirety before you hear this conversation. Trust me, there are many, many spoilers ahead. This episode, called through the Valley, was written by Hugh Craig and it was directed by Mark Mylod. A lot happens in this episode.

[Craig Mazin]

Yeah.

[Troy Baker]

Including what would be one of the most controversial and biggest bombshells of the series, the death of a beloved character.

[Neil Druckmann]

Joel, wait, what?

[Troy Baker]

Shock. People who have played the game, they've been bracing for this. They've been one step ahead of a lot of people who haven't been familiar with this story. Let's just dive straight into that.

[Craig Mazin]

Well, they've been one step ahead in that they understood it was going to happen. I don't think that anyone knew exactly when it would happen, although some people.

[Neil Druckmann]

Doubted it that he would.

[Craig Mazin]

We did.

[Neil Druckmann]

We did see some people say, oh, Pedro's too popular. HBO will not let them.

[Craig Mazin]

Yeah, hbo, the place that made Game of Thrones, when Ned Stark gets his head lopped off. I'm still reeling from that. I mean, first of all, let's. Let's just all take a big, deep breath because that was a lot. Yeah, the episode is a lot. There is this massive attack on Jackson. People's lives are in danger. It is absolute mayhem. And also there is this brutal moment that ends with Bella both terrifying you and breaking your heart at the same time. And I think it's fair to say that a lot of people, having seen the episode, are a bit shaken and reasonably so. It is a big thing we've asked the audience to swallow. It is going to upset a lot of people, and that's okay. And they may be angry about it. And they may be confused about it and they may be miserable about it, but I'm hoping that for the majority of them, they are going to reconnect now with who's left behind and what happens now. Because what happens now is one unstoppable force meeting another.

[Troy Baker]

Do you feel like there is this unspoken expectation now from the audience you have to set the bar of catastrophe and tragedy so high that you have to continually chase that? Was that what compelled you to follow through with this act that obviously happened in the game, but to do it as early as you did, to not change the timeline. What brought you to making this decision?

[Craig Mazin]

Well, the easy part was the source material was correct. I remember playing it and experiencing it and feeling horrible. But there is that difference between experiencing something and feeling horrible because you loved somebody and you're grieving for the loss of that person and you're shocked that the story would be so dangerous as to kill that person. And a different response, which is a critical. I don't think that was a good choice. I thought it was a brilliant choice. I thought it was incredibly brave and I thought it was really smart. Because in the end, you have to take plot armor away at some point. And if you're going to tell a story about consequences, and if you're going to tell a story about a man who does a terrible, terrible thing for the best possible reason there is, then you need the world to provide feedback. And the feedback here is brutality. That's how the world works. So there was never a question that we were going to do this. The real question was when. And we talked about this a lot. And it felt to us like episode one really taught us a lot about where Joel was and what his relationship was like with Ellie. And it doesn't end well. And here we get to episode two, and this happens and you feel this double destruction. Because as far as we know, her relationship with Joel was broken, and now she's forced to watch him die. And it's like a double wound to the heart.

[Troy Baker]

I remember the first time you, Neil, talked to me about bringing this plot point in. We were in London. We were standing outside the after, after party of an award show. And you said, so I have an idea for part two. And in your very Neil way, I said, so Joel dies. And I remember being.

[Craig Mazin]

I like that. Like, he was setting you up for, like, a more interesting second part of that sentence.

[Troy Baker]

Clearly, this happens.

[Craig Mazin]

Yeah.

[Troy Baker]

And I, like a lot of people, had to process that. And that was something that was processed through not Only hearing from you the first time, but then also seeing the script and then shooting the scene and then playing the game. What was it like for you, coming from making the game, obviously, and knowing that this is coming, seeing how we're going to adapt, like we've talked about so many times, how do we adapt these key, important events in these characters into this thing? But what was it like for you, revisiting this from a different perspective?

[Neil Druckmann]

The whole thing is so surreal. I don't even know how to quite get into it. You know, there's something worth noting that when we made Game one, we didn't know there was going to be a Game two, so there was a long search to even find that storyline. How do you continue the story about love when, you know, if you just kind of examine season one or Game one, it's like we go kind of like to the end of the kind of sacrifices people would make for love. But it felt like there's somewhere further to still go, which is the idea of justice. There's something I really enjoy of working with Craig and working with everybody else on this show and just seeing how they've interpreted the game. I loved making that game so much, even though it's like, it's dark subject matter and, you know you have to hurt characters you really love. But that's sometimes my favorite thing as a writer, is to be cruel to characters. Well, the world is cruel, yeah, but it's also, you get to see who they are and who other people are around based on these things that happened. It wasn't chasing some shock value. It's what the story needed. But I just really enjoyed doing this deeper dive and like, one of the things that we couldn't do in the game, and it was one of our earliest conversations of how we're going to achieve this moment in the game. We talk about things happen to Jackson. There are certain attacks, whether it's infected or Raiders, but we never get to see it here because we're not playing any one particular character. You could jump between this attack on Jackson and this situation that Joel found himself in, and then again showing the kind of loss you could experience in this world, both on a very personal, intimate level and on a community level. And that is something that we'll visit again in this season.

[Troy Baker]

So much of this really started with the epitis of. You told me this once, what do I look like if this were to happen to me? What do I look like if I were to lose my daughter? So, so much of this is you as the main character. And I think for all of us that are experiencing this, we get to see ourselves as Joel. We get to see ourselves as Ellie. And with this season, we will also get to see ourselves as Abby. Let's talk about Abby a little bit. We open up with this dream sequence where we watch Abby witness the aftermath of the hospital scene, the massacre that takes place in Salt Lake. And we learn a little bit more about what's driving her.

[Unknown]

Don't go in there. Stop it. I'm telling you, go back.

[Craig Mazin]

No.

[Unknown]

His brains are on the floor.

[Troy Baker]

Tell me about this, this dream.

[Craig Mazin]

Abby is torn apart by grief. And grief is a very specific thing. Grief is not justice. Grief is not vengeance. Grief is the pain that is left when something that is entwined with you is ripped away. And what's happening here is a cycle where she is trying to keep herself from seeing this thing that is going to make this so much more grievous to her and she can't. And you get the feeling that this is not the first time she's tried to tell herself, don't walk in that room. But what she sees in there is horrible. When Joel shoots this man in the head, it is not a fun moment to watch. It is not a rooting moment as far as I'm concerned in season one when he does that, that is when we feel he's really just disconnected himself from any kind of sense of belonging to society or civilization. He is solely about getting Ellie out of there. He doesn't care what he does or who he hurts. And now this 19 year old girl is wandering in there, who at that point is the same age that Ellie is right now and sees him on the floor and sees that wound. There is a reason in season one we showed him on the floor. We could have easily just stayed with Joel after he shoots him in the head. But that's the last thing in the room we see because that's what Abby's gonna see. And that tearing away can't be undone no matter how much she tries while she sleeps to do it.

[Neil Druckmann]

Well, there's something about grief plus injustice that is driving her a little mad where it's like, right, it's infecting even her dreams. It's a sort of infection.

[Troy Baker]

After watching the episode, I'm wrestling with it, I guess in some way kind of like what Abby's experiencing. There's the event that I've witnessed and now there is the experiencing, the processing of that event. And even just hearing what you said, something that I think I'VE glossed over. Don't go in there.

[Craig Mazin]

Don't go in there.

[Troy Baker]

His brains are on the floor.

[Craig Mazin]

Very graphic. And one thing that we were able to do is have Abby be very explicit in her confrontation with Joel about what she saw and to confront him with what he did.

[Unknown]

Do you know how many you killed that day? Did you count as you went? Or I guess maybe it just didn't matter? 18 soldiers and one doctor. You remember that one? An unarmed doctor you shot in the head. Yeah, that was my dad.

[Craig Mazin]

And there's this moment between the two of them that I love and must give credit to. Mark Mylot, our director, who's people may know him from succession. And here he is doing this brilliant job with these actors in these little moments where Abby says, we have a code, and the code is not to hurt people who can't defend themselves. And that's you right now. But I am going to kill you. Because everyone agrees that some things are just wrong. And Joel gives the slightest nod because he is acknowledging that what he did was capital W, wrong. But also, we understand he didn't care. And he still doesn't care. It doesn't matter. So, yes. Does he deserve to die? By the rules of the universe, sure.

[Troy Baker]

Neil, you've said something before to where one of the reasons why people have struggled with this is because it's not fair, it's not right. Or even more so, someone goes, well, no, I get it. That's what Joel deserves. But you said that's not how this world operates.

[Neil Druckmann]

Well, it's like, you know, we're so, I think, used to certain narrative structures, especially like, Hollywood movies where there's, like, a karmic justice. It's interesting, you know, you hear Craig talk about it, he's like, you're not rooting for Joel. I know many of our audience do. And me watching the show, actually, I am rooting for Joel. I am rooting even when he shoots.

[Craig Mazin]

That guy in the head.

[Neil Druckmann]

Even when he shoots that guy. Well, in a way, because I've often write, and in making this story, I would think about what I wish I could do in Joel's position. And I wish I could act like Joel and save my daughter. And that whatever it takes, and I would try to do whatever it takes.

[Troy Baker]

Would I be strong enough to take myself to the extremity of my own humanity for the purpose of saving her.

[Neil Druckmann]

But then the thing that we know we almost never get to see is like, okay, what about the other side? What about the doctor that is trying to Save the world. And what about everybody that's close to him? Again, we just tend to paint these characters as good guys and bad guys and they're just survivors. They're just. Each person has their own motivation and their heart is kind of in the right place. Joel's trying to save Ellie, this doctor is trying to save the world. And Abby feels like an injustice has been done and it must be corrected for the world to feel right.

[Craig Mazin]

Yeah, there's a lot of people talk about the trolley problem, the famous moral conundrum. And what I find interesting about these characters, at least when I'm sitting down at the keyboard and working on a scene, is that they don't have the trolley problem. It's not a problem for them at all. Nobody seems to be wrestling with what to do. Joel's a very clear goal. Oh, the trolley can either hit all those people or your kid. Not a problem. Send them to all the people. Abby has dragged this group of friends all the way from Seattle back here, putting them all in terrible danger, putting herself in terrible danger to do this. Not a trolley problem for her at all. So there is a moral clarity here where people are making their own systems of values and sticking to them in extremely hard ways. And the challenge that everyone is going to have is the challenge that Joel faces right here as someone is hitting him in his wounded knee with a golf club. And that is, does it work in the end? Does this method of pursuing my own value system actually work? Would it not be better if I could have somehow figured out how to grow old and be Ellie's, you know, grandfatherly figure? Could I not see her become, you know, a 50 year old person? I don't get that because of what I've done, they're all going to pay a price. So the question that we've seeded in here is how do you win?

[Neil Druckmann]

And it's also important to note here that Abby could have just shot Joel and it would have been over, but that wouldn't have been enough for her because she had felt all this intense pain for all these years somehow. And I think we all do this to some degree when someone wrongs us, when someone cuts us off on the highway, we have to make the other person pay in as much, if not more. So.

[Craig Mazin]

And you know, it's a great point. If she just shoots him and they leave, Ellie gets there too late. She never knows who did it.

[Neil Druckmann]

Right. But now she's witnessed it.

[Craig Mazin]

Yeah.

[Troy Baker]

For me, as someone who knows what's coming, the one thing you still manage to do in that scene with Joel leading up to it, Owen says when asked, what's the plan? He says, the plan is to talk her out of this and to go back. You gave me hope that maybe what she set out to do, she wouldn't achieve. And then there's a moment. Bella's performance is so powerful that for a second, because she believed, I believed Joel was gonna stand up, brush himself off.

[Craig Mazin]

Yeah. That's the hardest moment, is when she's begging him to get up. And he tries, Joel, get up.

[Bella Ramsey]

Joel, get up. Joel, fucking get up. Joel, get up.

[Craig Mazin]

End it.

[Bella Ramsey]

Joel, get up. Please. Please get up. Get up. Fucking get up.

[Craig Mazin]

That is heartbreaking to me. Heartbreaking, because that's where you see how pure a parent's love is for a child. And this is something that children don't know. It's not their fault. They just don't know because they haven't experienced it. People say, oh, you know, when you have a kid, you experience this new stuff. And a lot of people are like, I think I can extrapolate. You can't. You just can't. I couldn't. I didn't know until I knew. And that is pure parental, desperate love. He's trying to pick himself up for her, even though he can't even move. And what Bella does here, I mean, it's the full range of things. And it is all brutally heartfelt in part because I think she and Pedro, too, are very close and are so intertwined, you know, in. In their own lives. You know, Pedro had this. Said this beautiful thing to Bella when we were wrapping season one. He said, you know, it's so strange how this life changing thing came along so late for me and so early for you, but they. They share it. So a lot of this is overlapped, I think, with who they are as people, too. I remember we walked over. Mark, Mylod and I walked over, we're sitting on the floor with Bella, and we said, listen, there's this moment where you're gonna have to shift from the most brutal grief to savagery. We want you to terrify us with the resolve that you have to murder these people. Because Ellie has this catalytic change from fear and grief to anger that is so rapid and so frightening. And she does it.

[Bella Ramsey]

Please don't.

[Neil Druckmann]

Don't.

[Bella Ramsey]

Please don't.

[Craig Mazin]

Don't.

[Bella Ramsey]

I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna kill you. You're gonna die.

[Troy Baker]

You're all gonna fucking die.

[Craig Mazin]

And when she says, you're all gonna fucking die, it is terrifying. I Mean, I think they probably should have killed her at that point, but they didn't believe her.

[Neil Druckmann]

One thing I have to say, this is coming on the heels of the game where you, Troy, played Joel. You had to die in this very similar way. Ashley Johnson played Ellie, and she had to react in this very similar way. And, you know, we talk about, well, how do we feel about making this? I assume, Craig, you share this, but I have a nervousness of, like, especially for the really important scenes that you guys did so well, Troy, that they won't live up to it. That somehow will fall short in the retelling of the story. And I remember when I talked to Mark, I had a zoom call with him before he was directing this episode. And I'm like, dude, man, you got this giant battle in front of you, and, like, there's freaking bloaters and infected and explosions. Like, man, just the prep for that must be, like, unnerving. He's like, yeah, yeah, that's all true. But I'll be honest with you, Neil, the thing I'm most nervous for is this death. Because I watched that part of the game and it's like, I saw the weight of it and I'm like, I have to do this justice. And he said, like, it was keeping him up at night. And I gotta give everybody their credit. They did it justice.

[Troy Baker]

Before this tragic event, we really get a chance to spend some time with Ellie and find out how she feels about Joel and where she's at with that relationship.

[Craig Mazin]

Well, it's a bit of a mystery because the night before, she told him she didn't need his help. She rejected him. She came home, she saw him on the porch, she walked right by him, didn't say a word. Cold as ice. It's the next morning. And what she says to Jesse is, no offense, I think I'm just going to go on patrol with Joel. She wants to go on patrol with Joel. What has happened? And when Jesse pushes on her, she kind of explodes.

[Bella Ramsey]

You know, no offense, man. I'm gonna do my patrol with Joel.

[Craig Mazin]

Um, yes, offense.

[Neil Druckmann]

Cause that's the one person you've been.

[Craig Mazin]

Avoiding like the plague.

[Bella Ramsey]

Well, we're better now.

[Neil Druckmann]

Okay, as of when?

[Rocket Advertisement]

Cause last night.

[Bella Ramsey]

I know what happened last night. Can you shut the fuck.

[Craig Mazin]

Collects herself back up. Because she has probably been told, hey, it's not great when you explode at people. So what happens is you get that explosion, then they kind of try and pull it back. And she says, my shit with Joel is complicated.

[Bella Ramsey]

I know that from the Outside, it probably looks really bad. It has been really bad. But I'm still me, he's still Joel, and we. And nothing's ever going to change that, ever. So you can all stop talking about us, worrying about us, and thinking about us, all right?

[Craig Mazin]

And it is this interesting moment of clarity about her relationship with Joel that doesn't quite add up. So that mystery will hang in the air for a little bit, but when she gets to him, we know it isn't just, oh, I didn't talk to you last night when you were on the porch. There's more. We just don't know what it is yet.

[Unknown]

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[Troy Baker]

We've talked about the tragedy on the micro level, the one that's very personal, this tragedy that befalls not only Joel, but also Ellie. But that is mirrored by the huge, epic tragedy that's happening. The day that we feared, the day that we've been preparing for is finally here. When we hear that bell, yeah, it's coming. The storm is here. Let's talk about just envisioning what that looks like. You have this opportunity to delve deeper into what happens to the community. What happens to Jackson? Where did that start?

[Craig Mazin]

Well, we began by asking questions, because I'm the pesky question guy. How do they defend themselves? What do they have other than a wall? What could they have other than a wall? What would their method be? Surely they've sat there and thought, okay, if raiders come, we do this. If a horde comes, we do this. So they have a plan. But what is it? And how can it be something that is a bit surprising to us? But also, once we get over the surprise, we. We think, oh, yeah, of course, that's smart. That's what. That's a good idea. And in that way, we created the plan. And the plan almost works until a bloater shows up, which is sort of the way life is, right? Everything's going fine until a bloater shows up. And then the madness begins.

[Troy Baker]

So walking through kind of like the beat by beat of this, you're gonna have that big, huge, epic battle. We saw it in season One where literally, I think, as you put it, the ground was vomiting infected. Here you have it as well. It starts with this. To me, it was such a brutal imagery of here comes the horde as they're charging the gates of Jackson and they just purposefully slam themselves up against. What was the discussion like as you go, as you're envisioning what this attack would look like? What were the key elements to you, and what was it like seeing that thing actually come into fruition on screen?

[Neil Druckmann]

I remember we talked a lot about numbers because, you know, season one, we have this opening and then we jump and everything's already destroyed. The army's gone. Like, all these things have happened. So, you know, it could get really bad, but we've never seen it really, really bad. And here there's an opportunity to say, okay, you know when you saw one clicker how dangerous that was in season one, when you saw one bloater how dangerous that was in season one. Now what happens when you multiply that by some crazy number? And that's what they have to try to defend. And to a large degree, they fail because many, many people die.

[Craig Mazin]

The town remains. At the end, we understand, as Maria and Tommy are embracing and sort of emotionally collapsing, that the battle is over, but at great cost. There needs to be a reckoning, like Neil is saying, with the reality of the world in season one. Let's just talk practically for a second. We were figuring out how to do it all while we were doing it a little bit like building a plane in the air. This season we knew more and we understood a little bit better about how to do it. Mark did a kind of amazing job working with Alex Huang, our visual effects supervisor, to create pre vis for the entire battle. I mean, the whole thing was mapped out very, very carefully and then budgeted very, very carefully. It was prepped and shot like its own movie. I can't remember the total number of days, but movie length, days, movie length. In terms of schedule, the prep was very long. It's fascinating to see how these things work. You build them with large swaths of blue out there that you know will be a thing. And then even now, as we speak, as we, you know, recorded this quite a bit before the show airs, we are still working with Weta and Dneg. Weta does all the creature stuff. So Weta is creating. We've mixed stunt people in with CG people. And as I review a lot of times. Is that one of yours or one of ours? Yeah, because that guy's running weird and Turns out I was one of ours real, so we can't change it, but that's what Weta is doing. And now suddenly, it's there. The dream happens rather late in the process. So you just. You have faith that it's all going to work. It's hard work.

[Neil Druckmann]

It's also worth noting that, you know, you have a lot of theories of how it should play out, and often they prove out wrong. Or, like, you see first pass of something like, oh, man, the bloater feels like the Incredible Hulk. Like, that's incorrect. And we will start talking about, okay, what should actually. What would make it feel even more believable, even. Cause the more believable it feels, the more you care about the stakes and the characters. And then there's even stuff in the editorial where, like, okay, how do we show the stakes of the kids in this town? And stuff was added later. And I even, like, just love the way just Tommy and Maria look at each other. And again, in the humanity of it all, every life here is important, but for Tommy, one life is more important than the other ones.

[Craig Mazin]

In the end, we always try and capture some. Not just a relationship inside of these moments, but a change. Because there's something that Tommy does here with Maria that he never had a chance to do. She's shooting at this bloater, who looks up at her, goes, ah, someone's shooting me from there. I'm gonna go find you. And he says, no, chase after me.

[Troy Baker]

Chase after me.

[Craig Mazin]

And that is new information that is something Maria didn't know would happen. She may have hoped. May have been a nice theory, but.

[Troy Baker]

Sure, you never know what your partner will do in that situation until you see him. It's like he was just met with. You know, there's the brigade of we're the fire people. And what happens to two of them? They tuck Taylor. Absolutely. I'm out of here.

[Craig Mazin]

Which is. That would happen.

[Troy Baker]

Absolutely.

[Craig Mazin]

I would be one of those guys.

[Troy Baker]

I don't look at them as cowards. No, there is something. They're people genetically inside of me that goes, you're no longer in control. I'm gonna take you out of this. And to have that, then there's a lot of mirroring. And I'm already picking up on something that I believe is intentional, which is the duality of everything. The duality of. We see that cowardice is put on display, and we see heroism. That is the pendulum swinging to the other side.

[Craig Mazin]

We don't chase stakes. You know, at some point, I know in movies, you eventually have to protect the entire galaxy. It's not enough to, you know, save your town, but for us, the stakes are the people in the relationships. And if we feel those and if those are threatened, you can have an entire town under attack by waves of infected. But if you don't have Maria and Tommy looking at each other and Tommy trying to save her and her saving him, then, you know, it's just a fight.

[Troy Baker]

We see these monsters that are attacking the big town and the big community. We also see the monster that's attacking one person.

[Craig Mazin]

And let's stop for a moment and talk about the monsters as heroes of their story, because they're the most selfless, they're the most about community. They sacrifice each other willy nilly to protect the people behind them. The way that ants work, they are more cohesive, more collected, and more unified than people are. And that's, to me, its own fascinating thing. There's a reason Cordyceps took over the world. They're better at it than we are. So we've created this little enclave to hide. Well, they're going to try and get in anyway. But when you have a battle that is this big with this many people, you do crave a moment where it focuses down to two of them, where everything shrinks down to one act of desperation and one moment where a person faces death in the eye in a personal way. So there's that moment in Saving Private Ryan where one soldier is being slowly stabbed to death by another. And it is this very personal, intimate act of violence that is so lonely and quiet as compared to the noise and chaos of war. And I thought it was important to see Tommy face death that way.

[Troy Baker]

That is just as visceral a moment, if not more than the way that that movie starts off, by the way, which is a good parallel to this. You have this huge attack, the faceless horde that is attacking the faceless community for the most part. And then you make it personal by putting the lens on two specific people, which very much reflects what's happening up the mountain.

[Neil Druckmann]

Yes, I mean, you're right, Troy, in that all these people. Tommy is putting himself in harm's way for someone he loves. Ellie is putting herself in harm's way for someone she loves, and even Abby is putting herself in harm's way for someone she has loved and lost. Right. It's all a function of love. It just has different outcomes.

[Troy Baker]

In between the two events of Joel's death and the attack on Jackson is another incredibly epic event where Abby finds herself in the midst of this snowy graveyard. Where did that idea come up? Both of you gestured to.

[Craig Mazin]

I gestured to Neil because it comes from the game. I mean, there's this great moment in the game. We really just expanded on this small moment. You're playing as Abby and you come across frozen bodies. And it's scary in part because you're not sure, why are all these bodies here? And we expanded on this and had set up a little bit of a discussion. Even all the way back in. All the way back. One episode prior, Maria's got a hunch, she's got a feeling. And they've already heard, as we hear from Jesse in the beginning of the episode, people have found Infected that are now alive, hibernating or keeping warm underneath a layer of frozen infected, covered by snow. So they're not sure how many of them are out there. Could be 30, could be a thousand is what Jesse says. And of course, Ellie's like, a thousand, right? Sure. Well, Abby finds them and her arrival triggers some movement under the snow. And then out they come.

[Troy Baker]

An avalanche of Infected.

[Craig Mazin]

Yes. And I love working on those shots with Weta because one of the things they're really good at, and I always ask for this. The first instinct is they pour out and they run down the hill. And my first instinct is they pour out and start falling. They run into each other, they lose their footing. There's no careful planning or thought. These are not stalkers. And so there's a messiness to it and a brutality. And again, a total lack of concern for each other. It's all about getting that one. And it leads to a sequence that we really looked for fidelity to the game. And that is when Abby gets into this mining plant and that fence goes in.

[Troy Baker]

That is one of the most tense moments. Again, I love my experience because, of course, in the game I remember this, and it is so claustrophobic and oppressive. And one of my favorite shots is the infected putting so much force into his hand. He's driving his hand through the chain link fence.

[Craig Mazin]

Yeah, there's something wrong with us.

[Neil Druckmann]

Well, something about that fence sequence as well, because we had a scene when Joel's escaping with Sarah on season one that was kind of inspired by that same sequence. And now there's like. Again, it's kind of like history repeating itself. It's here. But this was one of those sequences that I would pull people into my office at Naughty Dog and be like, check this out. And they're like, oh, my God, you guys did it. Just like the. Like, they were so Excited to see their work again recreated in the TV show.

[Craig Mazin]

Yeah, that was like. That's an easy one, right? Like, part of the fun of this for me is that as many questions as I ask and as many levers as I, you know, play around with, and I'll say, neil, what if we do this? Or what if we did this? Or. Is a crazy idea. There are some things where it's just full clarity. Oh, we're doing that. And we don't need to screw that. I mean, that's. It's gorgeous. And the way she's rescued and discovered by Joel, it's just, you know, keep it. It works. It's great.

[Troy Baker]

The look on her face when she realizes it's Joel.

[Craig Mazin]

Yeah. So Dina is with Joel now, and she's in there in this mine that's an actual mining facility in Wyoming. And Dean is at this lower level, and she shouts for Joel. And Caitlyn does this incredible thing where she's like, I just got saved. I'm freaking out. My gun is gone. That's the guy I'm looking for. He just saved my life. What do I do now? And the gears spinning in her head are fascinating to watch.

[Neil Druckmann]

This is another one of those moments that, I mean, obviously, this all the way to Joel's death. Laura Bailey did such an incredible job in the game as Abby, that as good as I know Caitlyn in, there's a nervousness that we won't capture that same essence. And again, it's like to see someone deliver on that sequence, it's just a very gratifying feeling.

[Troy Baker]

Just like Laura. I would say Caitlin, knowing what she's signing up for in many ways, is, as Laura Bailey was for the game, the bravest person to step foot on that stage. Because she has to do the unthinkable. Those actors have to do the unthinkable. You're gonna kill the most beloved person. So hats off to not only Laura Bailey in the game, but also to Caitlin in the show.

[Craig Mazin]

Caitlyn talks to Joel in a very intimate way before she begins to hurt him. And in that discussion, there's this moment where she turns and looks and sees this bag of old golf clubs across the room. And then she looks back at Joel and a tear just comes out. There is a pain there that you can't help but connect with. And that's why this story is so fascinating to me. It is screwing with the fundamental physics of narrative. It is forcing your brain to get out of its comfort zone with narrative because you are struggling in that moment, I almost feel like Schrodinger's audience. In that moment, I am rooting for her and I'm rooting for him. It's so. It is. And the cognitive dissonance there, the emotional dissonance, is glorious to me because it's complicated, and I think it mirrors how we feel a lot in our own lives.

[Troy Baker]

So we end this episode with, for some, a very familiar song. If you had played the game, it's actually the song that Ellie is listening to when Joel walks in to give her the guitar. In this, it's someone else singing. Let's talk about the song through the Valley.

[Unknown]

I walk through the valley of the.

[Bella Ramsey]

Shadow of death And I fear no evil. Cause I'm blind to it all.

[Neil Druckmann]

You know, there's certain things that are in the game, or actually, in this particular instance, the way we came across the song is when we made a trailer to reveal the existence of the Last of Us, Part ii. So I wrote and shot a scene that was never actually in the game of Ellie. In the middle of this, like, room where she's murdered several people, she plays this song on guitar. And I was looking for the right song, and I searched for, like, Johnny Cash. And I found this band that did a cover of Johnny Cash, this guy Shawn James. And I found his. One of his original songs, through the Valley. And there's something about the lyrics of that song that spoke very much the theme of what we wanted to get into in the story of the game.

[Bella Ramsey]

But I know when I die My soul stay. But I know when I die I die My soul is dead.

[Craig Mazin]

I remember seeing that little. I guess you'd call it a teaser. Yeah. As a fan of the game and losing my shit and the moment before it begins is sort of why the song happens at all. Because Ellie makes this slow, painful crawl across the floor to Joel's body. She has been kicked in the ribs and clearly injured badly. She might not make it at all. I think she thinks she's going to die here and she just wants to be with him. And it is so heartbreaking to hear her little breaths as she just settles in with the only person in her life that she truly loved. And then we wanted. I'm talking about this with Mark, too. We wanted to drift away into a dreamy view of what happens now, because you can't keep doing reality after that. That is the peak of it. And what that means is a song. And Ashley isn't just Ellie in the game. She's also now in our show Ellie's mother. And there is this ghostly sound of the other person who loved Ellie as much as Joel did. And what she is singing about is not good news in the end. Even though Jackson is saved, even though Ellie survives, someone's soul might be damned. And that is rough the way that.

[Troy Baker]

That trailer, the original trailer for part two, ends with Ellie saying, I am going to find and I'm going to kill every last one of them, along with the lyrics of those songs give a pretty clear indication as to where we're headed.

[Neil Druckmann]

Well, it's what she promises all of them in that room.

[Craig Mazin]

Yeah.

[Neil Druckmann]

And it's like to go back, I think as one of your earliest question in this episode of why did we do it at this moment? Why kill Joel, episode two and not later? Again, these are conversations that we had early on when we're constructing the season. And it's like, because this is the beginning of the story, this is where the story starts in earnest.

[Craig Mazin]

But I will say, and I'll be intentional about this, that we do know that for the viewer, there are some mysteries here, there's some gaps about Ellie and Joel's relationship. And I don't think it's a spoiler based on the fact that there is a trailer out there with lots of shots in it. This is not the last we will see of Joel.

[Troy Baker]

I think we're all hoping that that is true. That's where we'll leave the conversation for now. As always, thank you guys for taking the time. Thank you, Craig, and thank you, Neil, for joining us and thank you guys for. For listening in. We look forward to picking up the conversation again next week. Until then, I'm Troy Baker. Endure and survive. This has been the official podcast for the HBO original series the Last of Us. Our senior producer is Emmanuel Hapsis. Our producer is Elliot Adler, and Darby Maloney is the editor. This episode was mixed by Raj Makhija. Our executive producers are Gabrielle Lewis and Barry Finkel. Special thanks to Becky Rowe, Allison Cohen, Aaron Kelly and Kenya Reyes from the MAX podcast team. Production music is courtesy of HBO and you can watch episodes of the Last of Us on max and we'll see you back here next week for season two, Episode three.

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