Host Troy Baker and The Last of Us showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann discuss the aftermath of Joel’s death and the attack on Jackson. How do characters like Ellie and Tommy pick up the pieces? Who decides what justice looks like? What’s next for Dina and Ellie’s relationship? And what new dangers await them in Seattle? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happens in the aftermath of Joel’s death?
And I want to point out, boy, we just get right into it. Yeah. Cool. So the episode starts with these epic shots of Jackson in the aftermath. Not only the attack on Jackson, but also the attack on Joel. Yeah. We see this very somber, almost ritualistic thing that's happening between Tommy and someone underneath the sheet that we can assume is Joel. We see the wrist and the watch.
Tommy begins doing this beautiful cleaning of the body. And he says, give Sarah my love. What were both of your mentality going into this episode, obviously knowing what would follow after episode two? Was there hesitation? Was there trepidation? Was there excitement? What were you feeling going into episode three?
Well, I felt every single thing that you just said. We knew that Joel's death was going to impact the audience in a profound way. It certainly impacted us in a profound way. And it seemed to us that these first moments needed to show a kind of respect for the character. and needed to acknowledge what had happened here.
And we wanted to begin with family because all the way back in the beginning, before Boston QZ and the world ending and Ellie, there was Joel and Tommy and Sarah. And now it's down to Tommy. Joel and Sarah are gone. And starting with family there was incredibly important. And we wanted to get a sense that this town was going to need to heal.
This episode, I find, is one of the more special in the season. It's something, you know, in the game, Joel dies, and then we have a very short period of time, because we have to get back to an action, because we made an action game, where we have, like, a sort of a wake. where you're honoring who this person was, and you get to sit with these characters who are just grieving.
They don't have a new goal yet. They're not doing anything other than just grieving. And this was such a great opportunity to work with Craig and expand on it in the show. We get to spend quite a bit of this episode just seeing the weight of not only Joel dying, but something that's new for this story, this version of the story is what happened to Jackson. And he wasn't the only one to die.
A lot of people have died. The town was destroyed. The town was wrecked in many ways. And that scene that, you know, beautiful scene that Craig wrote with Tommy and Joel, I find it very moving. And I remember there used to be more dialogue there. And Craig and I discussed it, went back and forth.
But that Sarah line does bring it back to the beginning in an interesting way because there's also something lovely we would like to all believe, which is when people pass away, they are reunited with their loved ones. And the most horrific thing that has ever happened in Joel's life is the loss of his daughter.
Out of that beautiful line, give Sarah my love, the camera begins to move back. And we see that it's not just Joel and Tommy that are in this room, but there are the bodies of presumably everybody that died in that attack.
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Chapter 2: How does the episode explore grief and healing?
I think it's even beyond smart for these two, which is like to them, it's the only real option. Of course, everyone should arm up and go after these people. They did something horrific. The big difference between Joel and every other person that died in that town, everybody else that died in that town has died by a natural disaster in a way. That's what they infected are.
These people were done by another human's choice to torture and kill Joel. They must pay the price.
Well, in order to get those other 12 people, though, we have to have, again, we go back to community and we see the town hall meeting. We get to see Seth again, which was a surprise, especially for the fact that now Seth is seemingly on the right side.
They came into our house. They took one of ours. My God, somebody shoots your brother, you wanna take the locks off your doors? Grow up! You idiots, they'll come back. They'll come back because we didn't make them pay. And when they come back, they'll be laughing. And you'll all deserve it.
Bunch of goddamn victims. We had talked about that scene quite a bit before anything was written, and just the mechanics of that scene. And then I remember Craig sent me a draft of it. And I read it all the way through. And I got to that Seth, even before I got to the Ellie part, I read the Seth part. I started crying.
It just hit me so hard that someone was advocating for Joel in that manner that felt right. And he was making such a valid point. And the fact that it came from Seth, it was more impactful and felt more honest because Seth has every right to hate Joel, right? Joel pushed him down, humiliated him in front of the whole town.
But he knows what was done to Joel was wrong and the people who did it must pay or they will be next. And I love that. Yeah. I gushed. I called Craig right away and I just gushed about that scene.
We wanted to be true to the story we had created inside of Jackson. So in the game, in the first game, you never get inside of Jackson. But in our first season, we did. And part of getting inside of Jackson was understanding its mechanics. There is a council. It is democratically elected. They make decisions as a community. There is law. Maria was a district attorney.
So law and democracy and order are how Jackson functions. And it was incredibly important to say, hey, even though we were attacked, what are we doing? We're repairing the fence. We're making it stronger. And we are recommitting to our ideals that we talk about these things together as a community. And that means Ellie has a chance. to make her case, which is very perilous for Ellie.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of family in this episode?
I think you're right that his desire to protect Ellie probably overwhelms his desire for justice for Joel. Because that's what Joel would have wanted. So you're all right, Troy. I apologize. I think you're both wrong.
We go from that scene to the baseball game, which is great. And Tommy joins Gail sitting there, of course, with an ice chest.
Turns out nurture can only do this much. The rest is nature. If she's on a path, it's not one that Joel put her on. No, no. I think they were walking side by side from the very start. Tommy, I get it. You inherited her and you want to keep her out of trouble. Take it from a psychotherapist of 40 years. Some people just... Some people just can't be saved.
This is sort of the question of the entire thing. What does it mean to be saved? And can it happen at all in this world? Is someone doomed to go down a path that we would call wrong? Is there a redemption that is possible? And Gail's point here is arguable. I don't know if she's right. She is presenting the fatalistic point of view, which is Ellie's broken. She started broken.
She got more broken. Now she is really broken. So stop blaming yourself for worrying about being responsible for her, fixing her. You can't. She's busted. She might be right. But so much of me wishes that she's not. And that is the question for everything that comes from this point forward.
Do you feel like Gale is writing her off?
Oh, yeah. Oh, for sure. I mean, Gale's not wrong about a whole bunch of things. Gale says she's a liar. There's a difference between lying and being a liar. Oh, I know. And that one? Liar. Correct. We have seen Ellie lying from the beginning. She didn't even tell the Fireflies her real name. She lies all the time. Right. It's part of her survival mechanism. She says, nurture can only do this much.
The rest is nature. You are who you are. And it sure seems like that's the case, too, because when we meet Ellie before she ever met Joel, when she's just a kid in federal school, she's punching people in the face. She's a problem. She was born in blood. And there is that nature in her. And in fact, her relationship with Joel seems like a combination of two people that had very similar natures.
So Gail says they were walking side by side from the very start. I think that's true. And the question is, what are the subtle differences between their natures? And Tommy's going to articulate one very carefully. And that was something that Neil really zeroed in on. It's so important. But he does it with... with Ellie, he says, Joel wouldn't go after people to punish them for what they did.
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