This text incorporates spoilers for “The Worth,” the penultimate episode of season 2 of “The Final of Us.” Cease studying proper now if you have not watched it — spoilers lie forward!
It feels not possible to think about a world the place Joel Miller, the unique protagonist of the 2013 online game “The Final of Us” and the 2023 HBO tv adaptation (performed by Troy Miller and Pedro Pascal, respectively), remains to be alive. What I imply by that is that, in each the sport and present, Joel type of has to die to drive the narrative for his surrogate daughter Ellie, portrayed by Ashley Johnson within the authentic video games and Bella Ramsey within the present. In keeping with sport creator and co-showrunner Neil Druckmann, although, there is a world the place Joel perhaps survives. Nevertheless, as he defined to Alan Sepinwall for Rolling Stone, he and his co-showrunner Craig Mazin finally determined towards Joel surviving a vengeful assault from Abby Anderson (Kaitlyn Dever).
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“Sure, as a result of we talk about every part,” Druckmann instructed Sepinwall when the latter requested in the event that they thought-about saving each Abby and Joel’s demise for a later season. “We even mentioned what if we did not kill Joel, simply to interrogate it. As a result of every part needs to be on the desk. Every little thing needs to be interrogated to verify we’re making the very best decisions for this model of the story. We even mentioned, may we inform this different story, may we lengthen this second? However the extra we mentioned it, the extra it simply felt mistaken. It felt like we’d solely be doing it for enterprise causes, to take care of this sense that folks have for longer. However there wasn’t a narrative there to encourage it. The inciting incident, the origin of this story is Joel’s demise. Any inciting incident, it’s important to get to it as quickly as attainable. What motivates this whole journey that Ellie goes on begins with Joel.”
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So, as Sepinwall requested, what got here out of a dialogue about not killing Joel? Did Druckmann recall any specifics? “I do not, as a result of that was a really brief dialog that did not have any influence on us,” Druckmann clarified. “As a result of we knew we had been exploring one thing that, you recognize, we’re not going to get a lot out of this, and we did not.”
Pedro Pascal needed to come again to shoot Joel’s flashback scenes … and shutting out his time on The Final of Us was onerous
Neil Druckmann stepped into the director’s chair for “The Worth” — marking his second time doing so on “The Final of Us” after the season 1 episode “The Contaminated” — and as he instructed Alan Sepinwall, the present’s creatives did not shoot any of Joel’s flashback scenes earlier than filming his on-screen demise, which means that Pedro Pascal did need to return to the set of the collection to reprise his function one final time. “We shot out Pedro for episode [2], then he went to work on a distinct challenge,” Druckmann revealed. When Sepinwall requested if it felt totally different when Pascal got here again, his reply was measured:
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“Sure, though within the day-to-day, you would not really feel it. However undoubtedly, as we had been getting nearer to the top, you could possibly really feel this parting of the methods coming. After which the final day, particularly, it acquired actually emotional once we completed the final shot and we frolicked for some time and simply hugged it out and chatted and reminisced.”
Not solely that, however Druckmann additionally knew full nicely that the ultimate go-around with Joel and Ellie within the tv collection — who’re portrayed so superbly by each Pascal and Bella Ramsey, two actors with obvious and apparent real-life chemistry and a candy relationship as nicely — could be actually troublesome, due to the work they’d already put into their roles. “I knew due to their chemistry, due to what they introduced, how painful this might be,” Druckmann stated, talking to the truth that Pascal’s Joel and Ramsey’s Ellie have gained over audiences internationally.
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“And it wanted to be painful to inform this story,” he continued. “In the event that they did not have chemistry, I might have been fearful about how we inform this story. So for me, it was extra of a query of, that story may be full, that story can reside by itself. That is how we made the primary sport. However we put in sure adjustments and tweaks prepping for the subsequent story if we acquired the prospect to inform it. And fortuitously, the present was profitable to such a level that HBO was, with open arms, excited to have us proceed to inform the story.”
Filming the ultimate scene between Joel and Ellie was extremely lovely, in line with Neil Druckmann
Clearly, Joel does die (at Abby’s arms in season 2, episode 2, “By means of the Valley”), and that is why we solely see him by way of flashback in “The Worth,” residing by a number of of Ellie’s earlier birthdays and charting the ups and downs of their relationship. Neil Druckmann stated that filming this episode with each Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey was at all times intense, notably due to the real-life affection between the 2 and their shared understanding of Joel and Ellie (and their relationship).
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“It is such a pleasure. They’re so gifted,” Druckmann gushed. “They now perceive these characters a lot. I am in such a singular place, as a result of I’ve lived with these characters and these scenes for therefore lengthy, and to get to revisit them in these scenes that imply a lot to followers, but in addition to me personally … I used to be very nervous. I wished to verify I did it justice for not solely the present, however simply ‘The Final of Us’ as an entire, and what the players are going to anticipate from these sequences coming off the sport. Within the second, I used to be so pleasantly stunned by what they had been placing in entrance of the digital camera.”
Plus, as Druckmann identified, working outdoors of motion-capture — which was used for the “Final of Us” video games — allowed for a sure degree of emotionality. “There’s sure moments in live-action the place you’ve gotten comfortable accidents, like you may’t plan for one thing,” he stated earlier than revealing a touching second between Ramsey and Pascal that occurred organically in a scene the place Joel brings Ellie to an deserted house museum for her birthday. “Once they’re within the house capsule, and Joel is asking Ellie how he did, and you then see he has this simply lovely smile on his face, and he turns, and also you see the glint of a tear in his wrinkles. You do not see him cry; simply that. We could not plan for that, and the truth that we caught it, I am like, it is simply … you simply catch these lovely moments which are simply there, after which they’re gone. That’s the fantastic thing about live-action.”
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The season 2 finale of “The Final of Us” airs on Might 25, 2025, at 9 P.M. on HBO Max and HBO.
