This text comprises 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 unattainable 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 kind 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 line with recreation 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 in the end determined in opposition to Joel surviving a vengeful assault from Abby Anderson (Kaitlyn Dever).
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“Sure, as a result of we focus on all the things,” Druckmann advised Sepinwall when the latter requested in the event that they thought-about saving each Abby and Joel’s dying for a later season. “We even mentioned what if we did not kill Joel, simply to interrogate it. As a result of all the things ought to be on the desk. Every part ought to be interrogated to ensure we’re making the most effective decisions for this model of the story. We even mentioned, might we inform this different story, might we extend this second? However the extra we mentioned it, the extra it simply felt flawed. It felt like we’d solely be doing it for enterprise causes, to take care of this sense that individuals have for longer. However there wasn’t a narrative there to inspire it. The inciting incident, the origin of this story is Joel’s dying. 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 quick dialog that did not have any affect on us,” Druckmann clarified. “As a result of we knew we have 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 advised Alan Sepinwall, the present’s creatives did not shoot any of Joel’s flashback scenes earlier than filming his on-screen dying, which means that Pedro Pascal did need to return to the set of the sequence to reprise his position one final time. “We shot out Pedro for episode [2], then he went to work on a unique undertaking,” Druckmann revealed. When Sepinwall requested if it felt completely 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 positively, as we have been getting nearer to the top, you would really feel this parting of the methods coming. After which the final day, particularly, it acquired actually emotional after 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 effectively that the ultimate go-around with Joel and Ellie within the tv sequence — who’re portrayed so fantastically by each Pascal and Bella Ramsey, two actors with obvious and apparent real-life chemistry and a candy relationship as effectively — could be actually tough, 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, chatting with the truth that Pascal’s Joel and Ramsey’s Ellie have received over audiences the world over.
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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 apprehensive about how we inform this story. So for me, it was extra of a query of, that story might be full, that story can dwell by itself. That is how we made the primary recreation. However we put in sure modifications and tweaks prepping for the following 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 the Valley”), and that is why we solely see him through flashback in “The Worth,” residing by means of 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 proficient,” Druckmann gushed. “They now perceive these characters a lot. I am in such a novel place, as a result of I’ve lived with these characters and these scenes for thus lengthy, and to get to revisit them in these scenes that imply a lot to followers, but additionally to me personally … I used to be very nervous. I needed to ensure I did it justice for not solely the present, however simply ‘The Final of Us’ as an entire, and what the avid gamers are going to count on from these sequences coming off the sport. Within the second, I used to be so pleasantly stunned by what they have been placing in entrance of the digital camera.”
Plus, as Druckmann identified, working exterior 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 will have completely happy accidents, like you possibly can’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 area museum for her birthday. “After they’re within the area 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 great thing about live-action.”
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The season 2 finale of “The Final of Us” airs on Could 25, 2025, at 9 P.M. on HBO Max and HBO.