Catherine O’Hara made her “The Last of Us” debut during the season 2 premiere, and her character already has a juicy storyline.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for season 2 of “The Last of Us.”
O’Hara plays Joel’s (Pedro Pascal) therapist, Gail, a character that doesn’t exist in the video games that inspired the HBO series. However, Gail is the widow of Eugene, a character that does get mentioned in the “Last of Us Part II” game.
During the Sunday, April 13, season 2 premiere, Joel goes to a therapy session with Gail. She’s drinking on the job, noting that she’s sad to be celebrating her first birthday since her husband’s death.
Gail accuses Joel of not telling her the full truth about his rift with Ellie (Bella Ramsey) — her instincts are correct there — before demonstrating how to open up even when it’s hard.
Gail tells Joel that she hates him for fatally shooting her husband, even though she knows he had no choice. It’s implied that Joel killed Eugene because he became infected with the Cordyceps brain infection that turns humans into zombie-like creatures.
The backstory about Joel and Eugene is a deviation from the video game series. In “The Last of Us Part II,” Ellie and Dina mention that Eugene died from a stroke.
READ MORE: ‘The Last of Us’ season 1 recap — what you need to remember before season 2
It’s unclear where Joel’s therapy storyline is headed from here. When Gail asks him what he did to push Ellie away, Joel simply says, “I saved her” before walking out of the session. While it might seem to Gail that the rugged survivalist simply has trouble baring his soul, Joel has good reason for guarding information when it comes to Ellie.
During season 1 of “The Last of Us”, Joel learned that Ellie is immune to the mass fungal infection that led to the collapse of society. Tasked with delivering Ellie to the revolutionary militia group The Fireflies so they could create a vaccine, Joel developed a father-daughter-like bond with her as they traveled.
Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey star as Joel and Ellie in “The Last of Us.”Liane Hentscher/HBO
Joel later learned that the Fireflies planned to surgically remove Ellie’s brain, a procedure she couldn’t survive. He rescued Ellie from the Fireflies, killing several of them in the process. Knowing that Ellie would likely want to sacrifice herself for the good of humanity, Joel lied to her and said the Fireflies were unable to develop a vaccine despite finding several other immune people.
READ MORE: Will there be a season 3 of ‘The Last of Us?’
Season 2 picks up five years after the events of season 1. Ellie, now-19, and Joel live in a self-sustaining community in Jackson, Wyoming, along with Joel’s brother, Tommy (Gabriel Luna). Ellie has seemingly caught on to Joel’s lies and has distanced herself from him because of it.
“The reason he goes to therapy is because he’s trying to figure out why Ellie is icing him out,” the show’s cocreator Neil Druckmann told IGN in March. “And he’s quite a bit in denial about the real reason [behind] what’s happening there.”
Druckmann added that the writers decided to make Joel’s therapist Eugene’s wife to “ground” her in the “Last of Us” world.
“Let’s tie her to someone that’s really associated with the lore of ‘The Last of Us:’ Eugene. And now these two characters are tied to Joel,” he explained. “If you’ve watched the first episode, they talk about Eugene and why that’s important. And you’ll see even more of why that’s important as the season goes on.”
“The Last of Us” airs on HBO and Max on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.
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