“Swear to me that everything you said about the Fireflies is true,” Ellie (Bella Ramsey) says to Joel (Pedro Pascal) in the first scene of The Last of Us’s second season (which is also the first season’s final scene). “I swear,” Joel replies. In the wordless moments before Ellie says, “Okay,” and they head to the settlement of Jackson, Wyoming, Ellie has to do some thinking. But the final look on her face suggests that, yes, she believes the man who’s become her adoptive father and guided her through the hellscape of an America ravaged by the Cordyceps pandemic. A lot rests on that belief. And everything could change between them should that belief crumble.
Repeating this scene provides the first suggestion that, despite largely taking place five years after the events of the first season, the past will play an important role in “Future Days,” the show’s second-season premiere — and likely beyond this episode. The second scene drives that point home. As Joel talks to Ellie, a different solemn moment unfolds in Salt Lake City, where the young survivors of Joel’s Firefly massacre bury their dead and try to figure out what happened. Could the rumors that the stranger who mowed through the members of their community was trying to retrieve a girl immune to the spread of Cordyceps be true? Does that even matter, given that they have to figure out what to do next without the organization they’ve depended on their whole lives (and without all the friends and loved ones they lost)?
For one member, it certainly does. Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) has not forgotten that Joel killed her father, the surgeon and scientist who believed he could derive a cure for the Cordyceps infection at the cost of Ellie’s life. Though the best plan seems to be to head to Seattle, where a man named Isaac has set up an “outfit” of some kind, Abby insists they first look for Joel, despite only having a physical description (that includes the detail that he’s pretty good-looking for a mass killer). Abby’s companions, including the sensitive-seeming Owen (Spencer Lord), are sympathetic but don’t see this as a good plan. As a compromise, Owen suggests they go to Seattle and figure out a plan from there. Whether Owen and the others are committed to helping Abby exact revenge seems like an open question, but Abby agrees. She hasn’t given up on vengeance, but it will have to wait. But when she does kill Joel, she knows how she’ll do it. “Slowly.”
It’s hard to imagine that Abby planned to wait five years to put this plan in action, but there’s a time jump on the other side of the credits where we find both Ellie and Joel alive and well in Jackson. Or relatively well, anyway. Ellie has gotten tougher in more ways than one. First seen training in hand-to-hand combat, the now-19-year-old Ellie seems to be holding her own against her sparring partner, though Jesse (Young Mazino), her friend and instructor, has some critiques of her technique. When Jesse follows these by telling her they went easy on her so as not to have to explain any injuries to Joel, Ellie sees red. Something’s amiss between the two.
Even so, Jackson looks lovely. If you have to live in a retrofitted postapocalyptic American city, it’s hard to imagine one better than Jackson. But making it work takes a lot of, well, work. And who better to serve as a project manager to keep Jackson running and expanding to allow for more residents than Joel, a veteran contractor? Joel, too, is looking well, even if the years have obviously weighed on him. His hands are stiff, and he needs glasses, but he happily greets a visitor arriving to ask questions with a friendly “Hey, kiddo.”
It’s the sort of greeting he’d normally deliver to Ellie, except it’s not directed at Ellie. It’s Dina (Isabela Merced), who we’ll soon learn is a close friend of Ellie’s. But Dina’s also quite tight with Joel and eager to learn about how breakers work and whatever else he wants to teach her. But Dina has a question unrelated to breakers. Why is Ellie mad at Joel? Joel doesn’t have an answer. Or, more accurately, he doesn’t have an answer he can tell Dina (or maybe admit to himself). She’s 19. Of course she resents her father (and, whatever’s going on between them, it’s clear Ellie and Joel now think of each other as father and daughter). When he elaborates on this, Dina comes to a realization: Joel’s in therapy. He denies this, then admits it, and then asks Dina to keep it to herself.
Elsewhere, Ellie is partaking in a different sort of therapy. With Joel’s brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna), she’s using a sniper rifle to take out some undead threats. But there’s a limit to Ellie’s increased responsibilities. Though Ellie’s been taking part in patrols, Joel has asked Tommy to scale back her duties and have her watch the gate instead. This, predictably, doesn’t go over well with Ellie, who refuses to take the assignment and mockingly shouts about her secret Cordyceps immunity to Tommy’s annoyance. Tommy tells Ellie that she and Joel are “the same goddamn fucking person.” Ellie replies that, if true, he should know he’s not winning this fight. He doesn’t.
This seems likely to be a problem for Joel, but Joel has other problems. Meeting with Maria (Rutina Wesley), Tommy’s wife and one of Jackson’s leaders, Joel explains that he doesn’t have the manpower to adhere to the schedule she wants. But Maria’s requests stem from a need to keep Jackson expanding to accommodate refugees. Joel argues for border restrictions and the need to keep others out of the lifeboat to avoid sinking, but his heart’s not in it. He’s a multifaceted man, and those facets include being a big sweetheart. He’s a fun, loving uncle to his nephew Benjamin, and when it comes down to it, he wants to save everyone he can. To remind him of this, Maria tells him, “You were a refugee, too.” He hasn’t forgotten.
Could therapy be aiding his attempts to get in touch with his more sensitive side? Maybe, but in Gail (Catherine O’Hara), he has a tough therapist. She’s not, however, averse to starting the session with some whiskey — or, for that matter, from drinking before the session begins. Joel pays her in (not-so-great) weed, and that seems to suit Gail. Whatever skills Gail has as a therapist, and they seem considerable, she treats herself by self-medicating. She has an understandable reason to do this. It’s her birthday and her first without Eugene, her husband of 41 years.
This, we’ll soon learn, has everything to do with Joel, who, for reasons we don’t learn here, killed Eugene. However justified this killing seems to have been, Gail’s never gotten over this, but she’s still agreed to help Joel through his problems with Ellie. Joel doesn’t understand her distance or her brusqueness. Gail tries to talk tough, telling him Ellie’s acting like every other 19-year-old who wants to put distance between themselves and their parents. Gail also senses there’s something Joel’s not telling her. And Gail can only help Joel if he says it, just like she says how angry she remains at Joel for what he did. All Joel can say is that he “saved her.” To Gail, this seems like an odd secret to be keeping. She can’t yet realize that he’s referring to both his proudest moment and his deepest shame.
In the garage she’s claimed as her home, Ellie prepares to go on patrol when Dina makes an unexpected arrival. The two share the easy rapport of close friends, but when Dina moves in close to help Ellie suit up for the patrol, a look of unease crosses Ellie’s face. As with Joel, something unspoken has begun to cast a shadow on their relationship (albeit a very different sort of shadow).
Ellie’s back to her sarcastic self when she and the others receive patrol instructions from Joel. On the trail, Dina needles Ellie a bit about that night’s dance and whether she’ll be taking her ex, Kat (Noah Lamanna), who’s also on this patrol. Dina has an idea: Why don’t she and Ellie go to the dance together? Dina’s free, after all, having broken up with Jesse (again). But before Ellie can answer, a more immediate concern presents itself: The remains of some kind of infected attack outside a supermarket. The corpses of several infected lie outside next to the corpse of a bear. Breaking protocol, Dina and Ellie decide to see what’s inside.
To determine how many infected they might encounter, Ellie and Dina crouch outside and listen for their noises. They count two, which isn’t ideal, but they head in anyway. Ellie claims one as a victim, then crashes through the ceiling and into the store with no apparent exit. This, too, is not ideal! Making matters worse, Ellie encounters a type of infected no one has ever seen before, one capable of hiding and strategizing. Ellie prevails, but this seems like a troubling development. The town council agrees (even if they’re not convinced that Dina and Ellie are being entirely truthful about how exactly everything unfolded).
In private, Ellie has other concerns. Bitten by the infected, she now has to hide another bite mark that would betray her immunity to those who don’t need to know about it. Her painful solution is to surround the area with scars to disguise the telltale toothmarks.
Ahead of the dance, Joel decides to check on Ellie. He gets a cold shoulder, even after Joel tells her he’ll restring her guitar, which has a distinctive moth design on its neck. Joel might not be able to repair their relationship, but there are some things he can repair.
At the dance, Ellie and Jesse watch Dina dance until Dina claims Ellie has her partner. They’re both a little (maybe more than a little) drunk and/or high, but there’s no mistaking that something has shifted between them. “Every guy in this room is staring at you right now,” Ellie tells Dina. “Maybe they’re jealous of you,” Dina tells her. Then, to illustrate why, Dina kisses Ellie. The moment doesn’t last long before Seth (Robert John Burke), an older member of the community, warns them it’s “a family event” and then lays a homophobic slur on them. This does not sit well with Joel, who punches Seth. This, in turn, does not sit well with Ellie, who’s embarrassed that Joel’s come to her defense, to Joel’s mystification. The space between them just got a little deeper.
The wordless moment between them when Ellie returns home only confirms this. This will surely have consequences in the future. So, too, will the episode’s final two images: a vine moving in one of the broken pipes we saw earlier in the episode and the arrival of two familiar figures who look at Jackson from a distance: Owen and Abby.
A compelling and ominous return, “Future Days” establishes a new status quo for the series, one based around Jackson. Or at least it seems to. It’s worth remembering that the first season began with similarly detailed scene-setting only to chuck it all once Joel and Ellie hit the road. For now, we get a memorable depiction of a group of survivors doing their best to create a kind of utopian community and largely succeeding. There are threats, to be sure, and disagreements, but it’s a functional place, maybe even a place where its members can carve out moments of joy as they rebuild. Just as relevantly, the episode establishes how much has changed in the five years between the events of the previous season and this one. Ellie has grown up (to a point). Joel has grown older and settled into a role as a community leader. The two have become alienated for reasons that we still don’t know (but can at least partly intuit, given that opening flashback), but their relationship still remains central to both their lives. Whether it will survive the promised dangers to come, however, remains to be seen.
• The White Stripes poster on Ellie’s wall serves as a reminder that, in this world, pop culture effectively ended in 2003. Still, Ellie seems to be developing a specific taste. She likes Nirvana (and has gone all the way back to their Sub Pop years for her personal soundtrack) and guitars in general.
• One thing that has not changed about Ellie’s taste: She still favors Chuck Taylors. Dina razzes her about this, but cloth Chucks really aren’t practical winter footwear, even pre-apocalypse.
• We get a reference to Curtis and Viper, Joel’s favorite action franchise (and Ellie’s when she’s not mad at Joel). It’s a cute throwback to the brainless entertainment of the pre-apocalyptic world, but there’s another layer to it this season, which is shaping up to be deeply concerned about the consequences of seeking revenge.
• “What do you call a grizzly’s ribs? Bear-bque.” Anyone capable of this level of terrible wordplay clearly belongs with Ellie.
• Good to see Robert John Burke as Seth. A veteran character actor, he has the distinction of both appearing in Hal Hartley movies and playing RoboCop (in RoboCop 3).
• It’s nice to live in a moment when two first-rate series, The Last of Us and The Studio, are giving us two different sorts of great Catherine O’Hara performances.
