LOS ANGELES ‒ Roman colosseum battles for the movie masses in “Gladiator II” got physical.
So when Pedro Pascal laid down his Roman sword for Joel’s rubber-grip revolver in HBO’s “The Last of Us,” the rugged actor admits he wasn’t entirely ready to rumble.
That’s a big deal as Pascal, 50, portrays the LeBron James of killing zombies (known as the “infected”) in the TV adaptation of the popular post-apocalyptic video game. Yet, series creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann weren’t too bothered when Pascal gave his war wound update.
“I came in very injured,” Pascal tells USA TODAY during a joint interview with co-star Bella Ramsey. “And I remember Craig Mazin telling me, ‘Well, that’s certainly appropriate for where Joel is at. The more broken you are, the more right it is for Joel.'”
Wearing reading glasses and hiding a hand injury, Joel lives up to his banged-up billing in the Season 2 premiere of the Emmy-winning series (Sundays, 9 ET/PT on HBO and Max) that shot Pascal into leading-man superstardom. Tasked with bureaucratic jobs in the relative safety of the walled Wyoming compound, Joel cedes the warrior stage to emerging forces like his surrogate daughter Ellie (Ramsey) and her best friend Dina (series newcomer Isabela Merced).
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Bella Ramsey mastered jiu-jitsu for Ellie’s action emergence
The new season jumps ahead five years after the jaw-dropping events of the Season 1 finale, which aired in March 2023. Joel mowed down the rebel Fireflies to save unconscious Ellie, whose brain, immune to infection, was about to be lethally harvested for a humanity-saving zombie cure.
Grown-up Ellie and Dina act like the infected-killing personification of their favorite action movie ‒ the show’s fictional “Curtis and Viper 2.” Ellie backs up the swagger with skills. Before shooting near Vancouver, the 5-foot-1-inch “Game of Thrones” star, 21, trained for two months in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Ellie’s showcase fighting method. “You don’t have to be big or tall for jiu-jitsu,” says Ramsey. “So there’s fighting, falling through a floor. I got to that in the first episode, my favorite things this season.”
Joel has guilt, a shrink and troubled teen Ellie in ‘The Last of Us’
It’s not just physical injuries for the greying Joel. He suffers alone with the secret reality of saving Ellie and then lying ‒ assuring Ellie that the Fireflies gave up looking for a cure when other immunes started showing up. This profound deceit cracks their relationship. Season 1 was all about Ellie trying to ingratiate herself with Joel, her protector. But the roles switch after the lie: Joel is desperate to reach Ellie, who can sense the deception.
“Ellie knows, deep in her heart,” says Ramsey, looking at Pascal. “But I can’t face it or think about it too much because the idea that you would lie is too painful.”
Joel’s guilt and parenting issues prompt a visit to what’s possibly TV’s first post-apocalyptic shrink, Gail (Catherine O’Hara), who naturally takes payment in marijuana. A trauma tune-up specialist is part of the video game, and Pascal was bummed when a therapy scene was cut from Season 1.
“Last season, Joel was in the quarantine zone with a therapist that he paid for with contraband, and they took that scene out. I grieved it,” says Pascal. “Then Craig and Neil brought it into Season 2 in a much more appropriate way. But not because I asked. I didn’t ask for it. This was just like a gift.”
Joel’s therapy with the mourning Gail is, well, complicated. And it’s ineffective in helping his strained relationship with Ellie, which veers into a post-apocalyptic, surrogate-father-daughter story fit for a Lifetime movie.
“It’s like a misunderstood father and some brat,” says Pascal, needling Ramsey.
“Oy!” Ramsey retorts. “I’ll truck you out.”
Bloaters and vengeful Abby in Joel and Ellie’s perilous ‘Last of Us’ future
Even with that personal conflict, Season 2 opens in a remarkably stable place, with structure, housing, dances, and budding love between Ellie and Dana. These moments are precious in a dystopic world where the life of every character (including those played by big stars) is tenuous. Episode 1 shows the gathering storm, even from the non-infected, as Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) starts hunting Joel to avenge the Firefly deaths. The Season 2 trailer features infected mayhem, which makes it clear that the evolving beasts will not be walled out.
There’s even another incoming bloater, a hideous manifestation seen in Season 1. “The bloater is this incredible opponent in the first and second game,” Mazin says. “We dream about using them, saying things like, ‘If it was just you versus a bloater, what would you use? How would it go?’ And we take it from there.”
Last season’s fleeting moments of bonding between Joel and Ellie, and even the dysfunctional first episode, marked the Golden Age for the stand-in father and daughter. Ramsey yearns for the times when Ellie read terrible puns to Joel from a recovered bad joke book.
“I wish we had another season of being, like, happy,” Ramsey says.
“I want to reverse everything,” Pascal says. “I want to take it all back. Go back to Season 1 and just stroll through the apocalypse. Together.”
