This text incorporates spoilers for “The Value,” 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 inconceivable 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 unique video games and Bella Ramsey within the present. Based on recreation creator and co-showrunner Neil Druckmann, although, there is a world the place Joel possibly survives. Nevertheless, as he defined to Alan Sepinwall for Rolling Stone, he and his co-showrunner Craig Mazin finally 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 the whole lot,” Druckmann advised Sepinwall when the latter requested in the event that they thought-about saving each Abby and Joel’s loss of life for a later season. “We even mentioned what if we did not kill Joel, simply to interrogate it. As a result of the whole lot needs to be on the desk. Every little thing needs to be interrogated to verify we’re making the perfect selections 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 mistaken. It felt like we might solely be doing it for enterprise causes, to keep up this sense that individuals have for longer. However there wasn’t a narrative there to encourage it. The inciting incident, the origin of this story is Joel’s loss of life. Any inciting incident, you must get to it as quickly as attainable. What motivates this complete 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 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 arduous
Neil Druckmann stepped into the director’s chair for “The Value” — 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 loss of life, which means that Pedro Pascal did should 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 distinct mission,” 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 undoubtedly, as we have been getting nearer to the top, you might 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 nicely that the ultimate go-around with Joel and Ellie within the tv sequence — 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 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 may be,” Druckmann mentioned, talking to the truth that Pascal’s Joel and Ramsey’s Ellie have gained 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’d have been anxious 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 recreation. However we put in sure modifications 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 stunning, based on Neil Druckmann
Clearly, Joel does die (at Abby’s fingers in season 2, episode 2, “By way of the Valley”), and that is why we solely see him by way of flashback in “The Value,” dwelling by means of a number of of Ellie’s earlier birthdays and charting the ups and downs of their relationship. Neil Druckmann mentioned that filming this episode with each Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey was at all times intense, significantly 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 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 additionally to me personally … I used to be very nervous. I needed to verify I did it justice for not solely the present, however simply ‘The Final of Us’ as a complete, 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 have 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 might have completely happy accidents, like you’ll be able to’t plan for one thing,” he mentioned 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 then you definately see he has this simply stunning 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 stunning moments which can be 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.
