It’s not just the infected, not just the guns and blood and endless running.
It’s grief.
It's regret.
It’s the slow corrosion of hope.
Season 2 doesn’t try to lighten the load. It presses harder. Future Days, the first episode back, wastes no time reminding us: survival has a cost. And sooner or later, someone has to pay it.
The story picks up about five years after Joel made his choice at the Firefly hospital. A choice that saved Ellie but damned countless others. We’re in Jackson now, that rarest thing in this world: a functioning town. Wooden houses. Real electricity. Laughter, even. If you squint, you can almost pretend the apocalypse didn’t happen. But the cracks show fast.
Joel and Ellie, played with such unshakable rawness by Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, are not okay. Future Days circles them with a kind of quiet cruelty. Joel tries to drown the truth under small kindnesses: teaching Ellie to play guitar, giving her space, pretending things are normal. But Ellie isn’t buying it. Ramsey plays her with a taut anger, a constant sense of simmering discomfort that bubbles up in sharp glances, in silences that go too long. The trust between them is poisoned, even if neither wants to say it out loud.
There’s a heavy, deliberate structure to this episode. It splits itself in two: Joel and Ellie in Jackson, and someone else, somewhere out there. Abby.
Abby. Fans of the game knew she was coming, but the show doesn’t rush it. We meet her in glimpses: a woman on a mission, brutal, haunted. . Her scenes are shot colder, harsher. Snow crunches under heavy boots. Guns are slung over tired shoulders.
And everywhere, that gnawing question: who are you hunting? It’s a bold move, introducing a character most viewers aren’t ready to like.
It’s a bet on the long game, and The Last of Us has always been good at that.
In Jackson, the episode slows down.
In Jackson, the episode slows down.
We get slices of life: patrol training, awkward teenage flirting, communal dinners. Dina (played with an easy warmth by Isabela Merced) slips into Ellie’s world with a lightness that almost hurts to watch. There’s laughter between them. Real, nervous, sweet. You can see the walls around Ellie’s heart, thick and crumbling all at once. When Dina dares to brush Ellie’s hand or lean in too close, you see the battle happening behind Ramsey’s eyes. Let someone in, or stay safe?
Director Peter Hoar, who also directed Long, Long Time, Season 1’s heartbreak grenade, brings a patience to these scenes that’s rare in TV now. He lingers on glances. He lets conversations breathe. He trusts that we understand the stakes. In a world like this, love isn’t casual. It’s dangerous.
And of course, there’s Joel. Pedro Pascal plays him even wearier than last season. Heavier, more brittle. There’s a moment, small but gutting, where Joel tries to gift Ellie a guitar, referencing the Pearl Jam song “Future Days” he once promised to teach her. The song choice is no accident. “I believe... I believed I'd see you once again,” Joel sings, brokenly. It's a love song. It’s a eulogy. It’s a prayer that won’t be answered.
Visually, Future Days feels both bigger and tighter than anything in Season 1. Jackson is rich in detail. Wooden fences. Steaming mugs. Snow piled high against windows. But Hoar shoots it with a sense of claustrophobia. Home doesn’t feel safe. It feels temporary. Every shot reminds us. Things fall apart. Always.
Director Peter Hoar, who also directed Long, Long Time, Season 1’s heartbreak grenade, brings a patience to these scenes that’s rare in TV now. He lingers on glances. He lets conversations breathe. He trusts that we understand the stakes. In a world like this, love isn’t casual. It’s dangerous.
And of course, there’s Joel. Pedro Pascal plays him even wearier than last season. Heavier, more brittle. There’s a moment, small but gutting, where Joel tries to gift Ellie a guitar, referencing the Pearl Jam song “Future Days” he once promised to teach her. The song choice is no accident. “I believe... I believed I'd see you once again,” Joel sings, brokenly. It's a love song. It’s a eulogy. It’s a prayer that won’t be answered.
Visually, Future Days feels both bigger and tighter than anything in Season 1. Jackson is rich in detail. Wooden fences. Steaming mugs. Snow piled high against windows. But Hoar shoots it with a sense of claustrophobia. Home doesn’t feel safe. It feels temporary. Every shot reminds us. Things fall apart. Always.
The show also teases new dangers in the world outside. There’s a terrifying sequence involving a newly evolved form of infected. One that moves with sickening speed and seems disturbingly aware of its surroundings. It’s a short scene, almost a side-note, but it matters. Nature is still mutating. The world is not done punishing survivors yet.
Some people will say this episode moves slow. They’re right. But The Last of Us has never been about cheap thrills. It’s about setting the knife, twisting it, then waiting for you to realize you’re bleeding. Future Days is meticulous about it. It’s about dread, not jump scares. It’s about knowing. Knowing that the people you love are not safe, not really. And neither are you.
The performances are ridiculous, in the best way. Pascal and Ramsey continue to be freakishly good together. Their chemistry isn’t big and flashy. It’s quiet, loaded with all the things they can’t say. Merced brings much-needed levity without making it feel like a different show. And Kaitlyn Dever, stepping into the daunting role of Abby, already hints at a ferocity that’s going to rip this story wide open.
The writing is sharper than ever. Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann don’t just adapt the game. They expand it. We get flashes of Ellie’s therapy sessions. Hints of survivors dealing with trauma not by picking up a gun, but by sitting in a circle and trying to talk. It’s messy. It’s real. It deepens the world without slowing the story.
As a first episode, Future Days is confident enough to trust its audience. It doesn’t explain everything. It doesn’t offer easy answers. It says: you know this world. You know how it breaks people. Watch what happens next.
By the end of Future Days, nothing catastrophic has happened yet. No one's died. No one's betrayed anyone. But you can feel it coming. The trap is set. And for the audience, knowing what’s ahead only makes it worse.
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