The first season of The Last of Us ended with Joel lying to Ellie about the Fireflies; like every good story, the second season will deal with the consequences of such a lie.
As it turns out, the lie that Joel tells Ellie actually comes from a very personal place for director Neil Druckmann, who says that he came up with the ending because his parents lied to him when he was young.
“I Know They Were Trying to Do the Right Thing”
In a recent talk with CheCHAT, Druckmann was talking about the writing process for The Last of Us. While he is sure that Joel will have to kill the doctor to get a cure, he is trying to figure out the ending, where Joel lies to Ellie about what went down with the Fireflies. Druckmann explains:
“I was looking at this end scene that happens afterwards, and I’m like, ‘What happens here?’In the engineering of it, I didn’t know. But when I sat down to write that scene, something just came out of me. Which was this lie— that Ellie would confront Joel about what actually happened, and he would swear to face and completely lie to her.”
Druckmann then recalls a time when he was young and his dog died, and his parents lied to him about his dog. He only learned from a neighbor who offered their condolences to Druckmann without knowing he was lied to. Druckmann continues:
“I really struggled that they didn’t tell me the truth, and then when we moved to the United States, they didn’t tell me. Because again, they’re trying to protect me, and that was when I find out we’re staying and it was traumatizing, it was a shock to the system… I had a year of depression after that.”
It All Fell Into Place
For some specific context, after Joel saves Ellie from the Fireflies and kills everyone, Ellie asks Joel what happened, and Joel says that there were a bunch of different immune people, but the Fireflies couldn’t come up with a cure, so they gave up on it. Afterwards, a bunch of raiders came, and Joel had to rush Ellie out of there.
“So all these kind of lies, and I know they were trying to do the right thing, but for me it wasn’t the right thing,” says Druckmann, “And on a subconscious level, it just came out of me—it really fell into place, and I think that was the first draft and it just felt like, ‘This is it. I can’t tell you why, but this is the ending.’”
If anything, many people in the comments thought it was a natural thing for Joel to do in the story, but anyone who’s played the game knows it will result in heartbreaking consequences.
We don’t know precisely how the series will tackle it, but seeing how faithful the show has been to the game, the big reveal will probably have to happen near the season finale.
The Last of Us Season 2 premieres on Max on April 13.