‘The Last of Us' cocreator Neil Druckman on Joel's return, why Pearl Jam's ‘Future Days' stayed in the show, and what's ahead in the season finale

Yahoo

19-05-2025

WARNING: The following piece contains spoilers about the latest episode of The Last of Us
The Last of Us cocreator Neil Druckmann wouldn't always direct the penultimate episode of Season 2. However, after conversing with cocreator Craig Mazin, The Last of Us Part II video game cocreator Halley Gross, and star Pedro Pascal, Druckmann's choice became obvious.
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'Pedro really wanted to work with me again, so I was eyeing 206, and I was kind of really sitting with it, because it's a pretty big commitment once you pick one of these things. But I just liked the idea of doing one more deep dive, one last bite of the apple, with Joel and Ellie [Bella Ramsey], these characters I love so much.'
Directed by Druckmann (who previously stepped behind the camera to direct the first season's second episode) and cowritten by Druckmann, Gross, and Mazin, the emotional episode covers the five years between the end of Season 1 and the start of Season 2, revealing how Joel and Ellie's relationship strained under the weight of Joel's deadly choices in the Season 1 finale.
'This episode gets to the core of who they are and their conflict,' Druckmann says. 'So I just liked that it felt kind of high-stakes material that I'm really passionate about. And I also like the idea that, unlike the episode I directed last season, which was very action-oriented in many ways, this one had no action. It was all drama. And I felt like I could really stretch myself by committing to this.'
Ahead, Druckmann discusses Joel and Ellie's final conversation, explains why Pearl Jam's 'Future Days' remained part of the show despite the timeline change, and teases the season finale.
Gold Derby: The conversation between Joel and Ellie on the porch is the penultimate scene of The Last of Us Part II. However, for the show, you decided to put it here in Season 2 when there is so much more story to tell. Why the change?
Neil Druckmann: This gets into the difference in medium. When you buy the game, you have the entire story and can play it at any pace. You can do an hour a day, two hours a day. You can binge the whole thing in 30 hours. That means you have the entire story. But we deliver the story weekly for the show, roughly one hour at a time. So, because this is not the whole story, there was going to be, potentially, a multiyear gap before we get back to this moment. If it were in the same spot as in the game, we would have all these set-ups here in Season 2 with Ellie and Joel, and then you won't get the payoff for years. We'd have to hope that you remember all these little bits by the time we got to it, and it just felt too big of a risk. Ultimately, the location felt less important than for it to land powerfully. That's why we wanted to consolidate all the flashbacks to one point, move them far enough away from Joel's death, where you could feel the characters missing him, the audience could miss him, and then we give you a whole bunch of him at once. It's one final bite of the apple. That porch conversation speaks explicitly to the entire show, going back to Episode 1, and eventually to the final episode, whenever we get to it.
This is a unique episode for the show because the story is a tiered flashback — we're watching memories of events Joel and Ellie experienced. How did you approach that as the director and find the proper perspective?
It's a good question that no one has asked me. In the game, they were Ellie's memories. We were very specific about where we triggered them. Here, except for a couple of exceptions, the entire episode is from Joel's point of view. So I don't quite see them the same way. You could say Ellie recalls parts of this throughout her journey. In the last episode, 205, you see her pick up the guitar and play one line of "Future Days"; there's this dark note underneath it all. You could imagine she was picturing the moment from 206 right there, when Joel plays the song, even though we don't cut to it. So I treat it a little bit differently. And as a director, I treated it as Joel's point of view. This is how he views Ellie. He is wrestling with his feelings for Ellie and the lie and all of that.
How did you discuss that with Pedro?
Anytime you can collaborate with a great artist, it's my favorite part of what I do — whether here at Naughty Dog or on the show. And Pedro is an incredible actor. Often it's just getting out of his way, just creating the right space — maybe reminding him of a few facts about what has happened. I don't like talking too much about the process with actors, especially when we share intimate stuff. However, I can say that for the porch scene, I reminded him of what Joel's dad told him because Pedro wasn't there when we shot that scene. I was just, "This is kind of programming that has stayed with Joel all these years, and this thought in the back of his mind is: I just want the kid to be better than me." It was almost like a mantra that Joel would be repeating. I think that helped him unlock some stuff, but I don't want to give my direction too much credit with such brilliant actors. So I will say a few things to try a different option, and then just stand back and watch them do brilliant work.
You mentioned 'Future Days,' and the song is foundational to the video game. However, in the show's timeline, 'Future Days' technically doesn't exist: Pearl Jam's Lightning Bolt album came out in the fall of 2013, and the show shifted the start of the Cordyceps outbreak from 2013 to 2003. Not to be too pedantic, but how did you reconcile that discrepancy?
This goes back to a decision we made in Season 1. It was important for Craig to change the timeline because he didn't want the show to take place in the future like it does in the game. When we were in the show's present day, he also wanted it to be the present day for us. That's not that important to me. That was an easy concession for me to make. But then we've run into a few adaptation issues, you might say, as we went along. So, I wanted to honor that, and to say, because of the timeline change, we couldn't use "Future Days." We planned not to use "Future Days," and we had a different song in mind. And as we were getting closer and closer to shooting this particular episode, it just felt wrong. It just didn't feel correct. And then we traded it for another song, which didn't feel right. And then at some point, we're just like, "OK, what's more important, the canon of our reality, or the emotional truth that this song gives us?" It also has this nostalgic value for fans. We don't always value that nostalgic value because we want to tell the best show possible. But this felt like a small concession to make. Also, we don't have a fungal outbreak in our world, so we're already in some parallel dimension. In that dimension, Lightning Bolt came out before Binaural [Pearl Jam's 2000 album].
In terms of the 'nostalgic value,' do you find it challenging when fans of the game have criticized the show for not following the exact path of the game?
Because I feel so privileged and lucky as an artist, as a writer, as a storyteller, you hope that you can put something out into the world that someone will connect with and they'll engage with it. On a deep level, we have put something into the world that millions of people across the entire planet are engaging with. And yes, some people have issues with the adaptation. Some people have issues with even the source material, and they're wrestling with it and arguing about it. But to me, the fact that a video game can be talked about on the same level as a prestige HBO show, and some people say, "Oh, the game's better, or the show's better." First, I find it fascinating — just the idea of this adaptation. No one has quite done an adaptation like this before. Then, two, I'm just reminded of how far video games have come, even in my short career of making them. They can be talked about at this level for The Last of Us, Fallout, Arcane, or Sonic — take your pick of these recent adaptations. And I think more and more people are seeing just how rich narratives can be in video games. So, for me, there are certain things that the order of how we do things on the show is different from the game. There are a bunch of other reasons why we did that. But I just read this stuff, and I kind of smile. I'm like, "Oh, you'll see that later." People were worried, for example, that Ellie and Dina wouldn't hook up. And we knew that was going to happen. I will say, I'm pretty loose with that stuff. I understand that a lot of change needs to happen as we go to TV. What's important to me to keep is the destinations and what the story is ultimately about.
One example of fleshing this show out from the game is in the depiction of Eugene. He's mentioned in the game, but we don't meet him; in this episode, we get to see how he died and learn a little about his relationship with Gail. I was really surprised by how all of that played out.
That sequence was fascinating in that we had one idea when we wrote it, and then when you're directing it and shooting it, being open to what the actors are giving you, and allowing yourself to make specific changes and adjustments. So we cast Eugene in the game and the show, you hear about this character that everybody likes, and he would smoke weed and get everybody high, and he had this weird bong gas mask thing that you got to see in the episode. So we wrote him to have more humor. So even as Joel marched him to his death, he was saying funny stuff. Even in his last moments, when he was very angry, we had a line in there that I thought was hilarious when I read it — it was Craig's suggestion: "I don't need a Bob Ross painting. I need Gail." And he's yelling at Joel. As I watched Joey deliver these moments, I realized he made this wonderful choice. The more scared he got, the more he acted like a child, like someone just terrified. And you know, Gail is his partner, but he's acting as if Gail is his mother or something — like she would comfort him. And the jokes felt inappropriate. It felt like we would lose the tone of the scene and the beauty of what he's doing. So, in real time, I started pulling that stuff out. And it just got better and better and more intimate and more intense. When we're right in front of him, you look into his eyes and see this, like, sigh, and he says, "I see her." It's interesting. I have two interpretations of that moment. One is like he actually sees her; Joel has given him this beautiful exit. And the other one is that he gives Joel the exit to say, "It's OK for you to do it. I understand what you've got to do." And they both kind of work. And I love that, because his performance is so nuanced in that way.
What can you tease about the season finale?
I would point to all the mysteries we still have. Ellie's looking for Abby and the rest of her crew. Is she going to find them? Did she get the information she needed from Nora? Now that you have the context of 206, not only the emotional relationship and where she was with Joel and the fact that she was robbed of reconciling with him all the way, but you also know that Ellie now knows what happened at that hospital. She has not shared it with anybody. Why is that? What does that mean for those close to her who have come with her on this journey? And maybe most importantly, Ellie has committed this dark act. Nora is the first person Ellie has killed who is responsible for Joel's death, or at least tortured her, whether she's dead or not. Is there coming back from that? Are there lines that you cross where you have forever lost your humanity? Or is there some redemption in there?
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