The Song At The End Of "The Last Of Us" Season 2, Episode 2 Is Actually A Heartbreaking Easter Egg You Might've Missed
There are obviously MASSIVE spoilers ahead for The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 2!
So, if you're like me, then you probably still haven't recovered from the extremely emotionally draining The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 2, aka "Through The Valley," which was directed by Mark Mylod and written by show co-creator Craig Mazin.
This episode was one that gamers have been attempting to mentally prepare for. As Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Dina (Isabela Merced) get caught in a blizzard while out on patrol their path collides with Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), who has arrived in Jackson on a mission to kill Joel.
It's a brutal scene as Abby brings Joel and Dina back to her group, and proceeds to tell Joel that the Firefly doctor he killed in the Season 1 finale was her dad, and now she's here to kill him and make it slow and painful. Dever gives an award-worthy performance here. No question.
In a heartbreaking moment taken directly from The Last of Us Part II game, Ellie (Bella Ramsey) arrives while Joel is already bloody on the floor, struggling to stay awake. It's a sob-inducing moment as Ellie pleads with Joel to get up. However, Abby ultimately deals the final fatal blow.
While Joel's death scene is basically a shot-for-shot recreation from the game, the show dives even deeper and makes it arguably more brutal, as we see Abby stab Joel with a broken golf club, and then Ellie crawls over and lays her body over Joel's after Abby and her crew leave. It's a stunning performance by Ramsey, too.
HBO
Then, in another addition from the game, we see Ellie, Dina, and Jesse (Young Mazino) dragging Joel's body back down the hill to Jackson, which has also just undergone an attack as a horde infiltrated the town's gates.
HBO
Whew. It's heartbreaking, and even though I knew it was coming, this scene was as much of a gut-punch as when the game was released in 2020.
And while all of those moments are devastating, it's actually the music that plays over the final montage as the camera zooms out while Ellie lies on top of Joel, followed by them dragging his body through the snow, that actually made me burst into tears.
The song that kicks in is "Through The Valley," which is also the episode's title. It's originally sung by Shawn James, however The Last of Us elects to use a cover that has such a deep connection to the story.
The show uses a cover of "Through The Valley" that is sung by Ashley Johnson, who voiced and did the motion capture for Ellie in The Last of Us, the Left Behind DLC, and The Last of Us Part II.
Ashley has not only been instrumental in creating the Ellie — so much of her real personality is infused in this character — but she's also been nominated three times for the BAFTA Games Award for Best Performer in a Leading Role for her work in The Last of Us, and she's won the award twice.
And, she notably guest-starred as Anna, Ellie's mom, in the Season 1 finale, where we see how she gave birth to Ellie after getting bitten by an infected. Speaking about appearing in the show, Ashley told Deadline in 2023, "The layers of that are certainly not lost on me. It makes me emotional pretty much every time I think about it because this world and this project is so important to me and has been for a decade."
So now, Season 2 has added another emotional connection between Ashley and this adaptation by using her memorable cover of "Through The Valley," which was originally used in a teaser trailer when Naughty Dog announced The Last of Us Part II in 2016. The scene was never actually used in the game; however, the song can be heard when Joel comes into Ellie's room to give her a guitar.
Speaking on HBO's official The Last of Us podcast, Mazin discussed the decision to incorporate Ashley's cover of the song into the show, saying, "Ashley isn't just Ellie in the game, she's also now, in our show, Ellie's mother. And there's this ghostly sound of the other person who loved Ellie as much as Joel did. And what she is singing about is not good news in the end, even though Jackson is saved, even though Ellie survives. Someone's soul might be damned. And that is rough."
Mazin also told Entertainment Weekly,"It is an interesting thing in a moment like this, when your only parent is taken from you [and] the parent you've never met, the one you don't even know about, is there watching."
Using Ashley's "Through The Valley" cover from the teaser also connects to Ellie's line in the show where she threatens to kill "every last one" of Abby's group because that's exactly how the teaser trailer ended too.
There's something so incredibly special about how The Last of Us TV show has honored the original voice and motion capture actors. Like Ashley, Season 1 featured a handful of them, including Troy Baker, who played Joel in the games, and even Laura Bailey, who played Abby.
HBO
Merle Dandridge notably reprised her role as Marlene from the games, and Jeffrey Pierce, who played Tommy, appeared as Perry in Season 1.
Jeffrey Wright, who played Isaac in the games, is also reprising his role in Season 2.
Basically, I adore these nods to the video game actors and also, man, we are about to enter an absolutely brutal period for Ellie, and I honestly cannot wait to see her destroy Seattle.
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As others have pointed out, the aesthetic is pure Terry Richardson and American Apparel—Carpenter may be dressed like a 2020s office siren, but I know indie sleaze when I see it. It's impossible to see the hair grab outside of the context of our overly pornified culture. But I would also argue that the album cover is just flat-out less funny than Carpenter's usual antics. I like how goofy and exaggerated the Carpenter I've gotten to know is; that doesn't mean she shouldn't evolve, but it's understandable that Carpenter going from carrying herself like a sexy cartoon bunny to channeling Maggie Gyllenhaal in Secretary is going to inspire a little whiplash. It's totally OK that this specific image isn't landing for some of us, and I find the impulse of some people to basically start a crusade against Carpenter as an enemy of women over this troubling. Messy rollouts are one of the dangers of being a pop star and a woman in the public eye, something Carpenter knows all too well. Ironically, just as she revealed this album cover this week, Rolling Stone published a new cover story about her, and in it she spoke about how much emphasis the public puts on the sexier aspects of her persona. 'It's always so funny to me when people complain,' she said in the Rolling Stone piece. 'They're like, 'All she does is sing about this.' But those are the songs that you've made popular. Clearly you love sex. You're obsessed with it. It's in my show. There's so many more moments than the 'Juno' positions, but those are the ones you post every night and comment on. I can't control that. If you come to the show, you'll [also] hear the ballads, you'll hear the more introspective numbers.' She has a point—it's true that we could all just choose not to talk about this. (Like that's ever stopped anyone on the internet.) In the same interview, Carpenter spoke of now feeling pressure to be funny. Maybe the most generous interpretation of this cover, then, is just that it was a misfire, an attempt at satire that only sticks out because of how weirdly perfectly Carpenter has managed to pull off a very hard-to-pull-off tone for the better part of the past year. We'll never know, at least until she comes out with a vetted public statement, or her new album reveals precisely where she's taking her image next. I know it's easy to be paranoid, and I'm paranoid too that Carpenter's reign of being a subversive bimbo genius is going to give way to something flatter and defanged of its bite. But she deserves more credit than that for all the genuinely tricky feats she's accomplished so far. That's that her espresso, and it hasn't truly failed us yet.
