Episode 1: “Future Days”
“Future Days,” the first episode of The Last of Us season two, opens with the closing moments of season one. Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) are standing on a hill with the Jackson settlement they’ll call home in the distance. Ellie, unconvinced by Joel’s story about raiders massacring the Firefly revolutionaries who were looking to make a cure for the cordyceps fungus, asks the smuggler to swear that everything he said is true. Joel hesitates and then says that he swears. However, rather than keeping the now-iconic hard cut to black on Ellie’s skeptical face as she says “okay,” season two shows her walking down the hill and leaving Joel in an uncomfortable silence. This unnecessary addition to a scene that was once perfect is a pretty concise encapsulation of the season’s biggest problems. But it’s hardly the most egregious example in this episode.
Read more: The Last Of Us Season Two, Episode One Recap: Everybody Hates Joel
