‘The Last Of Us’ Season 2 Just Overshadowed Rory McIlroy’s Grand Slam With TV’s Biggest Golf Moment Of 2025
The band-aid had to be ripped off at some point, and now that ‘The Last Of Us‘ season 2 episode 2 “Through the Valley” has finally dropped, I can officially say that HBO didn’t waste any time in delivering shock value. I’ll be discussing *major spoilers*, so if you haven’t watched the episode, you probably want to do that first.
Abby killed Joel with a golf club.
I repeat, Abby killed Joel, with a golf club. If your exposure to the world of ‘The Last Of Us’ has been exclusively through television, this must have come as a major shock and gut punch. It likely made you feel queasy, confused, and bewildered. How is the show going to continue without one of your favorite characters? Especially one played by such a high profile actor as Pedro Pascal. Maybe you asked yourself if you even want to continue watching the show in lieu of this latest plot twist. These are all fair and valid concerns I sympathize with.
But for people like me, who have played through the video game series and already experienced this trauma, my biggest question was, “What are golf clubs doing at a ski lodge?” Artistically, I know why they’re there. The second Abby looks at them, we realize what Joel’s about to go through. The cruel, barbaric violence delivers the intended emotional payload, which is so intense you don’t have time to question their incongruency to the setting.
And it’s literal time that may play a major factor in this adaptation. In the setting of a video game, the credits don’t roll after this shock wave. There is no wait for next week’s episode. Unless you are so disgusted by the cut scene you decide to power off your console, you just…keep playing.
Not to mention the fact you’ve spent $70 on a sequel to a very successful franchise. There are so many different factors keeping you invested and engaged in continuing the journey. You’re in the driver’s seat, playing as both Ellie and Abby, a genius stroke by developer Naughty Dog, and continuously entertained by the actual game mechanics.
Without those elements, I don’t know how the original plot holds up for television. HBO did a great job of adapting the first game in season 1, enriching it with new stories that fit stylistically into the game’s universe. The overall theme of season 1 was survival, both as Joel’s ultimate goal to keep Ellie alive, and his impossible decision to weigh the value of her survival over the survival of the Fireflies, and potentially the survival of the entire human race.
The game sequel makes a huge thematic shift to cyclical violence, and the plot is absolutely brutal as a result. The Fireflies had good intentions when they tried to enact violence on Ellie, as did Joel when he killed them in order to save her. Abby’s trauma and bloodlust are the direct collateral damage of that cycle, and we know from Ellie’s vow at the end of the episode that she’s about to get dragged into its current next.
We will see how closely HBO stays to the game plotline as they continue their adaptation. They’ve already layered in nuance by putting Joel in therapy with none other than Catherine O’Hara, and the vocalization of her anger over Joel killing her husband is a direct counterpoint to Abby’s murder. It unpacks major moral complexities, reinforces Abby’s violence as a choice (especially after Joel has just saved her life), and makes us ask ourselves, once again, if he deserves forgiveness. HBO’s writers structure the episode to support an overwhelming answer of “Yes”.
Without giving any spoilers away, my warning to first-time TV viewers is to buckle up. I know this felt like series finale level devastation, but if HBO continues to follow the game’s plotline closely, Joel’s death barely scratches the surface when it comes to how gruesome and heart-wrenching things are going to get.
