Warning! This article contains major spoilers for The Last of Us episode 8 and BOTH original Last of Us games.The Last of Us episode 8 ends Joel’s interrogation scene with a brutal kill, foreshadowing the events of season 2 in dark ways. The entirety of The Last of Us episode 8 focuses on Joel and Ellie’s encounter with David and his group, who hold a grudge against Joel specifically. This grudge comes from the fact that the man Joel killed at the end of The Last of Us episode 6 was a part of David’s community.
As a result, David sends men to kill Joel for retribution while taking Ellie alive to persuade her to lead the group alongside him. However, this does not end well for the men sent after Joel, whose wound is healing, and his drive to save Ellie spurs him into violence. This culminates in the climactic ending of The Last of Us episode 8, but not before Joel’s brutal interrogation scene offers up some season 2 foreshadowing.
Joel Killing The Man With A Blunt Object Foreshadows His Own Death
Warning! Major spoilers for The Last of Us Part I and The Last of Us Part II from this point forward.The interrogation scene in which Joel finds out the location of David’s commune ends with him killing both captives. After stabbing the man who pointed out where David’s community is on the map, Joel picks up a pipe and trudges toward the other prisoner. Joel then bludgeons the man to death before heading off to find Ellie in The Last of Us, episode 8’s ending.
Joel killing the man with a blunt instrument is a subtle, dark way for co-creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin to foreshadow Joel’s future death at the hands of Abby in Last of Us season 2. Eventually, Abby captures Joel and beats him to death with a golf club. The similar method of Joel murdering the man from David’s group, that being with a blunt instrument, has to be intentional in that the sequence will be reversed in the harrowing scene featuring Joel, Abby, and Ellie in Last of Us season 2.
When Will Joel Die In The Last Of Us?
This begs the question of when exactly Joel will die in The Last of Us. This question popped up a lot after The Last of Us episode 6’s cliffhanger ending, with non-game fans unaware that Joel will survive until the end of The Last of Us season 1. The season finale will see Joel rescuing Ellie from the Fireflies, who intend to kill her to extract the cure, setting up the events of season 2 and Joel’s eventual Last of Us death.
Joel’s death comes at the hands of Abby, the daughter of the lead doctor prepping Ellie for surgery at the end of The Last of Us. Abby kills Joel in revenge, which happens in the first few hours of The Last of Us Part II. Given this knowledge, it can be assumed that Joel’s death will potentially come in the season premiere of The Last of Us season 2, if not the second episode at the latest.
New episodes of The Last of Us release every Sunday on HBO.
