The Last of Us creator reveals the reason behind the abrupt shocker happening so soon in the series 

When it comes to shocking its audience, the second season of The Last of Us really means business. The recently aired second episode of The Last of Us season two was titled Through the Valley and presented the much-anticipated death of Pedro Pascal's Joel Miller.

For those who are familiar with the Naught Dog game of The Last of Us Part II, this was just a matter of time before Joel's fate caught up with him. However, as the popular show has already been renewed for a third season, audiences were anxious about the showrunners dropping the big twist so early on in the second season.

Here's everything that we know.

What did The Last of Us creators say about Joel's death?

The second episode of The Last of Us season two saw the settlement of Jackson being ravaged by a snowstorm, along with a huge army of the infected mounting an attack. Morever, Abby ended up killing Joe brutally as Ellie watched and got some of the beating herself. Speaking in an exclusive interview with Variety magazine, the show's creators, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, spoke at length about the creative decision to show Joel's death so early on in the season. Mazin noted:

"Every choice was on the table, as I recall."

Druckmann added:

"Ultimately, I think we needed just to settle back into the show. Because even in the game, there’s like an hour or something before you get to this moment. But we also knew it needed to be early enough, because this is the inciting incident for this story. So yes, we always pick every permutation, but the later it got in the season, it just felt we were kind of dragging our feet instead of just getting to the meat of what the story is about."

Mazin further remarked:

"There’s a danger of tormenting people. It’s not what we want to do. If people know it’s coming, they will start to feel tormented. And people who don’t know it’s coming are going to find out it’s coming, because people are going to talk about the fact that it hasn’t shown up yet. Our instinct was to make sure that when we did it, that it felt natural in the story and was not some meta-function of us wanting to upset people."

Creators explain the attack of the infected in The Last of Us season 2 episode 2

As Joe is reeling in his dying breath, the settlement of Jackson is ravaged by the attack of the infected. When asked about the reason why the attack was chosen to be the backdrop to Joe's death, Druckmann explained:

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"In the game, we talk about that Jackson being threatened by infected or raiders. It was important for us to show that here, structurally, because we could jump back and forth in a way that we can’t in the game, and that could raise the tension. But also, Jackson is now a character in the story, and it’s a character that people have to take into account going forward. What does that mean? Not only have we lost this beloved character, but we’ve lost a lot of other people, and now the safety of this town is compromised. Where do we go from here? To present that dilemma going forward, it gave us the excuse to make this completely badass siege of Jackson."

The Last of Us season 2 airs new episodes exclusively on HBO.

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