Joel spends most of The Last of Us being emotionally closed off, and it all comes to a climax when he goes on a rampage to save Ellie at the end of the season.
With Ellie and Joel living in Jackson though, Neil Druckmann says that it was the perfect time to give Joel some help with his mental health—which was an idea they actually had for the first season. Druckmann explained to THR (via @TheLastofUsNews):
“That was a Craig Mazin idea from the previous season, Joel was going to see a therapist inside the Boston quarantine zone. For a bunch of different reasons, it didn’t work out for that season; and now that Joel and Ellie have settled into Jackson, we really wanted to make Jackson a character—this sense of community, and it felt like, ‘Oh, a therapist could be part of Jackson.’ It’s something actually everyone would need in the apocalypse after the trauma they’ve experienced.”
They didn’t just make the therapist character a random entry either. Druckmann reveals that she’s also the wife of Eugene, a character from the game who was dead by the time Part II starts, but will be given an expanded role in the series. Druckmann continues:
“We had some ideas for this character, we found a way to tie her into the lore of The Last of Us because she’s Eugene’s wife—this character that comes from the game; and then we got so lucky by getting Catherine O’Hara to play this role and play it brilliantly.”
It’s unclear how much of a role Catherine O’Hara will have in the episode, but it’s possible that she’ll have an expanded story because Eugene is also said to get is story expanded—not unlike Bill and Frank from the first season.
With The Last of Us show taking so many liberties yet staying true to the source material, I can’t wait to see just what kind of spin they would have on Part II.
The Last of Us Season 2 premieres on Max on April 13.
