Non-Gamers, Pay Close Attention To These 6 Moments In The Last Of Us Season 2, Episode 1

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us season 2, episode 1, and mild spoilers for The Last of Us Part II.

There are some key moments in The Last of Us’ season 2 premiere that might not seem too important now, but viewers who didn’t play the video game should pay attention to and remember. The Last of Us season 2, episode 1, “Future Days,” picks up five years after the season 1 finale. Joel and Ellie are fully settled into their new home in Jackson, Wyoming, and a group of surviving Fireflies with a grudge are coming to exact revenge. The episode deviates wildly from the video game, but the series is still telling the same story at its core.

Some scenes in the season 2 premiere are ripped straight from the game, like Ellie and Dina’s sweep of a stalker-infested supermarket and the New Year’s Eve party at Jackson, where Dina kisses Ellie for the first time. The season starts off pretty slow, but it has a lot of important plot points to set up — and this episode is all setup. Since all the significant exposition is ingeniously buried in naturalistic dialogue between the characters, it can be hard to tell which information is the most important without knowing where the story is going. So, I’m here to help.

6. Dina's History With Jesse

Although the season premiere establishes a really heartwarming romance between Ellie and Dina, it also introduces their exes. Dina’s ex-boyfriend, Jesse, is the leader of all the patrols, and Ellie’s ex-girlfriend, Kat, is the leader of their particular patrol. Kat is mentioned in dialogue and journal entries in the game — and she appears in one of the “lost levels” on the PS5 remaster — but she never actually shows up on-screen. Jesse, on the other hand, has a major role in The Last of Us Part II, and his romantic history with Dina is a big part of it.

As Ellie starts her relationship with Dina, Dina’s long-standing intimacy and emotional connection with Jesse makes her insecure and jealous. In the game, when Jesse and Dina are in a room together, Ellie awkwardly leaves, because she feels like she’s getting in the way. Jesse and Dina have had a long, on-and-off romance that’s officially over now, but that relationship will still have massive ramifications on the story going forward, so don’t forget about it.

5. Tommy's Sharpshooting Skills

Early on in the season premiere, Tommy is seen giving Ellie a sharpshooting lesson with his sniper rifle, teaching her how to pick off stray infected from afar. This is very similar to a sequence from the game that appears as a flashback halfway through Ellie’s playable adventures. There are even a few lines lifted straight from that stretch of the game, like Tommy’s advice to compensate for the bullet drop. The most important thing to take away from this sequence is that Tommy is a really good shot who knows his way around a long-range firearm.

There’s a sequence coming up that will put Tommy’s sharpshooting skills to good use. It doesn’t happen until really far into the game, so the TV show probably won’t get around to adapting it until season 3 (if at all). But it’s a jaw-dropping moment in the game, so just remember that Tommy is a gifted sniper. Season 1 established that Tommy is a Gulf War veteran who served in Operation Desert Storm, which set up why he’s such a great sharpshooter.

4. Gail Mentions Her Husband, Eugene

The season 2 premiere introduces a new character who didn’t appear in the games: Joel’s therapist Gail, played by Catherine O’Hara. She mentions her husband, Eugene, who also didn’t appear in the games, but was mentioned a few times. In the premiere episode, Gail mentions that she resents Joel for killing Eugene. It’s implied that Joel put Eugene down after he got infected, but it’s also implied that Eugene’s death was suspicious, so that might not be the case after all.

Joe Pantoliano has been cast to play Eugene in the show, so a future episode will undoubtedly go back and show what Joel did to Eugene in a flashback. In the game, it’s established that Eugene is funny, lonely, an electronics expert, and a weed enthusiast. But most importantly, it’s revealed that he’s a former Firefly who served with Tommy. That probably had something to do with why Joel killed him.

3. Joel Takes Ellie's Guitar To Get New Strings

Joel and Ellie only share a couple of brief interactions in the season premiere, and they’re all pretty heartbreaking. One of the subtlest moments of heartbreak is when Joel stops by Ellie’s garage for a visit and finds her guitar lying in a pile of junk on the floor, covered in dust. He tells her the strings need to be replaced and quickly leaves to replace them for her. He doesn’t want to show it, but Ellie’s disregard for this instrument devastates him. That guitar is a symbol of their bond, and she’s abandoned that symbol.

It's not clear from the scene in the premiere episode, but Joel gave this guitar to Ellie and taught her how to play it. According to The Last of Us season 2’s trailer, we’ll get to see this heartwarming moment in a flashback in a future episode. In the game, it’s one of the earliest scenes — it happens even before the time jump — and it’s one of the most touching scenes. Remember that this guitar means a lot to Joel, and prepare to cry tears of joy when he gives it to her.

2. Abby's Moments With Owen

In the game, players don’t find out that Abby and her friends are surviving Fireflies until halfway through the story, when it’s revealed in a flashback at a crucial juncture. But the TV show gives it away upfront. In the second scene of the premiere episode, Abby and her friends are seen grieving their loss as they bury the dead Fireflies outside St. Mary’s Hospital. While the others are focused on finding a new home, Abby vows to kill Joel slowly to make him pay for killing all their friends and colleagues.

Abby is close with all her friends here, but she’s shown to have an especially close bond with one of them in particular: Owen, played by Spencer Lord. Owen is the one who talks Abby down and reaches a compromise when she swears vengeance, and he’s the one she locks eyes with as they finally arrive in Jackson at the end of the episode. Pay close attention to their interactions, because Abby and Owen have a long and complicated history together that the series will dig into.

1. Ellie Sees Joel On His Porch

At the New Year’s Eve party, after Dina kisses Ellie, Seth makes a homophobic remark, prompting Joel to step in and give him a shove. Joel expects Ellie to thank him for saving her, but she just gets angry at him. Ellie has spent the whole episode trying to get out of Joel’s shadow, and he just put her back in it, so she tells him she doesn’t need his help and he leaves. Later that night, when Ellie returns home, she sees Joel playing guitar on his porch, but she doesn’t speak to him.

There’s a bit more to that interaction that the season 2 premiere leaves out. In the game, we don’t get to see the full version of that interaction until the very end, and it recontextualizes the entire epic tome that came before it. The Last of Us’ TV adaptation might not wait that long to reveal the rest of this scene, so keep it in mind.