Warning. Spoilers for The Last of Us Season 2. The Last of Us Season 2 premiere left fans with plenty of questions as the HBO show returned to Jackson, Wyoming, after a five-year time jump, to find Joel and Ellie’s relationship very much changed from what we’d last seen in Season 1. In fact, the first episode showed an Ellie who is barely talking to Joel, and one who multiple characters remark is “angry” at Joel, including Ellie’s best friend Dina and Joel’s therapist Gail.
But why exactly is Ellie angry? The first episode doesn’t give us a concrete reason, but the context clues from what happened at the end of Season 1 and The Last of Us 2 game provide us with an answer in that regard, and it’s a heartbreaking one, particularly considering what we know is coming for Joel—likely sooner rather than later.
Related: Who dies in The Last of Us Season 2?
Here’s what we know about why Ellie is mad at Joel and how that’s likely to play out, considering what’s coming for both of them in the next few episodes of The Last of Us.
Why is Ellie mad at Joel in The Last of Us Season 2?
The Last of Us Season 1 ends in a weird place for Joel and Ellie. Ellie is sedated as Joel massacres the Fireflies to save her, and when she wakes up, Joel lies to her and tells her that the hospital was attacked by infected, and he barely just got her out. However, Ellie wants to believe Joel, so she does. Viewers, however, know the truth. Ellie was supposed to die at the hands of the Fireflies, all in the name of seeking a possible cure.
When Joel found out that the Fireflies weren’t even sure they could get a cure, and that trying would kill Ellie, he decided Ellie’s death was too high a price to pay. That’s when he murdered the Fireflies, and the doctor who was supposed to operate on Ellie, who turns out to be Abby’s father. Afterwards, he takes Ellie back to Jackson and never tells her about it.
Fast forward five years, and though the show doesn’t explicitly tell it, it’s implied that Ellie has somehow found out about the secret Joel is keeping. In The Last of Us 2 game, we discover in a flashback that Ellie returned to the Salt Lake City hospital and uncovered a recording of what happened. She then confronts Joel about it, and he confirms the truth.
Whether the show will have Ellie find out the same way or have Joel confess the truth to her, as it seems unlikely that Ellie will have ever made it to Salt Lake City on her own, remains to be seen. But considering what happened in the game, it’s safe to assume that by the time Season 2 of The Last of Us picks up, Ellie already knows that Joel sacrificed an entire team of Fireflies, and likely the world, just to save her. Considering how seriously Ellie took her role as a possible savior of humanity due to her immunity, this must be weighing on her.
Ellie felt like her immunity gave her a purpose, and Joel, because he cared too much about her to let her go, took that purpose away from Ellie by saving her. It’s a messed-up situation because he acted out of love, and yet he robbed Ellie of the thing that had defined her. So, can Ellie forgive him? Could she have? Perhaps if she had more time. In the game, she never fully forgives him, though she does tell him she would like to try. Except they never got the time for that, as we all know what’s coming for Joel in the form of Abby. And that’s the real tragedy of this.
