[Warning: This story contains spoilers for The Last of Us episode 6.] Welcome to Jackson. Three months after Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) escaped the Infected-swarmed K.C. QZ, Sunday’s “Kin” episode of The Last of Us saw the pair head west to find Joel’s brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) in Jackson, Wyoming. Built out from an old gated community, the snowy settlement in the middle of nowhere is home to Tommy, his pregnant wife Maria (Rutina Wesley), and some 300 survivors. Not only is Jackson a location that players will recognize from the video game’s sequel, The Last of Us: Part II, but the commune is where fans got their first look at two characters originally introduced in Part II.
In The Last of Us video game, Joel and Ellie encounter Tommy at the Jackson County Power Plant, which powers the nearby self-sustaining settlement of Jackson. In a reversal from the game, Joel and Ellie spot the hydroelectric dam before moving on and being accepted into the town, which has post-apocalyptic amenities like functioning plumbing, water, heat, and electricity.
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The Jackson settlement is the show’s first major connection to Part II, but introducing the town so early ahead of The Last of Us season 2 felt “very natural” for Bosnia-born episode director Jasmila Žbanić.
“What we talked a lot about was that I survived the war in Sarajevo in the ’90s. I think for [series co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann], it was interesting that I was kind of living in a place which was like Jackson in a way, because we were surrounded by the Serbian army, we were constantly bombarded,” Žbanić told Variety. “We had to be on alert, we had to survive, we had to learn how to live without anything, without civilization. There was no electricity, no food, nothing. But we managed to survive because of solidarity, and the way the city was restructured. You have to start from zero.”
Žbanić continued, “That experience for me was something that I felt very close about Jackson. It’s a community that functions, and I find it really beautiful and hopeful because I really believe even in the worst catastrophes, like war, I survived. People are able to keep the society. They are not always the enemy to each other. So I was really happy to direct this episode that really said something that I deeply believe in.”
The episode also adapts a key scene from the original game, but omits a line where Joel warns Ellie she’s on “mighty thin ice” when she mentions his late daughter, Sarah. When Ellie says she’s “not her” before admitting she’d be more afraid with anyone other than Joel, he tells Ellie, “You’re not my daughter. And I sure as hell ain’t your dad.”
Adapting that scene as performed by Pascal and Ramsey “was so emotional,” Žbanić said. “Sometimes I would be crying behind the camera because they were so truthful and beautiful. This relationship is so touching. I really like that it’s changing from the beginning to the end. It’s just one episode, but it has so many changes of their relationship, which is really great.”
New episodes of The Last of Us premiere Sundays on HBO and HBO Max. Follow for more The Last of Us on ComicBook.
