The Real Story of Eugene In The Last of Us & Why Joel Killed Him
The Last of Us Season 2 premiere left viewers with plenty of questions as the HBO show brought back Joel, Ellie, and the town of Jackson, Wyoming. One of those questions has to do with one of the new characters created for the show, Gail, played by Catherine O’Hara. Gail, who is the town therapist Joel is seeing to try to work through his issues with Ellie after the five-year time jump, also has issues with Joel. And big issues at that.
Her biggest issue, as she tells Joel during one of their therapy sessions, has to do with Eugene, her late husband. “You shot and killed my husband,” she says. “You killed Eugene. And I resent you for it. No. Maybe a little more than that. I hate you for it. I hate you for it. And yes, I know you had no choice. I know that. I know I should forgive you. Well, I’ve tried, and I can’t. Because of how you did it. And looking at your face, sitting in our home, makes me so fucking angry.”
Related: Who dies in The Last of Us Season 2?
This brings up a lot of questions about who Eugene was, what happened to him, and what exactly Joel did. But who’s Eugene in The Last of Us game? How did his character change when he was adapted to the show?
Who’s Eugene in The Last of Us?
Eugene is a character featured in a patrol section of the game. He was a former Firefly who came to the Jackson settlement with Tommy. Not much is known about him other than he is a septuagenarian who becomes close to Dina and dies by natural causes. In the show, however, it seems likely from Gail’s words that Eugene is not just Gail’s husband but someone from Jackson who became infected and whom Joel was forced to kill because of the infection. Gail’s “I know you had no choice” feels like a dead giveaway.
Plus, there’s the fact that Joel is still part of the community, and Gail, as much as she’s angry, is still treating Joel. But there’s clearly more to the story in what Gail is saying about “how” Joel did it. Did Gail object to the way Joel killed Eugene? Jackson surely has protocols about this sort of thing, and no one else seems to have a problem with Joel, so this seems to be a purely Gail thing. It’s obvious that having to interact with Joel after he killed Euguene would be hard, even if, logically, Gail knows Joel did what he had to do.
Whatever it is, the show will surely revisit the scenario and tie it to the bigger conflict in the season, that of Joel and Ellie. Game creator/show co-creator Neil Druckmann told IGN they decided to make Eugene part of the show as a nod to the game. “Someone like Eugene, we had a take on that character to say, ‘OK, well, how does that expand Joel and Ellie’s relationship? How does it expand the town of Jackson? How does that expand what the story’s about, which is this idea of love and the extremes that love can take you to?’”
But Gail, Euguene’s wife, is a new character, created for the show. “We also wanted to introduce this idea of a therapist that exists within Jackson, also to allow us to expand on Jackson to try to get into characters’ minds,” Druckmann also told IGN. “But it was such a compelling character. Like, ‘Hey, how do we ground this new character? Oh, let’s tie her to someone that’s really associated with the lore of The Last of Us: Eugene.’ And now these two characters are tied to Joel.”
