The Last of Us season 2 has finally arrived, and the first episode shows a world that’s just as brutal as we remembered it. There’s already some rageful mourning, power struggles, betrayal, and a new type of infected for Ellie to contend with, and that’s just in the first hour. But episode 1 also has a twist you might not have been expecting: a peaceful town that seems genuinely nice to live in. Because of that, the show’s brief tease that something may be amiss in Jackson, Wyoming, might have been its bleakest moment yet.
[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for The Last of Us season 2 episode 1.]
After all the running, hiding, and shooting of The Last of Us season 1, it’s hard not to be a little bit romantic about seeing people living their lives around Jackson in the season 2 premiere. Joel’s doing some bookkeeping and struggling through therapy; Ellie’s got a crush on her best friend; Tommy and Maria are running the town and raising their kid; and sure, there’s some homophobia, but even that feels more manageable than the infected outside the city’s walls.
So, when the camera lingers for just a few seconds on some Cordyceps sprouting out from the pipes under the city, it’s hard not to feel a little resentful. Jackson should be allowed to stay a nice, safe little enclave where at least some of its residents can build something beautiful in the post-apocalypse.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not asking The Last of Us not to be bleak; that’s simply not fair to its nature: When given two choices, this franchise will always choose the sadder and darker of the options. All I’m saying is that for whatever other tragedies happen in the season (and as fans of The Last of Us Part 2 will know, there’s a lot to go around), it’s sort of critical to the plot that Jackson isn’t part of it, at least for the most part. It doesn’t need to stay perfectly safe all the time, but it does need to remain a bit of a haven, living, breathing proof that somewhere in the world people are finding a way to move on. It’s not always peaceful or easy, but it’s a communal path forward from the apocalypse toward a real future.
Knowing that a place like Jackson exists somewhere in the world of The Last of Us is key to underscoring the decisions each character makes. For their sake and ours, there has to be some kind of hope.
All that is to say: I think the Cordyceps we see in the first episode should simply slink back into that pipe and find somewhere else to explore. Jackson’s doing fine, and it should stay that way.
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