The TV show also makes some drastic alterations to Joel’s storyline. In the game, his role in Jackson is simply a reliable zombie slayer, but in the TV show, he’s the foreman of a construction crew slowly but surely expanding the town to accommodate newcomers. He’s in therapy, regularly speaking to a less-than-sympathetic psychiatrist named Gail, played by Catherine O’Hara. And while the rift between Joel and Ellie has been faithfully adapted from the game, the TV show has also made Joel and Dina a lot closer than they were in the original story.
The Last Of Us Season 2 Makes Joel & Dina Friends
Joel & Dina Never Even Interacted In The Game
Joel and Dina never interact in the game. There’s only really one time that they’re in the same room — the fateful dance party seen in The Last of Us season 2, episode 1 — but they don’t speak a word to each other. Dina speaks to Ellie about her relationship with Joel throughout the game and Joel speaks to Ellie about her relationship with Dina in some of the flashback sequences, but Dina and Joel don’t share any interaction themselves. The TV show has completely changed that by building a long-standing friendship between Joel and Dina.
In the season premiere, Joel teaches Dina how to rewire electronics (a role filled by Eugene in the game) and Dina seems to look up to Joel as a mentor. When Dina picks up Ellie to go on patrol, she mentions that she and Joel are going to do a marathon of the Curtis & Viper movies the following night. In the game, Ellie is Joel’s Curtis & Viper viewing buddy. As Joel tries to mend his rift with Ellie, Dina tries to mediate the conflict and gives him advice on how to rebuild the burnt bridge.
Dina Will Now Have More Reason To Join Ellie On Her Quest For Revenge
Making Dina Closer To Joel Will Make The Revenge Mission More Personal For Her
The inciting incident of The Last of Us Part II is Joel’s untimely death. Abby comes to Jackson, lures Joel to her secluded chalet, and gruesomely beats him to a pulp with a golf club. After being forced to witness the brutality, Ellie becomes singularly focused on exacting vengeance. She heads to Seattle in the hope of finding Abby and making her pay — and Dina goes with her. In the game, Dina’s reasoning for joining Ellie is simply that she loves her: “You go, I go.” It’s a romantic gesture that Dina won’t let Ellie embark on this mission alone.
But in the TV show, Dina will have a much more personal reason for joining Ellie in her quest for revenge. Since the season premiere has established that Dina and Joel are close friends, it’s likely that Dina will want to avenge Joel just as much as Ellie does. The game makes it clear that Dina’s relationship to violence is much different than Ellie’s. Where Ellie seems to get a thrill from violence and gradually becomes a cold-blooded killer, Dina isn’t quite as hardened. So, it’ll be interesting to see how this dramatic journey plays out in the TV adaptation.
Ellie's Revenge Could Span The Last Of Us Seasons 2 & 3
Ellie Could Still Be In Seattle In The Last Of Us Season 3
Co-showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have confirmed that they won’t be covering the entirety of The Last of Us Part II’s narrative in the second season of the show; they’re splitting it up over two or even three seasons. The easiest way to chop up the game would simply be to show Ellie’s half of the story in season 2, then switch to Abby’s half in season 3. But TV shows don’t have to be quite as linear as video games, so the TV producers might be planning something more complicated in their adaptation.
