‘The Last of Us’ Season 2: Who is Eugene, the Mysterious Man Joel Killed?

After over a two-year wait, The Last of Us returned to HBO on Sunday night—though the world surrounding Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) looks a lot different.

Season 2 picks up five years from where the first season left off, with Joel and Ellie now reunited with Joel’s brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna), his wife Maria (Rutina Wesley), and their son, and heading up a settlement of survivors in Jackson, Wyoming. Here's what to know about what happened, and why the identity of Eugene matters. Spoilers ahead.

While the town is mainly united in their work to keep the infected out of their community, Joel and Ellie are personally at odds with each other. So much so that Joel finds himself seeing a therapist, Gail (Catherine O’Hara).

Related: Who Is Catherine O'Hara's Mysterious 'Last of Us' Season 2 Character?

It’s not the typical therapist-patient relationship; Joel pays for his sessions in pot, and in the one session audiences get to witness a semi-inebriated Gail use the session to tell Joel how much she hates him for killing her husband, Eugene, despite knowing it was necessary.

We don’t get to see Eugene (though we will at some point in the season, where he’ll be portrayed by Joey Pantoliano), nor do we know anything about the situation that led to Joel having to make that particular decision. But The Last of Us video game offers some clues.

Who is Eugene in The Last of Us video game?

Eugene wasn’t a major character in The Last of Us game, but he did have a presence, even if it was missed by many. His photo was featured in a patrol section of the game, where it is revealed that he was a former Firefly who came to the Jackson settlement with Tommy.

In the games, Eugene is a septuagenarian who becomes close to Dina (Ellie’s BFF in the show, played by Isabela Merced). By the time we meet him in the game, he has already died — of natural causes, not as a result of Joel. But Dina shares some info about him with Ellie.

As a nod to the game, the showrunners decided to make him a part of the new season’s narrative. “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?’” game creator/show co-creator Neil Druckmann told IGN.

Related: 'The Last of Us' Finally Confirms Future Beyond Season 2

Was Gail in The Last of Us video games?

While Eugene offers a tie to the games, Gail does not. She is a character created specifically for the HBO series. But one who felt necessary to Druckmann, who believes that Joel is absolutely the type of person who would seek out help in order to better understand his changing dynamic with Ellie.

“The reason he goes to therapy is because he's trying to figure out why Ellie is icing him out,” Druckmann told IGN. “And he's quite a bit in denial about the real reason what's happening there.” Hence, the Gail character. But the co-creators also found the idea of a therapist being part of the Jackson settlement would be helpful in their world-building.

“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 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.”

Basically: Sit tight, and all will be revealed. “If you've watched the first episode, they talk about Eugene and why that's important. And you’ll see even more of why that’s important as the season goes on,” promised Druckmann.

The Last of Us streams new episodes on Sundays on Max.

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