The Last of Us Season 1 expanded the world of Naughty Dog's beloved game, and the second season is no different.
With the return of the HBO series, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann send you right back to the settlement of Jackson, Wyoming, where we left Ellie (Bella Ramsay) and Joel (Pedro Pascal) on the edge of town after everything that happened in Salt Lake City.
In Season 2, Ellie and Joel have been reunited with family since then, namely Joel's brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and his wife Maria (Rutina Wesley), two of Jackson's leaders. But with this pair comes a new character to The Last of Us, one who didn't appear in the Part II game: their son, Benjamin.
I'll be referencing some light game spoilers in this article, so if you'd rather the narrative remain a mystery, turn back now.
It's one of the first differences between the game and the TV series in Season 2, the addition of Maria and Tommy's young son. The series' time jump covers five years we don't get to see between Seasons 1 and 2, during which time Benjamin has been born in Jackson.
In the game, Tommy and Maria don't have any children. Adding Benjamin to their lives in the show allows actors Luna and Wesley to explore their characters' relationship with each other in a different way, illustrating how new life emerges and creates relative stability in a show where such a thing is rare. In Season 1, Maria explains to Ellie during the haircut scene in episode 6 that her son Kevin died before the Cordyceps outbreak, so Season 2 gives Wesley more room explore Maria's complicated relationship with motherhood.
Benjamin also provides a major new opportunity for Joel's character, whose experience with fatherhood has been traumatic to say the least — first, losing his daughter Sarah (Nico Parker) with the outbreak of the Cordyceps pandemic, and second, struggling to establish his bond with Ellie. The scene in Season 2, episode 1 where Joel bonds with his nephew over "shooting monsters" as Uncle Joel is outstandingly sweet, and honestly the first time we've seen Joel show his playful paternal side for an age.
However, I suspect the main impact Benjamin's presence in the show has is that it will add emotional weight to Tommy's life-changing decision to leave Jackson for reasons we'll leave unclear. It's a deeply traumatic departure for Maria, as Tommy's partner, and it'll be even more wrenching in the show now that Tommy is both a husband and a father. The stakes have changed for Tommy in the show, and his decision to leave Jackson takes on expanded significance.
Just remember, family members have not fared well in The Last of Us — never forget Season 1, episode 5, the series' most heartbreaking episode of all.
