written by Jazz Tangcay, Variety
There are two key moments in “Through the Valley,” the second episode of “The Last of Us” Season 2: the first, the killing of Pedro Pascal’s Joel; the second, an epic battle sequence featuring an army of the infected tearing through the town of Jackson, Wyo.
The latter sequence between the survivors and the infected army was originally 17 minutes long, but Emmy-nominated editor Timothy Good trimmed five minutes off it. Good also revealed that the Battle of Jackson sequence was always scripted to intercut with the scenes at the lodge involving Joel, Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey).
Speaking about the battle sequence, Good explains, “We looked at it and realized that there are certain things that are peripheral to the main spine of the action, and where we need to move the Horde from coming towards us to going to the other side.”
One cut scene, Good recalls, featured a townsman sacrificing himself with a homemade net bomb. “Killing so many infected early lowered the stakes for the rest of the characters,” he explains.
Good also trimmed down scenes with flamethrowers that he didn’t need. The key lay in conversations with showrunner Craig Mazin, which emphasized that “every single cut has to propel the next piece of action.”
“Each section of that was about compressing to the point where we could apply maximum pressure to the character of Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and Maria (Rutina Wesley), because ultimately, those were the two characters that mattered in the battle sequence,” Good says, adding, “We got it down to 11 minutes because it lives on its own. If it were any longer, it would be too much. We didn’t need to tell any more of that story than is actually there.”
Another important sequence Good had to shorten was Joel’s death. In the episode, Dever’s character Abby is out to avenge her father’s death — and the man responsible is Pascal’s Joel.
“I was overwhelmed with how much was going to be accomplished in a very short period,” says Good.
His challenge was knowing that Joel and Pascal’s popularity meant that audiences wouldn’t like Abby.
Good avoided trying to make Abby sympathetic in early cuts. “There was no music for Abby; we only scored her situations. When Abby interacted with Joel and Dina, I focused on her reactions and decisions to prompt the audience to wonder what she was thinking versus our main characters.”
In the scene where Abby realizes that the man rescuing her is Joel, Good says, “I did a punch into Abby’s face from a wide shot.” He continues, “It was important for the impact of hearing the word ‘Joel’ to land on Abby as almost like a gut punch.”
For the scene where Abby kills Joel, Good had restarted the editing process over five times. “I just want to make sure I’m not missing anything and missing a style, or trying a certain way of approaching the scene.”
He wanted audiences to have a visceral feeling when Ellie enters. “What she sees is so traumatic that she immediately goes into a blind rage and starts doing anything she can to kill everyone in front of her.”
However, Ellie is pinned to the ground before she can do any actual damage to Abby’s group. Mazin wanted to keep Ellie and Joel connected but far apart. “They designed this series of shots where you can see over Ellie’s shoulder towards Joel, and to see over Joel towards Ellie. So you feel the distance between the two of them, but there’s always this connective tissue.”
It was about keeping them grounded and grafted to one another in those early moments. “In the end, I think what Craig and I recognized was this idea that — if it’s from Ellie’s direct point of view and not a privileged point of view, and to see it happen, that’s where we’re going to hit the magic spot.”
