Neil Druckmann, the inventive force behind the Last of Us video games, gets why viewers of the TV show would expect any episode he directs to be pack
Neil Druckmann, the inventive force behind the Last of Us video games, gets why viewers of the TV show would expect any episode he directs to be packed with action. He sort of expected that too. But the episode of the series he just helmed is relatively lithe on brutality—unless you count heavy-duty emotional violence.
“It felt like a very important and intimate episode,” Druckmann tells Vanity Fair in an interview about episode six, “The Price.” ”Unlike last season, when I directed a very action-heavy episode, I really liked the idea that it has no action. It’s all drama.”
There isn’t much in the way of characters running from or destroying hordes of infected here, as there has been in other chapters from The Last of Us. There aren’t battles between warring factions of survivors fighting for dominance in the wasteland of what used to be America, either. But there is still significant tension, conflict, and revelation in Druckmann’s script, which he cowrote with fellow showrunner Craig Mazin and Halley Gross, a Westworld veteran who worked with him to craft the 2020 game The Last of Us Part II.
“The Price” also brings back Pedro Pascal’s Joel—who died in episode two of this season—by way of flashbacks focused on him and Bella Ramsey’s Ellie. The story culminates with Joel confessing to Ellie that he killed the hospital staff who were trying to extract a cure from her. She reacts with grief—not only because he lied to her for so long about that rescue, but also because she would rather have given her life for something so meaningful. “We’re getting deep into Ellie and Joel’s relationship,” Druckmann says. “The stuff they’re talking about on that porch should resonate, going backwards and forwards with everything that the story has left to tell.”
Vanity Fair: Ellie and Joel lay all their secrets out in episode six. What made this one you wanted to direct yourself?
Neil Druckmann: Sometimes those dramatic sequences are more engaging than any action. I want people to lean forward and really be invested: How is this argument going to turn out? Ultimately, this show is about these relationships. We have really frigid infected, and we have frigid set pieces, but those sequences can only work if you care about the outcome for the people involved. Otherwise, you’re not going to be emotionally moved by it.
The opening sequence shows Joel as a teenager with his brother, and we meet his cop father. His dad is played by Better Call Saul’s Tony Dalton, who can be so intimidating.
He is the scariest charming person onscreen. He does so much with so little, with just the intensity in his eyes. And then how that intensity turns to pain as he’s recalling what he had to experience with his father, and how he’s trying to do a little bit better. It was crucial that you believe him.
I kept expecting their conversation to explode into violence.
In the writing process, we had versions of the scene that you are describing. It ultimately felt more engaging for this dad to find some camaraderie with his son. It’s like, “This time the wrong thing that you did was actually the correct thing. Because you did violence to protect your tribe, your family, your brother. And that’s what I have done. Sometimes I’ve even hit you to protect you. So maybe now you can understand who I am.” And then he admits he doesn’t know if even that’s the correct thing. All he knows is that he didn’t beat them as badly as his dad did, so he knows he’s done a little bit better. And he’s hoping that when his son grows up, Joel would do a little bit better than him.
Joel says something similar to Ellie in the final scene on the porch. We know from the previous episode that Dina (Isabela Merced) is pregnant, and Ellie is going to support her care for the child. Joel didn’t know that would happen, but his words feel very prophetic now.
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