“The Last of Us” season 2 premiere pulls no punches as it catapults audiences into Joel’s and Ellie’s “Future Days.” While Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey give their usual phenomenal performances, the rest of the cast prove they are more than capable of bringing just as much emotion and tension to this new season.

The rest of this article contains spoilers for episode 201, “Future Days,” of “The Last of Us” as well as correlating aspects of “The Last of Us: Part II” video game.

Season 2’s first episode starts right where season 1 left off. After Ellie seemingly accepts Joel’s lie about what happened at the Firefly hospital in Salt Lake City, we watch as the pair continue on toward the safely guarded town of Jackson Hole. But when we reunite with them five years later, all is not right in their relationship. Thus begins the emotional tension that “The Last of Us: Part II” game does so well and that “The Last of Us” season 2 has so far daringly adapted.

Our Future Days

The significance of this episode’s title, “Future Days,” is well known to game players but perhaps still an enigma to everyone else. Though the show will likely reveal this in time, there couldn’t be a more apt title as we watch how Joel and Ellie have adapted to life in Jackson. Their emotional distance, while painful, gives the show room to more intimately explore the two on their own alongside their relationships with other people.

For Ellie, this includes intense hand-to-hand combat training, multiple friendships, and a burgeoning romance with her best friend Dina (Isabela Merced). Indeed, perhaps one of the most rewarding aspects of this episode is getting to see Ellie exist without the pressure of a life-altering mission on her shoulders. Five years have passed, and though Ellie is in many ways still the stubborn kid we met in season 1, she’s also an adult who finally has the freedom to simply live.

Similarly, the Joel we see five years on in Jackson is a lighter version of the man we knew in season 1. Safe within Jackson’s walls, Joel no longer has to scavenge or fight to survive. And in a welcome addition to the game, he also attends therapy and uses his past skills to act as the town’s contractor. Joel is as close to who he was pre-outbreak as is possible. Even so, that stubbornness he and Ellie share shines through time and again as he refuses to acknowledge the source of Ellie’s anger.

Though we don’t yet know what that source is, we can see that the two have made a life for themselves nonetheless. But in a post-apocalyptic world with so many secrets, just how long can such a life last?

Stalkers and Other Evolutions

Trapped in an abandoned grocery store while on a routine patrol, Ellie fights off an infected like none she’s encountered before. Where others run, click, or roar at their targets, this one… stalks. Game players know this infected as the aptly named “stalker.” In a further diversion from the game, the show uses these stalkers to indicate an evolution in the Cordyceps fungus as well as possible danger on Jackson’s horizon.

“Lately, I’ve had a feeling,” Maria (Rutina Wesley) says to Jackson’s council as they discuss what Ellie reported. Her words reflect the worry we see earlier in the episode when she argues with Joel over the future and viability of the town. Jackson, with its high, fortified walls and communal sustainability, is a safe haven for many. But as Joel is all too aware, and as Maria grows to fear, safe havens don’t always last forever. Especially when one of your enemies is a terrifyingly adaptive fungus that, much like humans, will do whatever it takes to survive.

Sometimes this looks like evolving into a new infected. Other times it’s more akin to finding a home in seemingly inconspicuous rotted roots and spreading out through an unsuspecting town.

The lingering shot of the Cordyceps fungus reaching toward the light of an abandoned sparkler undoubtedly spells trouble for Jackson. As Joel teaches his nephew, Benjamin (Ezra Agbonkhese), the residents of this town have come to expect that danger and monsters only exist beyond Jackson’s walls. What happens when those dangers come from within? What happens when threats form on all sides?

Slowly

Who is Abby?

In the game, this question does not have an immediate answer. However, the show, in perhaps its most significant narrative alteration yet, offers audiences a foundation for this new character immediately in “Future Days.”

Abby is a Firefly from the Salt Lake City Hospital, mourning, when we first meet her, the loss of a loved one killed by Joel. Devastated and angry, she is determined to find justice in the form of retribution. Though we do not yet know who, exactly, Joel took from Abby, we do know her pain is such that the promise of Joel’s death is not enough for her.

“Slowly,” Abby says to her friends when they decide on their next moves as potentially the last Fireflies. “When we kill him. We kill him slowly.”

Kaitlyn Dever portrays Abby’s anger and utter grief extraordinarily well in the short time we see her this episode. The emotion in Dever’s voice and facial expressions alone is surely enough to assuage any fears game players might have about the change in Abby’s muscles and bulk. With a mere glance and narrowing of her eyes, Abby becomes a young woman ready to enact some destruction of her own.

Indeed, the final shot of this episode shows Abby and her group marching through the woods surrounding Jackson, laying their eyes on the peaceful town. As Abby is pulled toward Jackson’s lights much like the Cordyceps was pulled to the sparkler’s brightness, her mouth twitches, just slightly, upward. And we know.

For Joel, Abby might just be the monster that lies beyond the gate.

Lost in the Darkness

If game players thought we had an edge on everyone else coming into this season, it’s safe to say we were wrong. In true Craig Mazin fashion, this series continues to push the boundaries of what a faithful adaptation looks like when it’s creators allow it to grow on its own. With season 2 changing or altering so much from the game already, it’s anyone’s guess what will happen next, or, perhaps most importantly, how it will happen. That just makes it even more exciting.

All we know for certain is what “Future Days” left us with. A vengeful Abby is stalking toward the gates that the Cordyceps has already breached. Darkness is creeping all around and within Jackson. When they finally land, where will the town look for safety? Where will they turn to take back their light?

“The Last of Us” airs every Sunday at 9pm (EST) / 6pm (PST) on HBO Max.