When HBO's The Last of Us picked up its story in Season 2, Ellie is mad at her de facto father, Joel, and there is a big reason why.
The last that fans saw of Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal's pair of post-apocalyptic survivors, Pascal's Joel, had just slaughtered dozens of scientists known as Fireflies to save Ramsey's Ellie from what was thought to be an inevitable death in extracting a cure for the show's central zombie plague from her immune teenage body.
Season 1 ended just like the game Season 1 was based on. Joel lies to Ellie on a hill above his brother's Jackson, Wyoming settlement, telling his adopted daughter nothing happened and that the Fireflies had abandoned all research into a cure.
Why Does Ellie Now Hate Joel In The Last of Us Show?
The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 1, kicked things off by driving a wedge between its two main characters, Joel and Ellie.
During the series' return to HBO, Bella Ramsey's now-19-year-old ruthless survivor is mad at her adopted father, Joel (played by Pedro Pascal). However, a specific reason is not expressed in Season 2's opening episode.
Speaking as a part of the Episode 1 behind-the-scenes special (that aired directly after the Season 2 premiere episode), series and game director Neil Druckmann described where the show picks up Joel and Ellie's story, saying the two are " not at all where we left them in Season 1."
Druckmann further teased this tension, adding that "something is not right:"
"Joel is really struggling in his relationship with Ellie. Something is not right."
In the show itself, this fissure between the two is attributed to Ellie going into her later teen years and lashing out in the ways that teenagers have been known to do occasionally. However, despite all this, the viewer gets a sense that there may be something deeper going on between the two.
Opening Season 2 on the lie that ended Season 1, along with teasing out what exactly happened in the Firefly hospital in Joel's therapy scene with Catherine O'Hara's Gail (read more about Season 2's new Gail character here), one is given the impression that Joel lying to Ellie to close the show's first season may have to do with the strain in their relationship now.
"Ellie has matured a lot from Season 1...and now she is starting to question everything," Ramsey posited during the behind-the-scenes special, hinting that she may not have liked the answers to whatever questions she may have:
"Ellie has matured a lot from Season 1. In Season 1, she was very much a kid, relied on Joel for everything, trusted him with every part of her. And now she has gone through her teenage years, establishing a sense of who she is and this solid bond with Joel has been tested, and now she is starting to question everything again."
The Last of Us showrunner Craig Mazin essentially confirmed Ellie is mad at Joel over his lie that closed Season 1, telling fans, "Joel is starting to be aware...that the problem that exists between him and Ellie stems from the lie that he told as he saved her life:"
"Joel is starting to be aware somewhere deep down that the problem that exists between him and Ellie stems from the lie that he told as he saved her life. You can’t just commit acts of violence and walk away and have your story end. The repercussions create more of them, not fewer of them. And so the chain reaction has begun again."
If the series follows the events of the Last of Us games very closely (like Season 1 did), then that is precisely why Ellie is mad at Joel.
In The Last of Us Part II, Ellie (like Bella Ramsey described above) begins to question everything as she grows between the events of Part I and II, including the events at the Salt Lake City Firefly base.
At the end of Season 1, Ellie gives a reluctant "Okay" to Joel after he lies to her about the circumstances surrounding them leaving Salt Lake City, accepting his lie as his answer to what happened that day but with a glimmer of her knowing that he may not be telling the entire truth.
That comes back later in the Last of Us Part II story as a flashback two years before the events of Season 2, Episode 1. This particular flashback recounts Ellie running away from Jackson, returning to the Salt Lake City hospital, and discovering the carnage left behind by Joel three years earlier.
She then gives Joel an ultimatum, telling her pseudo-father figure she will come back to Jackson, but they are done, driving the wedge between the two characters that is present at the beginning of this season.
Season 2 has already been shown to be closely adapting the events of The Last of Us Part II, so one can assume this key flashback will come to play a vital part in the show's proceedings, pulling the curtain back on what happened between Joel and Ellie even further.
