‘The Last of Us’ Star Kaitlyn Dever on Taking Abby’s Revenge in Season 2’s Most Brutal Moment Yet (VIDEO)

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 2.]

The Last of Us delivered its biggest gut-punch yet in Season 2’s second episode, which saw Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) and Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) finally cross paths.

If you have yet to tune into the episode, we’d suggest turning back now because there’s no turning back once you read the spoilers below.

For those who played The Last of Us Part II, the video game upon which the show is based, Joel’s death was a hanging sword (or in this case, a golf club) over viewers’ heads, and it finally came crashing down, sparking Season 2’s revenge arc for Ellie (Bella Ramsey). In the episode, Ellie wakes up the day after last week’s fateful New Year’s Eve party, where she and Joel had a spat over his overprotective actions.

Despite the seemingly sour note between them, Ellie wanted to go on her patrol shift with Joel, but learns she’ll be going along with Jesse (Young Mazino) after getting a late start. Meanwhile, Joel and Dina (Isabela Merced) set out on their own path for patrol earlier in the morning. Looming in the background of Jackson, Abby, and her crew are coming to grips with the size of the community they’re about to go up against, but she is undeterred from her goal, wanting to find Joel as soon as possible for her planned revenge.

As the episode reveals, Abby’s quest for vengeance stems from having found her father with his brains on the floor at the Fireflies hospital in Salt Lake City. He was the surgeon Joel shot to whisk Ellie away from certain death in the quest to find a cure for the infection that had taken over the world.

Meanwhile, at Jackson, precautions were being taken after concerns about infected were raised, leading Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and Maria (Rutina Wesley) to have citizens practice for a potential attack. Back at Abby’s camp, she goes outside to patrol, while her crew, particularly Owen (Spencer Lord), debate the dangers of moving forward with her plan. He ultimately says he’s going to try and convince Abby to turn back to Seattle, where they’re from.

Outside, Abby sees riders down the mountain and decides to investigate, but slips in the snow, falling down the slope into a field of frozen infected. Little does she know, there are active hoards below, and when they begin digging their way out of the ground, she makes a run for it. Making intense maneuvers to escape their bites, Abby does a decent job of running away, but when she finds herself cornered, it’s Joel’s shot that saves her.

He takes Abby to safety in the neighboring barn, and while she’s clearly grateful for the help, feelings shift when she hears Dina call out Joel’s name, realizing this is the man she’s been looking for. Keeping quiet about her feelings, Abby convinces Dina and Joel that it’s best they seek safety at her camp, which is an old ski lodge. Ellie and Jesse find themselves hunkering down in a 7-Eleven to avoid the snowstorm that’s beginning to unfold, but that only lasts so long as they realize Jackson is having trouble reaching Joel and Dina. Splitting up, Ellie sets out up the mountain in search of Joel and Dina.

When Joel, Abby, and Dina near the lodge, the hoards chasing them turn direction towards Jackson, having been summoned by the cordyceps that were agitated in a cracked-open pipe at the community’s construction area. Joel expresses concern when he sees a battle unfolding in town from a distance, but Abby continues to push for the lodge, claiming her crew can help in the fight.

Once they arrive, it isn’t long before Abby directs her crew to detain Joel and Dina, the latter of whom is injected with a sleep sedative for Abby to put all her focus on Joel. She asks him questions about the Fireflies and where he last saw them. Admitting it was in Salt Lake City, Joel finds himself on the receiving end of a bullet to the knee.

Abby directs her friend Mel (Ariela Barer) to tourniquet his leg because she plans to get more answers out of Joel, and if he lies, she’ll kill Dina. Furthering the conversation, Abby tells Joel about her father, and he tells her to just kill him and get it over with. Instead, Abby pulls a golf club from a bag in the corner and begins beating Joel violently.

Ellie’s investigation to find Joel and Dina ultimately finds her sneaking into the lodge to make a grisly discovery. As she goes to fight back, she’s held down by Abby’s crew and made to watch as Abby plunges the stick of the golf club (which no longer has the end attached after Abby’s brutal beating) into Joel’s neck, ending his life.

“It’s just something that she’s craving for so long,” Dever says of Abby’s quest for revenge. As viewers will recall, the previous episode began just days after Joel and Ellie’s Season 1 escape from Salt Lake City, and even then, Abby was thirsting for Joel’s demise. “When I was working on the characters, just thinking about that and how long she had, how much time she spent having that revenge and wanting it so badly and the resentment and the frustration and the anger, it all comes from this deep, very sad, and heartbreaking loss,” Dever points out.

“It’s just how much time she has spent on planning everything out in her head and the quest that she is on,” Dever adds. While fans are certainly going to be grappling with Joel’s loss, Ellie’s vow to kill the people responsible for this death definitely puts a target on Abby’s back, spawning a similar quest for revenge that she just completed.

“She’s a very broken human being, and I wanted to really sort of allow that to come through in her eyes, because ultimately, she’s just someone who’s experiencing extreme loss,” Dever reiterates. “It’s funny because… most of the other characters in the show have experienced loss in some sort of way and… share those similarities, but how it shows and how it comes through is different for every character given their different personality,” Dever points out.

And as viewers see in this episode, Abby’s grief comes out as “anger and rage.” Now that her mission is complete, what other emotions could viewers experience from Abby? Only time will tell. But for now, let us know what you thought of Joel’s demise and the latest episode in the comments section below, and stay tuned for more as The Last of Us Season 2 continues to unfold on HBO and Max.

The Last of Us, Season 2, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO and Max