Spoiler warning: “Through the Valley,” the broadcast title of The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 2, ends with Abby killing Joel while Ellie watches. The episode brings that confrontation to Jackson through a snowstorm and a large infected attack, then turns Joel’s past decision at the Firefly hospital into Ellie’s new mission for revenge.
Spoilers ahead for The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 2.
What happens in “Through the Valley”?
The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 2 ends with Abby killing Joel in front of Ellie. The episode is listed in some portfolio and advance-title references as “End It,” but its broadcast title is “Through the Valley”, which aired on April 20, 2025.
Joel’s death is not an isolated shock. The episode builds toward it through three converging movements: Ellie and Jesse struggling through a snowstorm, Abby being driven toward Jackson by an infected attack, and the settlement’s defenders attempting to survive a disaster that gives Abby access to Joel. By the end, the fragile possibility of reconciliation between Joel and Ellie is gone, and Ellie has a new, deeply personal reason to pursue violence.
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The snowstorm brings everyone toward Jackson
The episode begins with Jackson facing a worsening winter emergency. Ellie and Jesse are away on patrol when the weather deteriorates, making the route home increasingly dangerous. Tommy radios for patrol teams to return, but Ellie and Jesse are too far out to make it back safely. They decide to take temporary shelter instead.
This early section does more than establish the weather. The snowstorm separates the patrol teams while also placing them on paths that will eventually lead toward the same crisis. Visibility is poor, movement is difficult, and the ordinary systems that protect Jackson begin to break down.
Abby’s story initially looks like a separate survival sequence. Moving through the storm, she follows signs of activity into a field. The frozen ground conceals infected beneath the snow, turning what appears to be an open landscape into a trap. The infected burst out in numbers and force Abby toward a nearby building.
The attack expands the episode beyond a targeted revenge story. Jackson is not simply the setting for a murder; its surrounding environment becomes part of the threat. The storm limits communication and visibility just as the infected assault overwhelms the settlement’s defenses.
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Abby enters Jackson during the infected attack
The infected swarm reaches the area around Jackson, and the town’s defenders scramble to contain it. The combination of darkness, snow, and infected movement creates confusion on all sides. Abby’s immediate goal is survival, but the attack also creates the opening she needs to reach the people she has been seeking.
Joel encounters Abby during the chaos. He does not know who she is, what she wants, or why she has arrived. He sees someone in immediate danger and helps save her from the infected. That decision reflects the protective instinct that has defined much of Joel’s relationship with Ellie and the people around him.
Abby then leads Joel to a nearby refuge, where her companions are waiting. The apparent rescue becomes an ambush. Joel is restrained, and Abby makes clear that this meeting is not accidental or impersonal.
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Why does Abby kill Joel?
Abby kills Joel because he killed her father at the end of Season 1.
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In the Season 1 finale, Joel rescues Ellie from the Fireflies before they can operate on her. The Firefly surgeon preparing to perform the procedure is Abby’s father. Joel kills the surgeon and several other Fireflies while preventing the operation, then takes Ellie away from the hospital.
Abby has spent years carrying the consequences of that loss. When she finds Joel, she has finally located the person she holds responsible. Her revenge is personal, but the episode connects it to the same moral conflict that shaped Joel and Ellie’s story: one person’s attempt to save someone they love creates devastating losses for other people.
That does not make the violence morally simple. The episode gives Abby a comprehensible motive without presenting revenge as a clean resolution. Abby gets what she has pursued, but her act immediately creates another person who has witnessed an unbearable loss and now has a reason to retaliate.
Ellie witnesses Joel’s murder
Ellie arrives at the refuge and finds Joel being tortured. She tries to intervene, but Abby’s group overpowers her. Ellie pleads for Joel’s life and watches helplessly as Abby kills him with a golf club.
The scene is deliberately intimate and prolonged rather than a quick action sequence. Ellie’s helplessness is central to the moment. She knows the killer’s face, understands that Joel is being targeted because of something in his past, and cannot stop what is happening.
Joel’s final mistake is therefore not simply that he fails to recognize Abby. It is that he helps a stranger without seeing the danger attached to that act. The episode places his compassion and confidence in the relative safety of Jackson directly alongside the consequences of his earlier violence. He saves Abby from an immediate threat, only to give her the opportunity to complete her revenge.
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This is an interpretation of the episode’s sequence rather than a claim about the creators’ private intentions. What the story makes clear is the irony: Joel’s instinct to protect someone becomes the route by which his past finally reaches him.
How Joel’s death changes Ellie
Joel’s death destroys the possibility of an uncomplicated reconciliation between him and Ellie. Their relationship had been damaged by the truth about the Firefly hospital and by Ellie’s growing understanding of what Joel did to save her. There was still a possibility that they might confront that history together. Abby’s attack removes that possibility.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsEllie is left with trauma, rage, and a direct visual memory of the person responsible. She is no longer simply trying to understand Joel or repair their relationship. She has become the witness to his murder and the person most likely to pursue Abby.
That shift creates the season’s immediate story engine: Ellie’s pursuit of Abby. But the larger question is whether revenge can deliver the justice or closure Ellie believes she needs. Abby’s revenge has not ended the conflict. It has transferred the burden of violence from Joel’s generation to Ellie’s.
Jackson also absorbs the consequences. The infected have breached the settlement’s defenses, and one of its defining figures is dead. The community must now respond to both a physical disaster and the emotional fallout from Joel’s murder.
What does the ending mean?
The ending of “Through the Valley” is not built around a mystery reveal. It is a narrative severing.
- Joel is dead: the central protector from the first season is gone.
- Ellie has seen it happen: her grief is tied to a specific face and a specific act.
- Abby has completed her mission: the revenge that brought her to Jackson has reached its immediate objective.
- Jackson has been breached: the settlement’s apparent security has proven fragile.
The two episode titles emphasize different aspects of that transition. “Through the Valley” evokes a dangerous passage, fitting an episode in which people move through a storm, an infected attack, and the collapse of Jackson’s protection. “End It,” the portfolio title used for this recap, emphasizes the apparent ending of Joel and Ellie’s former story.
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Abby’s revenge is both an ending and a beginning. It ends Joel’s life and the old shape of the series, but it begins Ellie’s pursuit and another turn in the cycle of retaliation. The episode is therefore about more than Joel dying. It is about one character’s past violence becoming another character’s future mission.
The biggest differences from The Last of Us Part II
The television adaptation draws on the central revenge structure of The Last of Us Part II, but it changes the presentation and sequencing around Joel’s death.
The most prominent change is the large-scale infected attack surrounding Jackson. Abby’s movement through the storm and the infected emerging from the frozen ground turn her arrival into an extended survival and action sequence. The show makes Joel’s death part of a community-wide disaster rather than presenting it only as a targeted encounter.
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The source game begins from a similar broad premise. Five years after the first story, Joel and Ellie are living in Jackson when a violent event disrupts their relative peace. The resulting narrative follows Ellie’s search for justice and closure, while The Last of Us Part II also develops Abby’s perspective and the repercussions of the characters’ actions.
The adaptation should not be treated as a scene-for-scene transcription. It rearranges and expands material, and the series may frame events differently from the game. It is reasonable to identify those structural changes. It is not reasonable to assign a single confirmed creative explanation to every change without a direct interview or production source.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What happens next for Ellie?
At the end of the episode, Ellie has no realistic path back to the life she had before Abby arrived. Her grief is immediate, but so is the pressure to turn that grief into action. Joel’s death gives her a target, while the story leaves open the more difficult question of what reaching that target would accomplish.
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The episode’s most important transfer is not only from Joel to Ellie as the central character. It is from one moral burden to another. Joel made a choice in the hospital that saved Ellie and condemned Abby’s father. Abby answered that choice with murder, and Ellie now faces the temptation to answer Abby in turn.
That is why “Through the Valley” functions as the season’s decisive turning point. Jackson’s fragile peace is over, Joel’s story has been violently closed, and Ellie’s search for justice begins with the face of the person who took him from her.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 2 called “End It” or “Through the Valley”?
The episode is broadcast as “Through the Valley.” “End It” is the portfolio title used for this recap and may appear in some episode references connected with the assignment.
Why does Abby kill Joel?
Abby kills Joel because Joel killed her father, the Firefly surgeon who was preparing to operate on Ellie in the Season 1 finale. Abby has pursued Joel for revenge.
Does Ellie see Joel die?
Yes. Ellie arrives while Joel is being held, tries to save him, and watches Abby kill him with a golf club.
How is Joel’s death different in the TV adaptation?
The show expands and rearranges the game’s material. In particular, Joel’s death is surrounded by a major infected attack on Jackson and Abby’s storm survival sequence, making the event a community-scale disaster as well as a personal ambush.
The Bottom Line
Bottom line: Season 2, Episode 2—broadcast as “Through the Valley”—uses the storm and infected attack on Jackson to bring Abby to Joel. Because Joel killed Abby’s father during the Season 1 hospital rescue, she tortures and kills him while Ellie watches. The episode ends the old Joel-and-Ellie story and begins Ellie’s revenge-driven pursuit of Abby.
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