The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 2 Stirred My Memory of Glenn’s Brutal Death in The Walking Dead

I have always felt drawn to stories, including movies, TV shows, and games, set in a post-apocalyptic world infested with the undead. That’s why AMC’s The Walking Dead was one of the first TV shows I never missed when I was in high school. I caught up to the latest events by the time Season 6 started airing in my country, and teenage me wasn’t ready for the harrowing death of my beloved character in The Walking Dead franchise.

Heavy Spoiler Warning:

This article contains massive spoilers about a main character’s death in The Last of Us Part 2 and The Walking Dead. Therefore, proceed with caution and we highly recommend you to experience both series first to avoid ruining your intended experience.

Of course, I’m talking about the shocking and brutal death of Glenn Rhee, one of the iconic faces of The Walking Dead franchise, at the hands of Negan. It’s been more than a decade since Negan used Lucille, the baseball bat wrapped with barbed wire, and bludgeoned Glenn to death. Watching a character you have grown attached to over a long time, meet such a bone-chilling end was one of the literal heartbreaking moments of my life.

Maybe I need to stop getting attached to fictional characters, but witnessing Glenn get bashed to death kind of prepared me for the worst outcomes for my favorite characters in the future. Years later, I played The Last of Us Part II video game (review), in which Joel, another one of my most cherished main characters, met a similar harrowing end in the story. Even though Glenn prepared me for a situation like this, watching Joel’s life end shattered my heart into pieces.

Now, the moment I’ve been dreading has finally been adapted in the second episode of The Last of Us Season 2. The showrunners have slightly altered how they portray Joel’s demise in The Last of Us, but it’s still as gut-wrenching. While Joel’s death in the game was brutal, some of the moments were off-screen, and it lasted for a short period. On the other hand, the live-action TV show doesn’t shy away from showcasing Abby‘s brutality against Joel.

In line with The Walking Dead, where Negan smashed Glenn’s head into a pulp, TLOU portrays Abby bashing Joel on his injured leg and then his head with a golf club. The creators even changed the scene to Abby killing Joel by piercing the jagged end of the shattered golf club into his neck, just as one would take down an infected. Undoubtedly, both these sequences will be remembered as one of the most traumatic deaths in television history.

Be it Abby‘s ruthlessness or Joel succumbing to his death, I truly felt the gravity of the situation here, same as I felt when watching Glenn die back then. This was possible because the showrunners remained faithful to their respective source material and depicted it excellently on screen for the TV show audience.

Not only did Joel’s death in The Last of Us TV series mirror Glenn’s death in The Walking Dead, but their killers, Abby and Negan, respectively, also go on to redeem themselves in the story later on. That is the beauty and bitterness of the stories taking place in post-apocalyptic worlds. In an interview with Variety, Neil Druckmann also discussed the brutality of Joel’s death and how he couldn’t spare the TV show audience:

We don’t actually hold back in the game. I think there’s just something in the live action adaptation that makes it more brutal. We talked a lot about this throughout the season. There’s other instances where we have to make certain adjustments because of that. But it’s also important just to see the brutality. You’ve played the game, and you know how important everyone’s mindset about what happened to Joel is going forward and the choices that they make. Therefore, we couldn’t spare the audience either, because we need them in that same mindset.

Glenn (played by Steven Yeun) got his revenge against Negan (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in another popular animated show, Invincible, where Invincible beats Conquest to a pulp, which was celebrated by The Walking Dead fans recently. However, TLOU leans on the other side, where it’s about redemption and mercy.

Without a doubt, Joel and Glenn’s deaths are my top two character deaths that left me emotionally devastated. In case you have seen both of these shows, let us know your thoughts about their deaths in the comments below.