The last of us Soon approaching its season finale, the final episode “Kin,” takes us to Jackson, Wyoming, and sees a long-awaited reunion between Joel and Tommy. In the colony’s democratic setup, for the first time, viewers see Joel visibly moved as he finds his brother alive and thriving. Early on, Joel was on the hunt for his brother, who he believed was in trouble after losing contact with the radio. This quest leads Tess and Joel to search for a car battery and eventually stumbles upon Marlene and Ellie. In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Gabriel Luna talks about creating Tommy’s backstory.
The first episode of the series features Tommy as a carefree man who fights in a bar and comes to get breakfast from Joel. He’s with his brother when Sarah dies and it’s something viewers never see them talk about. Then, in later episodes, Joel tells Ellie about his brother’s military career and joined the Fireflies after reaching Boston. Luna says: “As they arrive in Boston, when it only increases the violence, increases the distrust, he had to find a place to apply his skills and his need to fight, to restore life and joy and reasons for living, not just survival.” Adding: “So in my mind, he joins the Fireflies, and he realizes at some point that the killing doesn’t stop. In fact, it’s probably increased exponentially.” Joel alludes to this past when he talks to Ellie about killing people and doing bad things.
Luna further reveals that he and his co-star, Merle Dandridge, who plays Fireflies leader Marlene, has had conversations about chemistry and a possible relationship between their characters. “In my mind, he and Marlene probably had a little history and it probably didn’t end well when she, of course, has so much responsibility as the leader of the Fireflies in the Boston QZ. I think that could have been the straw that sent Tommy on his own path,” Luna explains. “There are only so many times you can wake up each morning to see the woman you love and not be able to make it work.”
As for his scenes and his chemistry with Peter Pascal, the actor said: “During this shoot, Pedro and I completely rewrote the scene. We haven’t changed a single letter. We just restructured the way that scene plays out.” Add,
“It made me feel good in terms of how we hit each of those beats: how I finally found the courage to stand up to [Joel] and tell him the truth and tell him what is an extremely joyful thing for me but potentially a very hurtful thing for him to hear, that I was going to be a father. It was pretty much the only scene on the slate all day. It was just that Pedro and I were brothers and did what brothers do: laugh, joke, poke each other, and ultimately fight.”
The last of us Episode 7 will be released on February 26. You can check out the preview below:
