In The Last of Us season 2, Joel finally goes to therapy

Unlike most of the show’s cast, Gail (played by Catherine O’Hara) isn’t based on a character from the games but instead is a new creation specifically for the HBO series. And although she makes her debut in season 2, co-creator Craig Mazin says that introducing a therapist was actually something he wanted to do early on.

“We have opportunities to do things only we can do that the game can’t,” he tells The Verge. “I don’t think the game could’ve supported a very long cutscene between a therapist and Joel. But it was something that we had talked about all the way back in season 1, because it seemed to us that in a world where everyone has been traumatized, and you have to barter some skill as part of the new economy, therapy would probably be useful. You’d probably be in demand.”

Mazin says that the original script for the show’s very first episode included a similar therapist storyline, but it was ultimately cut for time. (“It was one of the reasons that Pedro Pascal was like ‘I really want to do this,’” Mazin says.) But when that didn’t happen, it was later reworked into Gail. While she isn’t from the games, her husband Eugene is briefly mentioned in The Last of Us Part II. In that way, the couple’s inclusion is similar to the “Long Long Time” episode from season 1, which expanded on the character Bill, who had a comparatively small role in the games.

Here, O’Hara’s character introduces a new element to the story, while also helping to show a different side of Joel. “We had the opportunity to not only give Joel a chance to open up, but also give him an opportunity to not open up,” Mazin says. “So lots of opportunities for us to dig in there and enrich our understanding of Joel and his relationship with Ellie.”

And as fellow co-creator Neil Druckmann notes, characters like Gail are part of a larger focus in the show’s new season on exploring the postapocalyptic town of Jackson, where Joel and Ellie live at the outset of season 2. “One of the things we were able to do in the show that we couldn’t do much of in the game was get to know Jackson as a community, and understand what’s at stake here, what are the threats from the outside,” Druckmann says.