The Last of Us Season 2: Who Is Eugene and Does Gail Exist in the Game?

There are a lot of new characters introduced in the season 2 premiere of The Last of Us. We meet Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) and her crew years before in Salt Lake City. There’s Jesse (Young Mazino) and Dina (Isabela Merced), new friends of Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) in Jackson. Many of these characters fans of the games expected to see as we dive into this new chapter of the story, but game players may have noticed another familiar character mentioned by newcomer Gail (Catherine O’Hara) – Eugene.

Who is Eugene?

We unfortunately never meet Eugene in The Last of Us Part II. We only get to know him through what he leaves behind. At the beginning of the game, Ellie and Dina are on patrol and get caught in a blizzard. They take refuge in an old library and soon find that Eugene had a secret outpost hidden within the basement full of weed plants, bongs, and porn – you know, the apocalypse necessities.

Ellie finds Eugene’s Firefly tag and an old photo of him and Tommy from their days as Fireflies. Eugene had a wife named Claire and the two had a daughter, but it’s not clear if either have survived Eugene or not, as he abandoned them to join the Fireflies. In the game, Eugene was a mentor figure to Dina, teaching her a lot about how to repair electronics, a role that Joel seems to have taken on in the series. 

While Ellie and Dina are looking through the library, we learn from them that Eugene died of a stroke. They talk about how rare it is for someone to die of natural causes nowadays and how they hope to maintain their wit and humor as Eugene did.

Eugene is still dead in the HBO series, but we come to find out from his wife Gail, who is very much alive and lived with him in Jackson up until his death, that Joel killed him. The show hasn’t yet revealed the exact circumstances behind Eugene’s death, but if Joel killed him, it’s likely that something happened on a patrol or otherwise that led to Eugene being exposed to Cordyceps. Eugene’s love of weed does still seem to be alive and well, however, as Gail mentions him growing the plant when she accepts some as payment from Joel.

Is Gail a Character From The Last of Us Games?

Speaking of Gail, she is a character created for the series and not featured in the games. She is doing her best as the only living psychotherapist in Jackson, offering therapy to Joel in exchange for weed even though she’s still upset with him about Eugene’s death. 

Joel definitely does not seek out therapy in the games, and it’s an interesting addition to the series. It shows that he’s trying to work through some of his trauma, but he is still holding stuff back, as Gail rightfully calls him out for. It makes sense that he’s still trying to protect Ellie’s secret, the laws of patient confidentiality are probably nonexistent in the apocalypse, and it’ll take a while for Joel to unlearn all of the decades of mistrust that this world has ingrained within him. But at the same time, Gail can’t help him figure out how to atone for what he did to Ellie if she doesn’t know exactly what he did.

Gail might not be a character from the games, but as we saw last season with the addition of Melanie Lynskey’s character Kathleen last season, that’s not a bad thing. Both characters have added interesting layers to the story that the games don’t explore, and it will be interesting to see how Gail’s story affects Joel and Ellie’s this season.

New episodes of The Last of Us season 2 premiere Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO, culminating with the finale on May 25, 2025.

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