Did You Miss This Subtle Cameo in <i>The Last of Us</i> Season 2, Episode 2?

preview for The Last Of Us Season 2 Cast Interview

Spoilers below.

“Through the Valley” is not merely the title of last night’s devastating episode of The Last of Us. It’s also the name of a song actress Ashley Johnson—who performed the voice and motion capture for Ellie in the PlayStation games—sings in the episode’s final moments. The acoustic ballad plays as as Ellie (Bella Ramsey) mourns the death of her father figure, Joel (Pedro Pascal), and their home of Jackson, Wyoming, reels from the impact of a massive infected attack. The surprise cameo added layers of symbolism to what was an already watershed moment in the HBO series.

This isn’t Johnson’s first cameo in the show. Series co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann offered her a cameo role in season 1 as Ellie’s pregnant mother, who gives birth to Ellie after she’s bitten by an infected. (This goes some way toward explaining Ellie’s eventual proven immunity to the Cordyceps fungus.) Johnson’s mother character ends up dying in a flashback in season 1, but her voice returns in a surprise cameo at the end of season 2, episode 2, as she sings “Through the Valley,” a song originally by Shawn James.

In an interview from HBO’s official The Last of Us podcast that dropped after episode 2, Mazin and Druckmann shared how the cameo came to fruition. The song was originally used in a trailer made to “reveal the existence of The Last of Us Part II,” Druckmann explained. “I wrote and shot a scene—that was never actually in the game—of Ellie, in the middle of this room where she’s murdered several people. She plays this song on guitar. And I was looking for the right song, and I searched for, like, Johnny Cash, and I found this band that did a cover of Johnny Cash—this guy Shawn James—and I found one of his original songs, ‘Through the Valley.’ And there’s something about the lyrics of that song that spoke very much to the theme of what we wanted to get into in the story of the game.”

Mazin added that he first heard the song as a fan, while watching the trailer Druckmann described. He then explained why it was a perfect fit for the end of episode 2.

“Ellie makes this slow, painful crawl across the floor to Joel’s body,” he said. “She has been kicked in the ribs and clearly injured badly. She might not make it at all. I think she thinks she’s going to die here, and she just wants to be with him. And it is so heartbreaking to hear her little breaths as she just settles in with the only person in her life that she truly loved. And then we wanted...to drift away into a dreamy view of what happens now. Because you can’t keep doing reality after that; that is the peak of it. And what that means is a song.”

He continued, adding that Johnson’s voice in the song had a new significance thanks to her cameo in season 1. “Ashley isn’t just Ellie in the game; she’s also, now, in our show, Ellie’s mother,” he said. “And there’s this ghostly sound of the other person who loved Ellie as much as Joel did, and what she is singing about is not good news in the end—even though Jackson is saved, even though Ellie survives. Someone’s soul might be damned. And that is rough.”

HBO

Ashley Johnson as Ellie’s mother in The Last of Us season 1.

Read the full lyrics to “Through the Valley” below.

I walk through the valley of the shadow of deathAnd I fear no evil because I’m blind to it at allAnd my mind and my gun, they comfort me
Because I know I’ll kill my enemies when they come

Surely, goodness and mercyWill follow me all the days of my lifeAnd I will dwell on this earth forevermoreSaid I walk beside the still watersAnd they restore my soulBut I can’t walk on the path of the right
Because I’m wrong

Well, I came upon a man at the top of a hillCalled himself the savior of the human raceSaid he come to save the world from destruction and pain
But I said, ‘how can you save the world from itself?’