HBO’s The Last of Us has been renewed for a second season following the massive success it saw, reaping praise from critics and audiences alike for its faithful yet fresh adaptation of the Naughty Dog masterpiece.

Naturally, with talks of the second season, players know full well what happens to certain key characters in the game. To avoid potential spoilers, especially if you have not played The Last of Us Part II yet, please skip the next section.

As players will know fully well, Joel meets a gruesome and shocking end to his journey in the hands of Abby. To newcomers, Abby may just be some other person out for revenge, but, remember that surgeon that Joel killed before he got to perform surgery on Ellie? Abby is the daughter of that doctor, and she has a very good reason to find and end Joel’s life.

Of course, the way Joel was “disposed” of in the second game sent shockwaves across the community, with both sides offering sound arguments about whether or not he deserved his fate. As you can imagine, this would certainly be something that would be a very big deal in the upcoming second season of the HBO adaptation.

Speaking to Esquire Magazine, Pedro Pascal offered his thoughts on the possibility of his death happening in Season 2. While he hasn’t played the game or hasn’t been exposed to that scene, Pascal says that “It wouldn’t make sense to follow the first game so faithfully only to stray severely from the path.”

“So, yeah, that’s my honest answer.”

Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie in the show, says “If that does take place in the show, I don’t know that I’m emotionally ready for it.”

“This should be fairly obvious to anyone by now, but I don’t fear killing characters,” Showrunner Craig Mazin says. “But the important thing to note is that neither Neil [Druckmann, who co-created and exec-produces the series with Mazin] nor I feel constrained by the source material.”

It would seem that while the first season of The Last of Us took a few liberties with some episodes, the main gist remained the same, so it wouldn’t be too far to say that the second season may follow the proven formula.

Do you think Joel meets his fate in the second season of The Last of Us on HBO?