Well, I should have known when Tess was killed so early in the season of The Last of Us -- played by no less than Anna Torv -- that anyone and everyone was expendable in this superb narrative. (As I said in my review of the first episode, I haven't played the game and know nothing of its story.)
But I didn't expect that Joel would go, and certainly not in the way that he did. The scene with him and his brother Tommy convinced me that Tommy would escort Ellie, Joel would stay behind in Jackson with the Christmas lights and the movies, and we'd see him again sooner or later in the story. In fact, I thought his change of mind was not quite believable, at least not to me.
I have a principle regarding life and death on the screen, which I usually mention as soon as a major character is killed. The principle is: if the head isn't severed or blown to bits, there's a chance the character survived. I guess I saw too many characters on 24 come back to life, i.e., not really killed.
So although we didn't see Joel in the coming attractions, I'm holding out hope. I assume he was killed in the game. But even if he was, that doesn't mean he was killed in the TV adaptation. Adaptations are by definition not the same as the original.
In any case, The Last of Us continues to be one masterpiece of a series. I said earlier that it's become my favorite post-biological apocalyptic series, and that only becomes more so with every episode.
See also The Last of Us 1.1-1.2: The Fungus Among Us ... 1.3: Bill and Frank ... 1.4: Gun and Pun ... 1.5: Tunnels
I talk about The Last of Us, beginning at 40mins 40secs
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