The Last of Us' Bella Ramsey 'didn't even know there was gonna be a gunshot' at the end of season 2 finale

Plus, the actor reflects on Ellie becoming more like Joel, and what they knew about that scene with pregnant Mel.

Bella Ramsey thinks they've finally gotten over the mayhem of The Last of Us season 2.

"I'm back in Vancouver filming a different thing," they say on the latest episode of EW's The Awardist podcast. "The last time I was here, I was in the midst of the blood, sweat, and tears filming season 2. I feel like I've reached the point of recovery now."

The seven-episode second installment of HBO's adaptation of the popular video game proved especially deadly and emotional. The action picked up five years after season 1, where Pedro Pascal's Joel was on a cross-country mission to get Ramsey's Ellie, immune to the fungal virus wiping out the population and turning people into zombie-like creatures called Clickers, to safety. In the process, Joel heartlessly killed some innocent people, including medical professionals. Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) tracked down Joel to get revenge on him for the murder of her doctor father.

Later in the season, Ellie — now trying to hunt down Abby to deliver the same fate to her — brutally kills Nora, one of Abby's minions. And in the finale, Ellie kills Owen and Mel, two more of Abby's cohorts...though it wasn't her intent...and one of them was pregnant, begging Ellie to deliver the baby before they both die. Ellie panics, unable to help Mel.

Below, Ramsey — one of the show's 17 Emmy nominations this year, for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama — looks back on the season and breaks down some of their biggest moments.

On the core emotion to drove Ellie in season 2

"She's a full-grown adult in season 2, I suppose, compared to season 1. Season 1, she was a follower, basically, of Joel, and season 2, she becomes a leader. I think her overriding emotion in the second season is one of, like, she's angry a lot. She was angry a lot in the first season, but season 2, it's a very vulnerable anger. It comes from a place of deep fear and sadness and loneliness. But that manifests with her as a sort of vengeful, insatiable anger and need for revenge.

The end of season 1, it was like, how far do you go for familial love, like what Joel did in the hospital to save Ellie. And then she's kind of become Joel in season 2 and is doing the same and is prepared to kill absolutely everybody for him, even though he's not even there anymore — just for the memory of him and that she can't let go of."

How Ellie became more like Joel while killing Nora

"You see Joel torture someone in season 1, and Ellie was repeating that with Nora. It's a pretty awful thing. She's so blinded by that anger and that rage. I think the difference between what happened with Nora [is that] there was some release and catharsis for Ellie in that; I hate to say the word enjoyment, but also maybe a little bit. Compared to the final moment in episode 7 when I kill Mel and Owen, there's no enjoyment. There's nothing — that's just pure sadness and grief and regret and shame. Ellie feels all of that after she kills Nora, but I think in the moment, she's kind of lost in the blind rage of literally seeing red. I think the red lights in there [were] genius."

On whether Ellie really would've let Owen and Mel live to reveal Abby's location

"She fully believed that. I think she's lived with the regret and the remorse of what she did with Nora and everything. So, I truly believe that in that moment, she means that she doesn't wanna kill them. In that countdown, she's begging them to just comply because she doesn't want to have to shoot. But she knows that she will if she has to but truly doesn't want to. She definitely doesn't mean to kill them both; that was not what she wanted to do in that moment at all — she didn't even wanna shoot the gun. So then the remorse and the helplessness and the weight of everything that she's done in this whole journey that she's been on over this whole season just comes crashing down on her. Which is why she gets a little bit sad.

On Ellie letting Mel die without delivering the baby

"There was no way Ellie could have delivered the baby. But the fact that she doesn't even try... she's in a state of complete freeze. She's in panic and shock and shame and is just frozen in that moment. [Co-showrunner] Craig [Mazin] warned us about Mel's death and what would happen; he told me secretly what it was. Like, 'Get ready to read episode 7. It's gonna be hard reading.'

But in that moment, Ellie's just thinking about Dina, 'cause she knows that obviously she left Dina pregnant and now she has this pregnant woman in front of her who she's just murdered.... I don't think Ellie thinks, I don't think she's thinking; she's just completely frozen and can't literally can't move, can't do anything."

On the final face-off with Ellie and the gunshot cliffhanger

"[The rest of that moment] was not filmed. [The scene] was always going cut. You know what? I didn't even know there was gonna be a gunshot, which maybe I just missed very likely. But when the show came out and everyone was like, 'The gunshot! The gunshot!' I'm like, 'Huh? What do you mean? What gunshot?' I should actually go back and check the script to see whether the gunshot was written or whether I just missed it. But no, we cut on me going, 'No, no! Please, please, please!'"