Whether you’re a fan of “The Last of Us” video game series or a new fan who’s grown to enjoy the story through its HBO adaptation, it’s no secret that the material is emotionally heavy. Episode 3, titled “The Path,” explores the grief for the residents of Jackson – most notably Ellie and Tommy – as they deal with the aftermath of Abby and her crew of ex-Fireflies killing Joel in Episode 2 and the infected horde battle that has now left Jackson vulnerable. In the opening moments of the episode, Tommy reacts to his brother’s death for the first time while seeing his body lying on a table covered by a blanket. As he begins to wash Joel’s arm, Tommy’s hand and eyes get caught on the broken watch that Joel never took off – the birthday gift that was given to him by daughter Sarah (Nico Parker) in Season 1. Gazing at his brother’s covered face, Tommy whispers, “Give Sarah my love.” When asked about filming the scene, Luna told TheWrap that he was already crying before the cameras even started rolling, adding that it immediately evoked a “vivvid memory” of being at his own grandfather’s funeral. “I needed to to pace myself, but it just kind of flooded out. There’s been a lot of loss in my family and so it wasn’t hard to put myself in that position. Certainly losing people young and losing them abruptly, I have experience with all that,” he recalled. “As I got there on the day, I just realized, ‘I need to slow down, because it’s gonna be a long night. We got to do this several times over’.” While waiting for the scene to start, he recalled standing in the middle of the road in the Jackson town set taking everything in. “It was powerful just to see all the bodies kind of strewn about. Some of them were dummies. But there was also, I’d say about 10 background actors who were all there. So there was these odd moments when they would sit up and the sheets would would rise and it’s just like all these people coming to life,” he said. “But I remember just standing out in the middle of the road with a couple of special effects guys who were lighting up all the flame bars all around as the town was burning outside the windows just gearing up for what it is going to be like to walk into that room.” He added that Tommy’s absence from Joel’s death in the show – a key change from the game – served as a”powerful motivator” for the emotional turmoil the character is going through in that moment. “The guilt [Tommy] must feel having not been there to protect his brother, the fire inside that might be starting to stir, to raise that sheet and see the damage and see what they’d done to his brother I think that’s a powerful moment of fury and anger,” he explained. “And then of course it transitions into this solace in the fact that he’s with his daughter Sarah. It ebbs and flows in that scene and ends with the only words that need to be said, which is ‘give Sarah my love.’ And that was really where I just completely broke down during rehearsal. Just saying those words. We had various versions of it, but I’m glad they used the more subtle version of Tommy trying to hold it all in and failing.” Following the opening, the episode time jumps three months later, where Ellie has been released from the hospital and is hell bent on revenge. Despite being aligned with Ellie on wanting revenge, Tommy spends much of the episode trying to prevent her from going down a dark path, urging her to wait until the community has had an opportunity to weigh in on whether to dedicate more resources to avenging Joel. “We’re aligned in a lot of our beliefs and a lot of feelings we’re having are pretty much aligned. But it’s just different. Tommy has a son, the entire community that’s still rebuilding. He and Maria have a lot of responsibilities. But if they can get the city to agree to it, than he’s 100% in and he tells her as much,” Luna said. “It’s a beautiful and terrify thing for Tommy because he’s more aware of the individual that she is and the adult that she’s become, and how little control he truly has over over her decision making. But he will still try to do his best to impart wisdom where he can, and protection where he can.” The vote ultimately doesn’t go Ellie’s way, with the council voting against the idea by a margin of 8-3. “Tommy’s a yes vote all the way. But as that tally is being called and the numbers are skewing further from what he and Ellie hope to be the result, there’s just this sinking feeling and a suspicion of who are the other two yes votes and who are the nos,” Luna added. “At the same time, it should be a collective choice and decision made by everyone. And Tommy will honor that, however angry and however he may disagree.” When asked about how Tommy may react to Ellie and Dina’s decision to sneak out and leave for Seattle, Luna simply replied: “We’ll have to see how all that plays out. We’ll find out soon enough.” In addition to unpacking Episode 3, Luna revealed everything that was left on the cutting room floor from Episode 2’s big infected horde battle sequence, which sees Tommy heroically take on a Bloater single-handedly with a flamethrower. He noted that the entire shoot for the episode took place over two to three weeks. Though some of the filming of Episode 2 is in a real blizzard, Luna revealed that his fight sequence made a fake blizzard using four to five bags of dolomite per take, which cost about $500-$600 per bag. He also praised the production team, including director Mark Mylod, for executing the “controlled chaos” of explosions, stunts, bullet cases and actors working in prosthetics and performance capture suits required to bring the scene to life. The Bloater that faced off against Tommy was portrayed by Glenn Ennis, who is also known for playing the bear in the Revenant. “He was wearing these big platform boots and had the helmet with the Teletubby antenna and the green tennis ball deal for eye line,” Luna said. “He’s just sweet as can be and a really hard worker. He took 13 body burns. That was really intense just to have to point a flamethrower at a human being and pull the trigger over and over again. But everyone came to work and served the project and knew what we were trying to do and was really inspired by all the crazy things we were trying to do and really excited for the challenge. So I was very happy with the end product.” But he added there was a lot left on the cutting room floor, including that the sequence originally had two Bloaters.He also recalled one scene where the townspeople using a net full of C4 to kill some of the infected and one of the towns people is sacrificed in the process. “I kind of run in trying to wire the detonator. And he’s like, ‘No, no, you should go.’ And then I leave him there and we go prepare an explosion. I run away from the explosion behind me, which is really cool. And then the next moment you see is me running down the main road to get my flame thrower on. So that was cut.” Additionally, he revealed that the blood running down Tommy’s face in the episode came from a scene that involved an altercation with an infected that ended up being removed, though the wound still made it into the final cut. “I was worried people were going to question, where did he get that blood? But apparently no one noticed,” he said. “It came from a previous moment where I get tackled into a telephone pole and I hit my head, and I have to shoot the guy, and I get up and I run off and prepare to fight the Bloater. So, yeah, there was a bunch of different stuff that we had that we just cut for time.” New episodes of “The Last of Us” premiere Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and stream on Max.