The newest episode of HBO’s The Last of Us included extreme violence and gore, but it could have been even more grisly. Director Mark Mylod has now opened up about Season 2, Episode 2, which included a shocking twist from the game.

SPOILERS FOLLOW BELOW.

In Episode 2, “Through the Valley,” Joel (Pedro Pascal) is brutally murdered by Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) with a golf club. We see Abby killing Joel with the club by way of an ongoing flurry of blows to his face and body, leaving Joel slumped on the floor. Abby finishes the job by stabbing Joel with the sharp point of a golf club. It was a gripping and intense scene, and Mylod said in an interview that he wanted to keep “most” of the violence of this scene off-screen.

“I wanted to avoid overt torture. I don’t have much interest in showing violence itself,” Mylod told The Hollywood Reporter.

Instead, Mylod said he was more interested in digging into Abby’s backstory to get at why she was motivated to subject Joel to such “extraordinary violence.” Years prior, Joel killed Abby’s father as part of his daring mission to rescue Ellie (Bella Ramsey). In her quest for vengeance, Abby sought out Joel and eventually captured and killed him with her own hands.

“After establishing the brutality and, hopefully, exploring some of the context to why this young person was driven to such extraordinary violence and cruelty, I wanted to keep most of it off screen–and [showrunner and writer Craig Mazin] was very much on the same page,” Mylod said.

Although Joel is now dead, we’ll see more of him in upcoming episodes of Season 2. For more, find out what the cast and writers had to say about Joel’s death.

With Joel now dead, the story is expected to turn to Ellie’s quest to hunt down Abby. New episodes of The Last of Us air Sundays at 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET on HBO and Max.