Showrunner Craig Mazin added, “That notion that when you wake up, you just have a feeling that you’ve lost something. It’s so beautiful, and it’s so confessional. And this is not at all like something we saw from Joel in the game. This is different. This is sadder, I think. It’s a little more broken down, and it’s a little more upsetting.”
Director Jasmila Žbanić, who directed this episode, also told Variety, “[Pedro and Gabriel] would be reading it, act, repeat, and trying different stuff. They also suggested some changes, so it was very deep for both of them in each scene. It was so beautiful because it’s a very long scene in the shoe shop.”