Even though the ninth and final episode of the first season of “The Last Of Us” is the shortest of the entire season at just over 40 minutes, it still has it all. Ultimately, the task is to (for now) complete Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) exhausting odyssey through the mushroom post-apocalypse. Season 1 has adapted the entire plot of the first “Last Of Us” game and is also based very closely on the template at the end.
The shocking, and for those unfamiliar with the game, unexpected conclusion to Joel and Ellie’s attempts to unlock the key to a possible cure for the mold pandemic especially in relation to Joel’s gory deeds in episode 9 a deliberately mixed impression. However, these are just the logical conclusion from his earlier character development, which we want to use again in this context to explain the ending.
Joel saves his surrogate daughter
Joel and Ellie finally arrive in Salt Lake City in the ninth episode of The Last Of Us and actually find the Firefly lab they’ve been looking for and would care for for so long at a local hospital, with the help of the immune system. Ellie to make a fungal cure. When Joel is told by Marlene (Merle Dandridge), who has also arrived at the scene, that Ellie would not survive the necessary operation (the infected part of her brain must be removed), Joel sees red.
After seemingly reluctantly coming to terms with it at first, Joel overpowers his Firefly sitters and then makes his way to Ellie, breaking with the members of the resistance group he had intended to help and who are now at odds with stand him.
Joel and Ellie have grown closer through the many traumatic experiences on their journey and have developed an increasingly intimate father-daughter relationship. 20 years after the tragic death of his current daughter, Sarah (Nico Parker), Joel has allowed Ellie to fill the void, or at least is well on his way to filling it. And for the world, Joel doesn’t want to repeat his failure as a Protector and lose another “daughter,” even if it means saving one life at the cost of many. He goes to great lengths and doesn’t even stop at the doctors and eventually not even at Marlene (even when she’s been defenseless for a long time) to stop the Fireflys from giving chase.
Tensions between Joel and Ellie in Season 2
Ellie, who was unconscious at the time of her rescue, later lies to Joel that the Fireflys are giving up on healing after failed attempts with several immune individuals. The fact that he’s not telling Ellie the truth here shows that his surrogate daughter probably wouldn’t have approved of Joel’s actions. If she had been faced with the choice between her own life and the lives of countless other people, she would almost certainly have made the more purely rationally logical choice and selflessly sacrificed herself.
Joel, on the other hand, acted only superficially or partially disinterestedly with his carnage. Yes, he saved Ellie, but not just to save her from death, but also to save himself another loss that he probably just couldn’t handle anymore, no matter how Ellie would have acted even in this situation.
When Ellie asks about it again, Joel even swears his descriptions are true. Ellie accepts that too, before the duo return to Jackson with Joel’s brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and company. Thus, the two should initially be able to build a peaceful existence together in the safe haven, after all, they have honestly earned a break after what they have been through.
However, Ellie’s questioning and her entire facial expression indicate that she has doubts about Joel’s version of the story. And even if she is initially able to successfully brush them off, in the long run they probably won’t leave her alone, but rather gain weight. The fact that the truth will come out sooner or later seems inevitable and should cause not only tensions but also deep rifts between Joel and Ellie.
What else can we expect in Season 2?
How the relationship between the two survivors will develop further under these omens should then be clearly discussed in the already confirmed second season of “The Last Of Us”. What else season 2 brings can only be deduced to a very limited extent from the ending of season 1, as the main story presented therein is completed as smoothly as ten years ago in the first “Last Of Us”. game.
Naturally With “The Last Of Us Part II” there is a game sequel since 2020, which tells us almost exactly how the series will continue, it will probably continue to follow the story of the acclaimed templates closely. This Is Exactly Why We Want Part II (And With It Season 2) No unnecessary spoilers at this point, thoughbut the premise that quickly crystallizes there is a huge surprise that should not be expected.
But even if game inventor and series creator Neil Druckmann and his co-showrunner Craig Mazin (“Chernobyl”) refrain from clearly foreshadowing Season 2 in Season 1, we think we’ve identified at least two smaller teasers. Already in episode 6, a curious girl appeared in Jackson, who should play a crucial role in Ellie’s life in season 2:
Aside from that, we’re also confident that those responsible for the series didn’t let the camera linger a little longer on the dead surgeon after Joel’s hospital massacre for no reason. One way or another, Joel’s actions will have many more consequences…
We’ll know for sure when the sequel to the series comes out. Due to the complex production, the second season of “The Last Of Us” should be available in the second half of 2024 at the earliest.