Making sense of The Last of Us‘s thrilling, affecting season finale

Kyle: We made it to the final of The Last of Us season one! Which means I get to ask you the primary query I requested myself after enjoying the primary recreation; the one I’ve been ready weeks to ask you; and possibly crucial and lingering query of the entire season:

Does Ellie imagine Joel?

Andrew: OK, I undoubtedly got here away from this with a wholly totally different lingering query! But like many episodes of The Last of Us, possibly we should always reduce away from the motion in order that we will leap again in time after which work our approach again as much as these questions?

In this episode, Joel and Ellie make it! They’re in Reno, and so they discover the docs they have been looking for this complete time. They simply must let the docs run just a few checks, after which they will journey off into the sundown collectively, their surrogate father/daughter bond intact and wholesome and completely nice. Right?

Kyle: There are lots of different questions, to make certain, however I wished to start out with the one which lingers most after that gripping remaining shot.

But sure, backing up a bit, I like how this episode will get again to some quiet time between Joel and Ellie, who get to joke round and feed giraffes and be typically wistful about their journey collectively. They have clearly and absolutely turn out to be a surrogate father/daughter pair to one another, which is saying one thing, given how reluctant they have been to even be in the identical house again firstly of the collection.

Andrew: Yes! Yes. That’s the factor.

Unlike nearly each different group of folks we have run into in The Last of Us universe, there would not appear to be something particularly sinister in regards to the Reno Fireflies. Yes, they determine fairly shortly that the one method to examine and transmit Ellie’s immunity is to take away her mind (This is defined considerably in yet one more episode-opening flashback the place we meet Ellie’s mom and do in reality study the unimaginable true story of how Ellie bought her knife, a joke I made just a few recaps in the past that ended up coming true).

But they don’t seem to be, so far as we all know, a neighborhood of sadistic evangelical vigilante brain-removers. They are, to borrow a phrase, placing the wants of the various forward of the wants of the few. And it is not that I do not really feel deeply for Joel, who’s clearly not prepared or prepared or in a position to lose one other daughter. But his response to the state of affairs…

It leads me to my query: is Joel the dangerous man? Have we, the viewers, been hoodwinked by Pedro Pascal’s dadly charms into rooting for a monster?

Kyle: To me, this isn’t, ultimately, a really fascinating or tough query. Any goal have a look at the state of affairs would conclude that Joel clearly made the mistaken alternative right here. Saving humanity from cordyceps is strikingly extra useful than defending Ellie’s life.

The solely method to come to the other conclusion is by being hopelessly sentimental about the entire thing. And Joel’s actions are made even worse as a result of, as Marlene factors out, Ellie would fairly clearly be prepared to sacrifice herself for that higher good.

That mentioned, I believe each the sport and the present do an excellent job of threading the needle between not defending Joel’s actions however nonetheless explaining them. By the time we get to those remaining scenes, we perceive how and why a really damaged Joel would basically sacrifice the human race for this lady he met comparatively just lately. You do not should agree with it to know it from Joel’s level of view, and I believe that is a tremendous narrative feat.