[Editor’s Note: The following review contains spoilers for “The Last of Us” Season 2, Episode 7 — the Season 2 finale. For additional coverage, including previous episode reviews, check out IndieWire’s “Last of Us” landing page.]
“Possibly she acquired what she deserved.”
“Possibly she didn’t.”
To open “The Last of Us” Season 2 finale, Dina (Isabela Merced) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) share the above change about Nora (Tati Gabrielle), the member of Abby’s (Kaitlyn Dever) posse who Ellie chased down, tortured, and left to die on the finish of Episode 5. However by the top of Episode 7, viewers might very properly be repeating the talk about Ellie, whose final destiny makes for an agonizing cliffhanger that received’t be resolved till Season 3 premieres (not less than).
(*7*)
Did Abby shoot Ellie like she shot Jesse (Younger Mazino), R.I.P.? Did she wound her? Did she miss? In fact, I’m determined for Ellie to outlive, however “The Last of Us” already killed off one of its leads this season and, extra importantly, it’s clear co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann (who cowrote the Season 2 finale with Halley Gross) need viewers to contemplate not simply what they need to occur, however what these characters have chosen for themselves.
Sans sentiment, Ellie’s ethical report card is grim. She tortured and killed Nora. She shot and killed Owen (Spencer Lord), in addition to Mel (Ariela Barer), the latter of whom was pregnant when she died. Positive, Mel’s dying was an accident, however that’s hardly an excuse when Ellie’s whole plan is constructed round murdering folks.
Alternatively, Ellie’s moral judgement confirmed indicators of enchancment in Episode 7; that her expertise in Seattle (and lingering reminiscences of Joel) could also be steering her away from vengeance and towards mercy. Saying “possibly she didn’t” about Nora deserving to die (and be tortured), in addition to telling Dina why Abby was so fixated on discovering Joel to start with, is a good signal for Ellie’s stage of bloodlust. If she’s open to contemplating different opinions, as an alternative of simply discovering Abby in any respect prices, that’s progress. (Her revelation additionally drives a wedge between her and Dina, which speaks to how arduous — and the way essential — it should’ve been for Ellie to expose.)
Granted, Ellie suffers a setback when she realizes the place Abby is hiding. (The one phrases Nora mentioned to Ellie have been “whale” and “wheel,” so when she spots them each by Seattle’s Aquarium, the dead-end out of the blue turns into an open door, and she will’t cease herself from strolling by means of.) Lengthy earlier than her interrogation of Abby’s crew goes so rapidly sideways, it’s clear Ellie ought to’ve gone with Jesse to assist Tommy (Diego Luna). Tommy got here to Seattle to assist her. He cares about her, and he or she cares about him. He’s half of her neighborhood, and he’s nonetheless alive.
Joel isn’t. And if Ellie’s choices actually have been dictated by what Joel would need, there’s no means he would relatively Ellie kill his killer than save his brother. (Again in Episode 3, Tommy even mentioned as a lot: “He’d be midway to Seattle to save lots of my life,” Tommy mentioned, when Ellie tried to argue Joel would go to Seattle to avenge Tommy’s dying. “However once we misplaced folks, no. It might simply break him, prefer it was his fault. I noticed that point and time once more.”) However Ellie isn’t listening to it. There’s too many variables. “Fuck the neighborhood!” Ellie screams. “You let a child die at this time, Jesse. As a result of why? He wasn’t in your neighborhood? Let me let you know about my neighborhood. My neighborhood was overwhelmed to dying in entrance of me whereas I needed to fucking watch.”
To be honest, Jesse didn’t “let” anybody die. There was no means they might’ve saved the Scar who was trapped by W.L.F. troopers. Ellie and Jesse vs. a literal military? Sorry, however they’re taking an “L” on that one. However the selective duty Ellie factors out does carry up one of the present’s thornier topics: The place do you draw the road relating to serving to others when doing so comes at nice private danger to your self?
With the Scar boy from earlier that day, it’s a comparatively straightforward alternative. However Jesse and Tommy already made a more durable alternative — to return to Seattle to save lots of Ellie and Dina — and Jesse, as he explains to Ellie, already sacrificed his personal romantic happiness to stay in Jackson and assist the townsfolk, which incorporates Ellie. “I am going with that woman to New Mexico,” he says, “who saves your ass in Seattle?”
Regardless of Ellie and Jesse accusing (after which, in a while, supporting) one another, the distinction between them is evident. In Jesse’s state of affairs, neither street accessible to him is actively dangerous: If he goes with the girl to New Mexico, possibly he makes her comfortable, himself comfortable, and the folks of New Mexico comfortable. Positive, everybody in Jackson would miss him, however they might’ve discovered one other leader-in-waiting. Nonetheless, he selected to remain. Possibly he’s much less of a romantic, or possibly — because it’s implied right here — he’s much less egocentric than Ellie. That doesn’t imply “higher”; generally you could be egocentric. Ellie simply took it too far.
With Ellie, if she had stayed in Jackson, Dina would have been secure. Ellie would have been secure. The folks of Jackson would nonetheless have two of their greatest patrol members, Tommy would nonetheless have a de facto niece, and Jesse would have been in a position to see his child be born. Going had a single greatest case state of affairs: Abby can be lifeless. Yet another individual on this planet can be gone. And for what? Abby isn’t a identified menace to anybody now that Joel is gone. Ellie’s revenge is for her. It’s egocentric. It’s meant to be therapeutic, however it’s solely stitching extra destruction.
Now that destruction is throughout her. Nora, Owen, Mel, and Mel’s child are lifeless. Jesse is lifeless. Tommy and Dina are wounded, and it’s arduous to think about Abby letting them stay. Ellie could also be gone, too, though — with out realizing what occurs within the video games — I’ve to think about her story will proceed. Her nature, her soul, continues to be forming. She hasn’t hardened into a monster or softened sufficient to seek out mercy. However destiny doesn’t wait round so that you can be prepared. Whether or not she lives or dies, she selected the trail that led her right here.
Grade: B
“The Last of Us” Season 2 is offered on HBO and Max (which is quickly to be HBO Max… once more). The collection has been renewed for Season 3.
Stray Tendrils
• Talking of monsters, a temporary phrase on the ebook Ellie picks out for Dina’s unborn child: “The Monster on the Finish of This E book,” written by Jon Stone with illustrations by Michael Smollin. The youngsters’s ebook, first printed in 1971, tells an progressive meta narrative wherein Grover (the “Sesame Avenue” character) reads the title of the ebook and will get scared about what type of monster is ready for him on the finish. From there, most of the ebook’s “story” is simply Grover begging the reader to not proceed, so he doesn’t need to encounter the monster, however (spoiler alert) the monster on the finish of the ebook is… Grover.
For youths, the lesson is evident: The scariest monster is the one you construct up in your thoughts. Expectations and actuality don’t all the time match up, and generally a monster is simply… misunderstood. Take that studying a step additional (not in contrast to comic Gary Gulman’s does in his 2024 stand-up particular, “Grandiliquent”), and the monster on the finish of the ebook is the reader themselves, or extra precisely, no matter anxiousness, trauma, or scarring occasion from the reader’s previous they’ll’t appear to flee — and shapes how they see the world. Gee, I’m wondering how that will apply to Ellie?
• And talking of presumed leaders who abandon their posts, what the heck is occurring with Abby, Isaac (Jeffrey Wright), and the W.L.F.? Throughout “Seattle Day 3,” she’s M.I.A. Isaac sits down with Sgt. Park (Hettienne Park) and complains that Abby and her entire staff are lacking on “tonight of all nights.” Later, we get an concept of that evening’s significance when the W.L.F. units off a huge explosion on the Seraphites’ village. It’s unclear who lived and died, what was destroyed, or if something was completed, however it’s implied — each by Isaac and by Owen, who doesn’t appear to know the place Abby is earlier than Ellie walks in on him — that Abby was alleged to be on these assault boats, and he or she simply… wasn’t.
Isaac tells Sgt. Park he was planning for Abby to take over sometime because the W.L.F. chief, so what occurred to make her abandon that trajectory? We’ll certainly discover out in Season 3, contemplating the ultimate scene flashes again to “Seattle Day 1” to share what’s happening from Abby’s perspective. However given the emphasis positioned in Season 2 on Jesse’s deliberate ascension in Jackson, in addition to Ellie entering into Joel’s footwear, there’s a rising emphasis on generational transitions in “The Last of Us.”
Jesse’s succession would’ve been comparatively easy, given how a lot he aligned with the present management, Tommy and Maria (Rutina Wesley). However Ellie’s makes an attempt to observe in Joel’s footsteps are bumpy at greatest. The longer she tries to play the badass avenger, the extra she doubts whether or not that’s who she is (and if that’s who Joel wished to be) . Might the identical factor be taking place to Abby? Might finishing her quest for revenge have rattled her sufficient to float from the individual she was earlier than? Would possibly “The Last of Us” really see hope for a higher future in a era of youngsters so in poor health comfortable with the actions of their elders that they run in the other way?
• For a present that took greater than two years between Seasons 1 and a couple of, it’s arduous to take a seat with Mazin & Co.’s chosen endpoint. For one, Season 2 is simply seven episodes lengthy, versus Season 1’s nine-episode arc. However on prime of that, this arc feels incomplete. Ellie’s left midway by means of a transformative second. Every part taking place between the W.L.F. and the Seraphites feels half-formed, and Abby has barely been fleshed out sufficient to construct anticipation round seeing extra of her in Season 3. I loved the time I spent with “The Last of Us” Season 2 — and I hope you probably did, too, expensive readers — I simply want there was extra closure earlier than one other lengthy break.
