‘The Last Of Us’ Ended In Heartbreak: Keys And Details Of The First Season’s Ending

After more than two months of broadcasts, this Sunday evening the first season of The last of us with a heartbreaking ending in which the power of love was shown, but at the same time the horror it can unleash when it comes to saving the life of a loved one. The ninth episode lays the foundations for the adventures that the protagonists will experience in the second part.

Spoiler alert

At the start of the final episode, a pregnant woman (Ashley Johnson, who voiced Ellie in the video game) is seen running through the woods, trying to outrun the infected we heard in the distance. He arrives at a farm, but discovers that the people he was looking for are not there. As he climbs the stairs, he finds that his waters have broken and he barricades himself in a bedroom on the second floor. The baby arrives, but so do the infected people, who have broken into the house and are trying to break down the door to the room she is in.

When an infected woman bursts into the place, the pregnant woman tries to push her away and searches for the razor she dropped, the same one Ellie still carries. The woman grabs the knife and stabs the infected to death. She also realizes that in the fight, she not only delivered her baby, but was also bitten in the thigh by the infected.

The series then returns to the present as Ellie and Joel make their way to the Fireflies’ base. As they approach Saint Mary’s Hospital, he stops the young woman and tells her that they don’t have to go through that. They can go back to Jackson and forget what happened. The teenager refuses, telling her that they have to finish what they started. After completing this mission, she promises that she will accompany him anywhere.

As they pass an area of ​​medical posts, Joel reveals that he was placed in one of them days before the outbreak. Ellie asked him if he got there because of the “mystery shooter”, the man he told her about in the third episode. This is when he comes clean and confesses something that has never been mentioned in the games. “I was. I was the guy who shot and missed,” Joel says, referring to the gunshot wound to the head. “Sarah died and I couldn’t see clearly, simple as that. I wasn’t afraid either. I was ready. I couldn’t have been more prepared. When I went to pull the trigger, I flinched. I still don’t know why.” With this, the protagonist reveals that after his daughter’s death, he was going to kill himself and failed.

After this conversation, the fireflies intercept them by surprise and knock them out. After that, they are separated and when Joel wakes up, Marlene is there to thank him for helping her put the only hope of saving the world to safety. However, in conversation, the story turns dark and dark; she tells him that they can probably create a cure using Ellie’s immunity, but to do so they will have to kill her as she will have brain surgery. When Joel learns what it takes to make a vaccine, Ellie is already in surgery.

Joël is not averse to leaving the premises, as Marlène indicates, but from one moment to the next he goes crazy and shoots every firefly that comes in front of him, a choice that shows that his actions are not motivated, since he is only looking to save Ellie, even if she has to kill anyone who is needed in her way. After single-handedly taking down most of this revolutionary group, he heads to the operating room. The surgeon tries to stop him, but he shoots him in the head. He picks up Ellie and brings her back to Jackson. When she wakes up, he tells her a lie that will define both their relationship and this franchise: Fireflies can’t use it to make a vaccine, and there are actually a lot of people who are immune.

Ellie asks several questions about what happened while she was unconscious, but Joel doesn’t tell her what really happened. With his actions, the protagonist saved his protege, but with him he sacrificed the only hope of being able to heal humanity. Joel tells the teenager that the fireflies were going to let them go before the raiders attacked the camp.

Marlene is the last person to confront Joel before he flees with Ellie in his arms. He shoots her to get her out of the way, but a few minutes later he comes back to give her the finishing blow saying that if he doesn’t she will follow them. Later in the car, Ellie asked Joel if Marlene had survived. He refuses to answer, instead telling her, “I’ll take us home.” This is the second time this character has died, since in the video game the leader of the fireflies also dies at the hands of Joel.

In the final minutes of the ninth episode, Joel and Ellie are seen again in Jackson. Now it seems their personalities have reversed, as she is wistful and sad, while he keeps talking and even asks me to tell him a joke. After a few minutes, he tells her about Sarah (Nico Parker), the girl he once told her never to mention. The more he describes her, the more certain it is that the two would have been friends. When they are on the outskirts of town, Ellie stops him to confess something: the first person she killed was her best friend Riley, after she was infected.

“In Kansas City, you asked me the first time I killed someone. When I got bitten at the mall, I wasn’t alone. My best friend was there. She was also bitten. We didn’t know what to do and she said we could wait. Let’s all be poetic and let’s lose our heads together and then he did. And I had to…”, confessed the young woman.

After remembering Riley, he recounts the other losses he suffered throughout his life: Tess (Anna Torv). Sam (Keivon Montreal Woodard). Henry (Lamar Johnson). Joel tries to convince her that none of this was her fault, but Ellie cuts him off. “Swear to me. Swear to me that everything you said about fireflies is true,” she makes her protector swear. He ends up lying to her and claims that what she said is true. The series ends by a close-up of her looking into Joel’s eyes and tears flowing, while music created by Argentinian musician Gustavo Santaolalla can be heard in the background.

You can relive the first season of The last of us through the HBO Max platform.

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