The Last Of Us finale aired and how perfect it was. It was ripped straight from the game while also adding extra elements to make it more emotional.
This episode started off with a flashback to Ellie’s birth and we got to see Ellie’s mom, who is played by the Ellie from the game Ashley Johnson. She does an absolutely phenomenal job here with the little screen time she has and it shows where Ellie gets her strength from because her mom is really strong. We find out that Anne is bit when giving birth to Ellie in a really emotional scene. This opening also allows us to see the bind Marlene has with Ellie as she really has been with her since birth, which makes the ending of this episode even more emotional.
Another element they added this episode which I don’t remember being in the game is where Joel tells Ellie he tried to kill himself after his daughter died. This is an important emotional thread as it links to the end the episode where Joel says just because things look bleak at the time doesn’t mean they can’t get better. In his case obviously referring to finding Ellie and the relationship they have made over this season.
The rest of the episode felt like it was ripped straight out of the game. One of my favourite moments was the part when Ellie finds the Giraffe and Joel is running after her trying to keep up. The whole scene with them feeding the Giraffe together just shows how far they have come since the beginning and how much they truly do care about each other.
Speaking about how much Joel cares for Ellie, the hospital scenes were absolutely brutal. Joel knew he couldn’t lose Ellie even if it meant dooming the rest of the world. We finally got to see the really dark side of Joel which he has talked about in the past. He went through that hospital killing everyone in his path, even when they tried surrendering to him. This showed Joel was willing to go to any length to protect Ellie, and we all know that will come back to bite him in season 2.
The one criticism i had with the hospital sequence was that i feel it could of been longer and more violent. This is as in the game there are countless enemies that come at you from all angles, where as in the show there weren’t that many considering the operation that the fireflies had there.
However i loved the last conversation between Marlene and Joel as Marlene is willing to let Ellie wake up because she knows that Ellie would sacrifice herself for a cure. However Joel refuses to let that’d happen and kills Marlene to make sure she can’t come and find Ellie. This felt more emotional then in the game because we saw at the beginning of this episode how Marlene has been with Ellie since she was born and how close she was with her mom.
The ending scene was also perfect as it was just out of the game as Ellie asked Joel to swear to her that’s he wasn’t lying to her abut the firefly’s and he did. This sets up season 2 perfectly as we all know what’s about to go down.
Overall, this episode was phenomenal and I’m ready to bring on the chaos in season 2.
TVObsessed 