The Last of Us Recap: Truth and Consequences
It’s really only possible to talk about this episode of The Last of Us by starting at the end: Joel is dead. There’s no ambiguity about it, either. He’s been brutally murdered, and the episode’s final image is of his body being dragged back to Jackson. Those familiar with the series’ source material knew this was coming. Others, presumably, did not. (It’s akin to the “Red Wedding” episode of Game of Thrones that way.) But for anyone who has been watching this show, it’s a shocking development whether or not you knew we’d get there eventually. This series is about many things — family, coming of age, the nature of civilization, zombies, bad puns — but the relationship between Joel and Ellie has been at the center from the start. Now, there is no Joel and Ellie. Only Ellie and her memories of Joel and what she chooses to do with them.
Maybe it’s notable, then, that the episode begins not with Ellie or Joel but with Abby, who begins it waking from a nightmare in which she walks into the operating room where Joel killed her father. She finds herself in what were once luxurious surroundings, a lodge overlooking Jackson. With her are Owen and the other young survivors of Joel’s five-years-ago massacre in Salt Lake City: Nora (Tati Gabrielle), Mel (Ariela Barer), and Manny (Danny Ramirez). As they look over Jackson, they realize how tough their getting-revenge-on-Joel plan will be. It’s a heavily armed compound and they have no idea where Joel is. What’s more, Abby’s friends want to help her, but they want to set some ground rules. Namely, no one besides Joel should get hurt.
It’s a tough situation. Still, Owen says he has “the beginnings for the idea of a plan, maybe.” That doesn’t sound too promising, but it’s something. Maybe. Away from Abby, Owen reveals his plan to the other Junior Fireflies: Convince Abby to abandon this quest for revenge. But that may be harder than breaking into Jackson.
In Jackson, Ellie is nursing a hangover when Jesse shows up, feigns outrage at her revelation that she and Dina kissed (he already knew), and calls her out for patrol. There’s a lot of action in Jackson, thanks to a recent attack that suggests there might be countless infected poised to attack. Maybe even a thousand. “A thousand?” Ellie says. “Get the fuck outta here.” (This might be foreshadowing.)
Imminent attack or not, Ellie’s operating with a short fuse. She’s embarrassed that the town is talking about what happened between her and Joel at the dance the previous night. But, she assures Jesse, “I’m still me, he’s still Joel, and nothing’s ever gonna change that.” And, if Jesse will excuse her, she’d like to go on patrol with Joel “like fucking Daddy/Daughter Day.” But there’s a problem: Joel has already left with Dina. Since she’s still around, Jesse tells her, Ellie should swing by the restaurant, where Maria wants to have a conversation.
Once there, Ellie finds the restaurant is quite crowded and Tommy is in full field-commander mode, telling the townspeople how to prepare for the worst should it arrive. He’s casual but direct. This, it’s clear, is something of a refresher session for preexisting plans. It’s just a drill, right? Ellie asks Maria as if trying to reassure herself. It doesn’t take long for her to get annoyed about something else when Maria brings her to Seth, who apologizes for what he said and gives Jesse and Ellie some sandwiches. Ellie’s reaction could be charitably described as “polite.” Seth is sorry but clearly not forgiven.
As the storm looms, Ellie and Jesse hole up inside, in Jesse’s words, “a 7-Eleven full of weed.” It’s an old hideout/pot farm used by Eugene, the late husband Gail referenced in her therapy session with Joel in the previous episode. As they wait it out, Ellie learns that Eugene had once been a Firefly and a Vietnam vet. That makes, by Jesse’s reckoning, his fate that much more of a “raw deal.” We still don’t know the details, but we can see that Ellie agrees.
Elsewhere, Abby takes a tumble and then finds herself in a snow-covered clearing filled with frozen corpses. Except they’re not corpses, they’re infected. And they’re not entirely frozen, either. Abby attempts a desperate escape but only makes it inside an abandoned building with the help of Joel, of all people. Abby recognizes him but keeps this to herself. Dina is skeptical of this new arrival but barely has time to consider who this woman might be as they contemplate an escape plan. Abby’s suggestion: Follow her back to her lodge. Joel agrees and, in the process, seals his fate.
It doesn’t take long for a lot of bad things to happen at once. As Jesse and Ellie get word that Joel and Dina still haven’t checked in thanks to Amy (Reedan Elizabeth), Jackson’s communications specialist, the tendrils that have made their way into Jackson by way of some old pipes start twitching. Jesse and Ellie split up to look for their lost friends, while Joel, Dina, and Abby attempt to outrun an army of infected. Said army is also heading to Jackson. As the town puts its plan into action, it becomes clear just how well prepared they are for such an event.
But, despite all their planning and defensive weaponry, it might not be enough. While the most elaborate (and impressive) action set piece seen in The Last of Us to date — a siege that finds the infected breaking through one line of defense after another — unfolds in Jackson, Abby leads her rescuers to the lodge. Despite the care Abby’s friends take, this is quickly revealed to be a mistake. While Joel tries to rally everyone to head to Jackson to help in the fight, the Fireflies hold Dina at gunpoint and tell Joel they’re going to “put her to sleep for a while.” They don’t really want to hurt her. But they do want to hurt Joel.
With Dina out, Abby begins tormenting Joel. She wants the truth or she’ll kill Dina. This veers away from the plan agreed on by her companions, but they go along anyway. And they continue to go along, however reluctantly, as the torment progresses. Abby promised to kill Joel slowly and sets about doing just that, after explaining her reasons. “There are just some things everyone agrees are just fucking wrong,” she says, as a kind of concluding argument.
It’s not clear how much thought Abby has given to this statement. Joel’s actions are unforgivable, maybe even “just fucking wrong,” but it’s not hard to understand why he committed them. What Abby does to Joel almost certainly also falls in the “just fucking wrong” category, but she has her reasons, too. The episode dwells on the moment. Abby, who’s been waiting to do this for years, grabs a golf club and sets about destroying Joel as her companions look on in mounting horror.
By the time Ellie shows up, they’re practically begging Abby to stop. But she doesn’t. While Ellie is pinned to the ground, Abby delivers the coup de grâce with what remains of a golf club. “You’re all going to fucking die!” Ellie screams helplessly. The Fireflies have to know she means it. Still, they let her live. After they leave, Ellie crawls across the floor to embrace Joel’s corpse, their issues now doomed never to be resolved. In the episode’s final moments, Abby & Co. leave the lodge; Jackson begins rebuilding; and Jesse, Dina, and Ellie return to town with Joel’s corpse in tow. Nothing will ever be the same, but exactly what happens next remains to be seen.
Infectious Bites
• And that’s it. Sometimes, a series has a moment that divides it into “before” and “after.” There’s before Sam and Diane get together on Cheers and after, for instance. (And before Diane leaves and after.) And sometimes those moments feel like jumping-off points. It’s possible to imagine that some who’ve tuned into The Last of Us for the continuing story of Ellie and Joel won’t want to press on (though it’s worth noting, without spoiling too much, that Joel remains very much a presence throughout the season). But the series has finished telling that story. It’s telling a different kind of story now.
• Amy controlling comms from her wheelchair brings to mind Oracle, the role Barbara Gordon took on after paralysis forced her to retire as Batgirl (for a while).
• “You’re going to be in charge of Jackson one day. We all know.” Jesse does have a future leader vibe to him, doesn’t he?
• Mark Mylod, a veteran of Game of Thrones, Succession, and many other series, directs this episode. He makes sense as the director to turn to when the action gets this big. The siege scene is a remarkable bit of action filmmaking made all the more effective by the scenes laying out exactly how Jackson planned to defend itself.