[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.]
“Perhaps she obtained what she deserved.”
“Perhaps she didn’t.”
To open “The Final 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 tip of Episode 7, viewers might very nicely be repeating the controversy about Ellie, whose final destiny makes for an agonizing cliffhanger that received’t be resolved till Season 3 premieres (not less than).
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 Final of Us” already killed off certainly 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 loss of life was an accident, however that’s hardly an excuse when Ellie’s complete plan is constructed round murdering individuals.
Alternatively, Ellie’s moral judgement confirmed indicators of enchancment in Episode 7; that her expertise in Seattle (and lingering recollections of Joel) could also be steering her away from vengeance and towards mercy. Saying “perhaps 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 an effective signal for Ellie’s degree 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 disclose.)
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 immediately turns into an open door, and she will’t cease herself from strolling by way of.) Lengthy earlier than her interrogation of Abby’s crew goes so shortly 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 she or he cares about him. He’s a part of her group, 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 somewhat 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 avoid wasting my life,” Tommy mentioned, when Ellie tried to argue Joel would go to Seattle to avenge Tommy’s loss of life. “However once we misplaced individuals, 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 group!” Ellie screams. “You let a child die right now, Jesse. As a result of why? He wasn’t in your group? Let me let you know about my group. My group was crushed to loss of life in entrance of me whereas I needed to fucking watch.”
To be honest, Jesse didn’t “let” anybody die. There was no means they may’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 convey up one of many 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 simple alternative. However Jesse and Tommy already made a more durable alternative — to come back to Seattle to avoid wasting 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 obvious. In Jesse’s situation, neither street accessible to him is actively dangerous: If he goes with the lady to New Mexico, perhaps he makes her completely happy, himself completely happy, and the individuals of New Mexico completely happy. Positive, everybody in Jackson would miss him, however they may’ve discovered one other leader-in-waiting. Nonetheless, he selected to remain. Perhaps he’s much less of a romantic, or perhaps — because it’s implied right here — he’s much less egocentric than Ellie. That doesn’t imply “higher”; generally you have to be egocentric. Ellie simply took it too far.
With Ellie, if she had stayed in Jackson, Dina would have been protected. Ellie would have been protected. The individuals of Jackson would nonetheless have two of their greatest patrol members, Tommy would nonetheless have a de facto niece, and Jesse would have been capable of see his child be born. Going had a single greatest case situation: Abby can be lifeless. Another particular person on this planet can be gone. And for what? Abby isn’t a recognized menace to anybody now that Joel is gone. Ellie’s revenge is for her. It’s egocentric. It’s meant to be therapeutic, nevertheless 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 right into a monster or softened sufficient to search 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 Final of Us” Season 2 is on the market 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 short phrase on the e-book Ellie picks out for Dina’s unborn child: “The Monster on the Finish of This Ebook,” written by Jon Stone with illustrations by Michael Smollin. The kids’s e-book, first printed in 1971, tells an revolutionary meta narrative by which Grover (the “Sesame Road” character) reads the title of the e-book and will get scared about what kind of monster is ready for him on the finish. From there, a lot of the e-book’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 e-book is… Grover.
For youths, the lesson is obvious: The scariest monster is the one you construct up in your thoughts. Expectations and actuality don’t at all times match up, and generally a monster is simply… misunderstood. Take that studying a step additional (not not like comic Gary Gulman’s does in his 2024 stand-up particular, “Grandiliquent”), and the monster on the finish of the e-book is the reader themselves, or extra precisely, no matter anxiousness, trauma, or scarring occasion from the reader’s previous they will’t appear to flee — and shapes how they see the world. Gee, I’m wondering how that might 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 complete workforce are lacking on “tonight of all nights.” Later, we get an concept of that night time’s significance when the W.L.F. units off an enormous explosion on the Seraphites’ village. It’s unclear who lived and died, what was destroyed, or if something was completed, nevertheless 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 speculated to be on these assault boats, and she or he 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 sneakers, there’s a rising emphasis on generational transitions in “The Final 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 needed 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 particular person she was earlier than? May “The Final of Us” truly see hope for a greater future in a technology of children so unwell relaxed 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 just seven episodes lengthy, versus Season 1’s nine-episode arc. However on prime of that, this arc feels incomplete. Ellie’s left midway by way of a transformative second. Every thing 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 Final 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.