For individuals who love acoustic covers of ’80s classics, your day has come. The Final of Us, in the end, has lastly tailored one of many franchise’s most iconic moments. Early on in Season 2, Episode 4, shortly after arriving in Seattle to seek out Abby and her staff, Ellie and Dina make a short cease in an deserted music retailer. After searching round for some time, Ellie heads upstairs, finds an acoustic guitar, and Bella Ramsey lastly will get the possibility to point out off their musical abilities to the viewers.
Ellie performs a sluggish, soothing cowl of the 1985 traditional, “Tackle Me” (a tune the present has used for the character on a number of events), sounding extra akin to The Nationwide than a-ha. Dina enters, and Ellie briefly pauses out of embarrassment, earlier than Dina urges her to play the remainder. She does, and as unlikely as it appears that evidently a synthpop masterpiece could possibly be used for a young second in one of the brutal exhibits and video video games ever, it’s a beautiful sequence.
‘The Final of Us’ Makes use of Music To Inform Ellie’s Character
As beforehand talked about, this isn’t the primary time The Final of Us has used a-ha’s most well-known tune. The sequence’ seventh episode, “Left Behind”, which revealed a lot of Ellie’s backstory, prominently featured the tune. Ellie’s finest pal Riley (Storm Reid) has lately joined the Fireflies and can quickly be leaving city, and for her final day in Boston, she takes her closest confidant to an deserted shopping center for an evening of enjoyable.
“Tackle Me” is used as a needle drop when Ellie rides an escalator, and as such, the tune turns into a key motif for her private relationship with Riley. However the tune’s lyrics additionally make clear deeper emotions they might maintain for one another: “Speaking away, although I don’t know what I’m to say, I’ll say it anyway, in the present day’s one other day to search out you shying away. I’ll be coming to your love, okay?”

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Certainly, because the story continues, it turns into clear that their connection is at a crossroads; since Riley is about to go away city (therefore the lyric “I’ll be gone in a day or two”), Ellie realizes that her emotions for her finest pal are romantic. Because the night time carries on, the 2 step by step break down their limitations, deal with their unstated needs, study to cease shying away from each other, and admit that they love one another.
After all, tragedy strikes shortly after this, and Riley is killed by a horde of contaminated, whereas Ellie will get bitten however someway manages to keep away from turning, leaving her with intense survivor’s guilt. All in all, it’s an incredibly efficient use of music to tell the character and make clear Ellie’s inside battle, which can be true in tonight’s episode.
‘The Final of Us’ Sheds Gentle on Ellie’s New Romantic Connection
It’s no accident that the artistic staff returned to “Tackle Me” in a scene that proved a key turning level in Ellie’s blossoming relationship with Dina. If something, the lyrics illustrate their bond much more successfully than with Riley; the previous few weeks have proven Ellie shying away from the opportunity of a brand new romance, at the same time as she realizes she will be able to’t deny her emotions. Extra crucially, after Ellie performs the tune for Dina, their unstated secrets and techniques are dropped at mild, specifically that Ellie is resistant to bites from the contaminated and that Dina is pregnant with Jesse’s baby.
The tune sheds mild on Ellie’s relationship with Joel as properly. When the 2 first met, Joel was the one who felt the necessity to draw back from her efforts to attach, as he didn’t wish to threat potential heartbreak over the opportunity of dropping one other daughter. But he, too, finally realized he couldn’t bottle that up, and this inevitably led him to probably doom the world to save lots of her life. The primary two episodes of the second season, earlier than Joel met his shockingly grotesque finish, noticed their connection affected by unstated emotions, as he appeared unwilling to confess the elemental selfishness of his actions, at the same time as she clearly noticed the reality.

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However even exterior how successfully the tune lends itself to the present’s subtext, the scene additionally proves a vital calm earlier than the storm. The Final of Us Half II is an nearly unrelentingly brutal recreation, with fewer moments of levity to counter the darkness than its predecessor had. Each within the recreation and the present, this sequence offers us a much-needed second of grace to remind us that there’s nonetheless a chance of hope for Ellie even amid her revenge quest.
It’s top-of-the-line scenes in your entire recreation, and in the end, we’ve seen its promise totally realized on tv. Because the second season kicks into full gear and appears to be relentlessly grim within the weeks forward, it’s good to see that The Final of Us can nonetheless make time to search out the wonder nonetheless current in a seemingly hopeless scenario. The Final of Us is streaming on Max, with new episodes each Sunday.