[Editor’s Note: The following review contains spoilers for “The Last of Us” Season 2, Episode 5. For previous coverage, check out last week’s review.]
“I do know.”
Who knew two little phrases may evoke so many questions? From the second Season 2 started, “The Final of Us” has stored audiences at midnight over how a lot Ellie (Bella Ramsey) is aware of about what Joel (Pedro Pascal) did for her (or, extra precisely, what he did for himself). The opening moments (which revisit the ultimate scene from Season 1) see Ellie asking Joel to “swear” that the story he advised her is true; that what he stated occurred with the Fireflies within the Salt Lake Metropolis hospital was what actually occurred. He swears, promising her there was no different alternative, however the expression on her face doesn’t mirror an individual who’s satisfied; it’s extra like an individual who’s resolved.
5 years after that vow, when Season 2’s story picks up, Joel and Ellie are in a silent feud. He doesn’t know why, and she or he gained’t clarify it to him (or anybody), however the implication — caused by Joel’s responsible conscience as a lot as author/director Craig Mazin’s alternative to border their struggle because the very very first thing that occurs in Season 2 — is that she’s mad at him for mendacity to her, or hiding one thing from her, or killing dozens of harmless individuals to “save her” from giving up her personal life with the intention to save the remainder of humanity. We don’t know if that’s why Ellie’s mad. We don’t even know if she is aware of Joel lied to her. However it’s all we’ve to go on, and really purposefully so.
Then, Joel dies. Gail (Catherine O’Hara) tries to ask Ellie about their struggle, months after her restoration, however Ellie isn’t speaking. She’s nonetheless within the “anger” section of her grief, which suggests she’s not prepared to speak about regrets or guilt. She’s not prepared to speak about something, actually. She’s solely prepared for revenge.
In that very same episode, Gail raises one other level about Ellie — she says Ellie is a liar. “There’s a distinction between mendacity and being a liar,” Tommy (Gabriel Luna) says, attempting to defend Ellie. However Gail doesn’t soften. “Oh, I do know,” she says. “And that one? Liar.” On the time, Gail was calling bullshit on Ellie’s speech to the council, when she plead with the powers that going to Seattle to seek out and kill Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) was in everybody’s greatest curiosity. Was Ellie mendacity? Completely. Is she a liar? That’s more durable to say.
The identical questions linger after Episode 5, when Ellie claims to already know what Joel did. Is she mendacity or not? Did she actually know what Joel did earlier than Nora (Tati Gabrielle) tells her? Or is she solely saying she knew what he did so she will be able to preserve taking part in the righteous avenger? So she will be able to stick together with her mission to kill Abby? So she will be able to show to herself that nothing will cease her, as a result of nothing is extra essential than getting revenge?
Is Ellie mendacity or is she a liar? Does Ellie lie typically, like children do to keep away from hassle or get what they need, or is she a perpetual liar who can’t cease mendacity, even to herself? If it’s the latter, Gail could be proper: Ellie could already be past saving.
Episode 5 offers Ellie loads of causes and alternatives to rethink her plan. At instances, it even looks as if her doubts could overwhelm her resolve. The ending proves it’s too sturdy to disregard — staring loss of life within the face makes some individuals run the opposite approach, nevertheless it has a hardening impact on Ellie, who’s seen it too many instances, with too many family members, to again down over a stranger’s disembowelment or fungal entombment — however getting there could have nonetheless seeded sufficient doubt to avoid wasting her… finally.
Take Ellie and Dina’s first second of hesitation. After Dina (Isabela Merced) charts a “secure” course to the place they assume Abby is hiding, they stumble throughout a mural on the facet of a constructing. It’s a portrait of a lady with the phrases “Really feel Her Love” written beneath. However straight underneath which are a pile of lifeless our bodies — all Scars (or “Seraphites,” as they’re labeled within the credit) — with one other message written in graffiti simply above them: “really feel this bitch.”
It’s sufficient to make Dina throw up and Ellie rethink the plan. She tells Dina they don’t need to preserve going; that it’s loopy to ship a pregnant girl on a mission this harmful; that Dina can return, and Ellie will end the job with out her. That, after all, doesn’t fly with Dina, who shares with Ellie the brutal story of what occurred to her household when she was eight years outdated. Telling the story, remembering her anguish, steels Dina once more, and it reassures Ellie that the 2 of them ought to preserve going.
However the doubt doesn’t disappear. It shifts, forwards and backwards, between two cussed events reluctant to waver — in entrance of one another and to their very own beliefs. After their failed try to chop via the massive not-so-empty constructing (gee, I ponder why the W.L.F. isn’t patrolling in there?), Jesse (Younger Mazino) says the brand new plan is to go again to Dina and Ellie’s hideout on the theater, meet up with Tommy, and get the heck out of dodge. “No,” Ellie says, nearly instinctively. This time, it’s Dina whose doubts prevail, if just for an prompt. She appears to be like at Ellie and says her title, wordlessly implying that what Jesse says is sensible. It’s too laborious to get to Abby. Seattle is simply too harmful to outlive on their very own.
However earlier than they’ll hash it out, the hazard catches as much as them. Dina will get shot within the leg, and Ellie splits from the trio. She results in the Seattle hospital, the place she surprises Nora (as she tends to injured sufferers, no much less) after which chases her into the contaminated basement. There, she will get a style of vengeance for what the wolves did to Joel.
“Don’t you understand what he did?” Nora says, earlier than Ellie begins beating her (presumably to loss of life) with a pipe. “He killed each individual in that hospital, together with the one fucking individual alive that would make a remedy from you. That was Abby’s father. And Joel, Joel shot him within the head. That’s what he did.”
“I do know,” Ellie says.
Did she? Did she actually? What does it imply if she did? If she didn’t? If she knew and sought vengeance anyway, may that assist her see the cycle of violence she’s persevering with? If she didn’t know and she or he’s mendacity to Nora, is there nonetheless an opportunity Ellie wakes as much as what she’s doing? If studying what Joel did wasn’t sufficient to shake her convictions, what may?
Earlier than Joel died, when Ellie was on the point of go on patrol with Jesse, she advised him, “My shit with Joel is sophisticated. I do know that. From the skin, it most likely appears to be like actually dangerous. It has been actually dangerous. However I’m nonetheless me, he’s nonetheless Joel […] and nothing’s ever going to alter that. Ever.”
Whether or not or not Ellie knew then what she definitely is aware of now, the actual fact stays: One thing wants to alter in Ellie’s relationship with Joel. If it’s not this, then… what?
Grade: A-
“The Final of Us” releases new episodes Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.
Stray Tendrils
• Episode 5’s closing tease — a momentary flashback to when Ellie was nonetheless residing with Joel (earlier than she moved into the storage, so earlier than the occasions within the Season 2 premiere) — implies there’s nonetheless one thing to be realized from Joel and Ellie’s time collectively. We’ll discover out extra in Episode 6, however for now, I gotta say, it felt actually good to see Joel once more. Even for a second, even in flashback, I welled up.
• Final week’s opening scene launched Isaac (Jeffrey Wright). This week’s opening scene spent extra time with the wolves, and it positive looks as if Season 2 is threading of their story as extra than simply an evidence of what Ellie and Dina are up in opposition to.
Hanrahan (Alanna Ubach) questions Sgt. Park (Hettienne Park) about what went down together with her unit within the hospital basement. Seems, the decrease ranges have been the place the primary contaminated sufferers have been introduced for therapy again in 2003. Now, it’s grown right into a hotbed of unprecedented cordyceps exercise. Sgt. Park says issues appeared high-quality on the primary flooring, though the vacancy was its personal eerie warning. However when she despatched her greatest crew to clear the second flooring, Leon — Park’s son — by no means got here again. (It appears secure to imagine the second physique Ellie finds down there afterward, an Asian man connected to a wall of fungus, is Leon.)
“He stated it’s within the air,” Park tells Hanrahan, by the use of explaining why they sealed off the exits and left beneficial troopers to die. Hanrahan commends her for bravery and fast considering, however the actual message of the scene — in addition to the terrifying evolution of the cordyceps an infection — is that Sgt. Park did what Joel couldn’t: She let her youngster die to guard the remainder of humanity. Perhaps it makes a distinction that Leon was older than Ellie. Perhaps it makes a distinction that there was no precise approach to save him. Or perhaps none of that issues, in the case of selecting the anonymous plenty over your individual family members.
•“Why as a result of I’m silly?”
“That’s not the phrase I’d use.”
“What phrase would you utilize?”
“Non-school oriented.”
– Dina’s acquired jokes!
• “Haunted and empty.”
“Aw, identical to us.”
– Dina’s acquired jokes! (Although this one was a groaner.)
• Horror sequels typically have a tough time upping the ante in the case of their scary monsters, however I gotta say, the “good” contaminated in Season 2 are messed up. The way in which they type of dance round within the distance, ready for who is aware of what earlier than they assault, is deranged. Their velocity and ferocity is simply as rabid as their extra senseless brethren, and their warehouse assault this episode is shot so properly, it looks like they’re roaring in from each course. (Kudos to Emmy-winning episode director Stephen Williams.)
• One other savvy directorial design: framing Jesse’s heroic entrance. Not solely does all hope appear misplaced by the point Jesse blasts the primary contaminated off of Ellie, however there’s zero indication as to who may presumably have proven as much as save them. Is it a wolf, killing off the contaminated clickeres earlier than interrogating the uninfected intruders? Is it somebody from Jackson with miraculously good timing? Is it… Joel?
No, after all it’s not Joel, however don’t blame your self for considering it could be, if just for a second. He’s, in spite of everything, the hero we’ve come to count on will save the day. Preserving Jesse at a distance, his face and different distinguishing options out of body, permits the viewer to recollect when Joel was capable of come to Ellie’s assist, and seeing Jesse’s entrance from her vantage level supplies a bit of pang of grief-tinged nostalgia. Not solely are we hoping in opposition to hope for Joel’s return, however so is she. Has by some means, someway, her hero returned? No. In fact not. However Jesse may be the hero she wants, if not the one she needs.
• “Hey kiddo.” 😭