HBO
new episodes of The last of us Premiering on HBO every Sunday night, Ars stars Kyle Orland (who played the matches) and Andrew Cunningham (who did not play) We’ll talk about it here every Sunday evening. While these recaps don’t delve into every plot point of the episode, there is clearly Heavy spoilers It’s inside, so go watch the episode first if you want to start fresh.
Do you believe Ellie Joel?
In this episode, Joel and Ellie pull it off! They’re in Reno, and they’ve found the doctors they’ve been trying to find all along. They just need to let the doctors run a few tests, and then they can ride off into the sunset together, and their surrogate father/daughter bond is intact, healthy, and totally adorable. right?
But yeah, a little supportive, I love how this episode harkens back to some quiet time between Joel and Ellie, who joke around, feed giraffes, and generally be sad about their trip together. They’ve clearly become a surrogate father/daughter pair for each other, which is saying something, given how reluctant they were to be in the same place again at the start of the series.
Andrewkisa: There are beautiful moments. But now that Joel is completely open to letting Ellie take on the role of his dead daughter, there’s a kind of obsessive, almost desperate note to his relationship with her at the beginning of the episode. Joel’s monosyllabic hard shell is gone, and now that it is, he talks a lot; is suddenly also Eager to connect.
Kyle: you can argue that suddenly also Eager to protect his surrogate daughter at the expense of humanity…
HBO
Unlike almost every other group of people we’ve met The last of us Universe, there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly sinister about the Renault Fireflies. Yes, they quickly decide that the only way to study and pass on Ellie’s immunity is to remove her brain (this is explained somewhat in another flashback episode where we meet Ellie’s mother and actually learn the amazing true story of how Ellie got her knife, a prank I made a few times ago Which turned out to be true).
But they are not, as far as we know, a society of sadistic evangelical brainwashers. They are, to borrow a phrase, Putting the needs of the many before the needs of the few. And not that I don’t feel deeply for Joel, who clearly isn’t willing, willing, or able to lose another daughter. But his response to the situation…
Which leads me to my question: is Joel the villain? Have we, the audience, been deceived by Pedro Pascal’s fatherly charm into searching for a monster?
The only way to get to the opposite conclusion is to be hopelessly emotional about the whole thing. And Joel’s actions only get worse because, as Marilyn points out, it’s clear Ellie would be willing to sacrifice herself for this greater good.
That said, I think both the game and the show do a good job of threading the needle between them Defense But Joel’s actions still to explain they. By the time we get to these final scenes, we understand how and why a very broken Joel would sacrifice humankind for this girl he met relatively recently. You don’t have to agree with it to understand it from Joel’s point of view, and I think that’s an amazing narrative achievement.
