HBO Max
The Last of Us is getting into the endgame of its first season now. Joel and Ellie have made it through Kansas City and are finally making their way to the West Coast. With the horrors of Henry and Sam’s deaths lingering behind them, the unlikely duo finally meets back up with Tommy in a quaint little mountain town – but not before a few close calls.
This week, Joel is finally given some room to breathe and explains the various things that have been eating him up long before he set off on this quest with Ellie. Here is what you missed on this week’s episode of The Last of Us.
Three months have passed since Joel and Ellie left Kansas City. The two are somewhat lost in the Rocky Mountains, but they make their way to a cabin. Here they question the elderly couple living there. The couple warns them not to pass the river to the west, or they’ll run afoul of a dangerous group of raiders that lives there.
Ellie discounts their warnings and the two press on, undaunted. They see a hydroelectric dam that appears operational and are confronted by a group of mounted guards. The guards lose a dog that has been trained to maul infected, and it somehow does not clock Ellie as an infected human, despite her immunity to the fungus and the presence of cordyceps in her long-healed bite wounds.
The riders take Joel and Ellie back to a sizable commune that is home to hundreds of survivors. The dam powers the community, and they have access to many luxuries that remind Joel of the way things were before the outbreak. He reunites with his brother, Tommy, in a heartfelt reunion. Joel and Ellie learn that Tommy has married a woman named Maria, and Maria is pregnant with the couple’s first child.
The brief respite of a comfortable town free of infected and raiders is enough to allow Joel and Ellie to relax, even if only temporarily. Joel, who has been experiencing panic attacks, confides in Tommy that he is growing fearful of his own slowing reflexes and aging body. He worries that he will let Ellie down like he let Sarah down on Outbreak Day.
Joel explains to Tommy that Ellie is actually immune to the fungus and asks his brother to help complete the mission to get her to a group of doctors to synthesize a cure. Tommy eventually relents, seeing that Ellie offers a glimmer of hope for a better world – a world Tommy’s own child will soon grow up in. Ellie, meanwhile, learns about Joel’s daughter Sarah from Maria. She brings this up to Joel, having overheard his conversation with Tommy, and insists that she is not his daughter and that she can handle herself.
Joel agrees, but notes that this also means he is not her dad. He is confident she will be safer with the younger, sharper Tommy. Still, after their argument, Joel reconsiders his resolve to stay behind, and offers Ellie a choice between the two brothers. Ellie does not hesitate to go with Joel, and the two set out for a nearby university that serves as a Firefly base.
The duo set out on horseback, which helps them cover far more territory than they could on foot. Despite Tommy’s warnings about the treacherous nature of the trip, they don’t run into any trouble and make it to the university in a reasonable amount of time. However, they don’t spot any Fireflies. Instead, the campus is overrun with monkeys who seem to have taken over after escaping captivity in the college’s science labs.
Joel and Ellie find evidence that a Firefly medical camp was set up on the campus, but it’s since packed up and moved further west. They then find out why – a group of raiders attacks them as they try to get back to their horse. Joel manages to fight off an attacker, but suffers a nasty stab to the gut. His worst fear has come true: he was too slow and too imperceptive to notice a threat coming.
Ellie manages to get Joel away from the raider group on horseback, but he is not doing very well after losing so much blood. He passes out and falls from the saddle, and Ellie jumps down after him. She pleads with her unconscious friend not to leave her alone, sadly admitting that she can’t do any of this without him. The episode ends with a wide shot of Ellie, seemingly now all alone in the wilderness, as she tries to will Joel back to consciousness.
