Hello and welcome to our very last recap of season one of The Last of Us, episode 9, “Look for the Light.” As always, two queer friends (me, Valerie Anne, and my buddy Nic) recount the tale of a tiny lesbian and her unlikely bond with her Apocalypse Dad. And since this is the last one, I just have to say that I have had an absolute blast co-writing these recaps with Nic, and I think I can speak for both of us when I say we’ve loved reading your comments and breaking things down with you all. Maybe we’ll see you all in Season 2! Until then, there are still a lot of feelings left to be had, so let’s do this thing!

Nic: Previously on The Last of Us, a fungal virus tore through the whole entire world, a man named Joel watched his daughter die in his arms, he picked up a job in the form of cargo named Ellie, transported her across the country and along the way they fought infected and learned to trust each other. They met lots of people on their journey, and unfortunately lost some too, but the one constant was that they would always have each other’s backs, no matter what.

A Mother’s Love

Ashley Johnson gives birth to Ellie again, this time a bit more literally.

Valerie: We open as I wish more things in my life would open: with Ashley Johnson.

Nic: Ah yes, coming in strong with the Ashley BAFTA Johnson love! She deserves!

Valerie: Okay, okay, sorry, fine, let me start over.

We open on a woman in the woods. She has reddish brown hair, a yellow sundress, and a green army jacket. She’s sprinting, and panting and grunting in a way that will sound familiar to anyone who played the games. And she’s very, very pregnant.

We don’t learn this til later but I’ll tell you now, her name is Anna; she runs to a farmhouse that has a firefly symbol on the silo and calls out, “it’s me” but no one answers. She realizes her water broke, runs upstairs and barricades herself in what looks like it used to be a nursery and slumps to the ground.

Anna pulls out her switchblade and fights contractions while the infected that chased her through the woods pounds at the door, eventually dropping the blade during a wave of pain. The infected gets through the door and attacks, and it takes her a second to grab her blade again and get the fungus freak off of her.

Anna looks down and sees the best and the worst thing imaginable within a second of each other: her beautiful, healthy-looking baby girl screaming her brand new lungs out…and a bite mark on her own leg. She quickly cuts the umbilical cord and inspects her baby’s ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes, smiling at her little miracle. The baby screams but Anna smiles, saying, “You fucking tell ’em, Ellie.”

Nic: Watching game Ellie meet show Ellie and hearing her say the name “Ellie” gave me my first of many cries this episode.

Valerie: Anna calls Ellie tough, and smiles through her tears, trying to enjoy what she knows are not only the first, but also the last moments with her baby girl.

Fireflies arrive later that night, led by the one and only Marlene. They sneak through the house and follow soft sounds up to the nursery, where Marlene finds Anna singing to baby Ellie. Anna is holding her switchblade up to her own neck, pressed so deep it’s already piercing the skin, ensuring that at the first twitch she would be able to take herself out and protect her baby. As soon as she realizes it’s Marlene in the room with her, Anna drops the knife and slides Ellie toward her. Marlene tries to explain what happened, why they’re late, but Anna isn’t listening. She says it’s not Marlene’s fault, and asks her to take Ellie to Boston to find someone to raise her and keep her safe. She asks her to give Ellie the switchblade, and to believe her when she says she cut the umbilical cord after she got bit. After.

Then Anna asks Marlene to kill her. Anna twitches and groans a little; she held on as long and as hard as she could while she was holding Ellie, but now that she knows Ellie is safe it’s harder to fight off those pesky cordyceps. Anna pulls the “we’ve known each other our whole lives” card but Marlene can’t do it; she takes Ellie and brings her out into the hallway, but she stops when she hears Anna screaming after her. She hands baby Ellie to another Firefly, asks him to cover her ears, then goes back into the room.

The first sound baby Ellie heard was her mother’s voice, cooing at her and singing at her. The second was Marlene.

The third sound Ellie Williams ever heard was the gunshot that killed her mother.

Nic: OUCH.

On Giraffes and Hope

Oh the joy and simplicity of feeding an animal in the middle of the apocalypse.

Nic: It’s springtime in the present day, and Ellie is staring off into the middle distance, no doubt lost in the thoughts of what’s transpired until now, and what’s still to come now that their goal is within reach. She’s so lost in thought that she doesn’t hear Joel talking to her about finding Chef Boyardee and the game Boggle until he repeats himself and even then, she responds with half of her usual energy. It’s such a wild role reversal watching Joel do everything in his power to get Ellie to open up. I didn’t even know Joel knew this many words!

Valerie: Joel showing things to Ellie to try to make her smile is exactly how I imagine my inner dialogue when I’m trying to trick myself out of a depressive state. Just mentally holding things up to my own self like “Eh?? How about this?? Is this working???”

Nic: Joel tells Ellie that they’re getting close to a hospital and that it might be the one they’re looking for. And it’s such a small thing, but when Joel asks her to hold his gun while he grabs his things, I can’t help but remember a time when Ellie merely looking at a gun sent Joel into a tailspin. As they restart their journey, Joel shares that he found a smashed up guitar in an RV, but maybe he’ll look for one so he could teach her how to play. This is the Joel we met in the pilot; Joel before his entire world was shattered; Joel whose purpose in life was to care for his daughter Sarah; Joel who wanted to teach things solely because he thought someone else might be good at it. Apocalypse Dad has truly come so far.

Valerie: And Joel isn’t just shaking rattles in front of a baby on the verge of a breakdown and hoping for the best. He’s tapping into things he’s seen Ellie get excited about before: being better than him at something, offering to teach her something. It’s genuinely so thoughtful and sweet.

Nic: As they continue to walk, their way is blocked so Ellie figures they’ll do what they always do: cut through a building to find a skyscraper and see what they can scope out from high up. But Joel continues his quest to make her laugh by suggesting they use dynamite to blow their way through and he’s got her going for a hot second, before confirming that she was right; they’re going to cut through a building to find a skyscraper and see what they can scope out from high up. He’s trying so hard to break through her walls, and when he asks if she’s okay, it’s in a voice that’s so tender and caring; a far cry from conversing with “cargo.”

They make their way through the building until they find a way to get upstairs. And the way up? Why it’s by using one of my favorite game mechanics: the boost! Joel boosts Ellie up so she can drop the ladder down to him, but she manages to only half drop it because something else catches her attention. Now, there were only a handful of in-game scenes that I really wanted to see on screen, and the moment I realized this was happening, the tears started to flow.

Ellie runs upstairs with more zest than Joel’s seen in a while, beckons him to join her, and then immediately shushes him so as not to disturb the real life giraffe in front of them. Joel feels the enormity of this moment and slowly grabs some leaves for Ellie to feed the giraffe with. And oh her smile and her laugh as she does a task so many of us with access to zoos might take for granted. Joel watches Ellie with love in his eyes and relief on his face, knowing that despite everything, his joyful Ellie is still in there.

Valerie: Ellie showing some signs of energy and joy again made me cry. And weirdly made me hopeful? If this girl who was born into trauma, raised in a literal apocalypse, and then went through more over the course of a year at age 14 than most people go through in a lifetime and still find things that make her giggle, maybe there’s hope for all of us.

Nic: Ellie runs to the roof to get a better look at the giraffes and Murder Dad and Daughter get themselves one heck of a view. “So, is it everything you hoped for?” “It’s got its ups and downs, but you can’t deny that view.” (Can I send my therapy bills to a ledge?) They get serious for a moment, and Joel talks to Ellie about the riskiness of what she’s about to do; tells her that she doesn’t have to do this; that they can pack it in and go back to Tommy’s and forget all of it. And with the wisdom of someone much older, Ellie looks at Joel and tells him that after everything she’s done, it can’t be for nothing. He’s protected her up until now and when they’re done, she will follow him literally anywhere he wants to go, but for herself and for every person they’ve lost, she has to finish this. She’s choosing to finish this.

The Guy Who Shot and Missed

“And I believe if you go, my heart would break. Just hold on one more day.”

Valerie: On the way to the hospital, they walk through an army base; it reminds Ellie of FEDRA, but Joel explains that they were emergency medical camps that were set up right after the outbreak, though they were short-lived. He says he ended up in one on day two, and Ellie asks if Sarah was with him; and maybe it’s because of all they’ve been through, or maybe it’s because he’s excited she’s actually talking again, or maybe some combination of the two, but for once he doesn’t balk at Sarah’s name, he just tells Ellie that Sarah was already gone by day two. He was in the med tents for the wound on his head she had asked about all those months ago, the man who shot and missed. Ellie starts to make a joke about her stitching technique when Joel stops and confesses something to her: it was him. He was the one who shot and missed. Ellie’s eyes get big and sad and she goes to sit next to Joel, ready to listen.

Nic: I love that Ellie followed Joel’s lead here. She didn’t push him to share anything he wasn’t ready to. She just waited so he knew that she was ready for whatever he was willing to say.

Valerie: Joel says that after Sarah died, he didn’t see the point of going on, so he tried to shoot himself, but at the last minute, he flinched. He doesn’t know why, but he did, and he decided to go get himself stitched up after. (Is it bad that I’m envisioning fan art Sarah’s ghost gently moving his gun hand away? Why do I like to hurt my own feelings?)

Nic: Welp! Now I’m picturing it too!!

Valerie:Joel starts to explain why he’s telling Ellie this, why he’s telling her now, but she stops him. She knows why he’s telling her. Joel finally understands how wrong he was when he accused her of not knowing what loss is. He sees now that their wounds aren’t exactly the same, but their pain is very similar.

Ellie tries to ease the weight of the moment by distilling the lesson, saying, almost sarcastically, “Time heals all wounds.” But Joel doesn’t smile or hesitate, he just looks in her eyes and tells her matter-of-factly: it wasn’t time that healed him.

Nic: :choked sob:

Valerie: Ellie nods resolutely, and meekly offers that she’s glad it didn’t work out for him, his day two plan. He’s glad too. They awkwardly get up and start heading toward the hospital, and Joel decides the best way to turn the mood around is to ask for some terrible puns. Delighted and happy to oblige, Ellie pulls out her trusty joke book and reads off a few, including an apocalypse-themed one that makes them both laugh.

While they’re distracted, they end up getting flash-bombed, and Joel has to watch Ellie get taken from him yet again.

Next page: Sorry, you’re not done crying yet, sorry. (Sorry.)

The Hospital

I keep thinking about how Anna and Marlene were the OG Ellie and Riley and it hurts.

Nic: Joel groggily wakes up in a hospital with Firefly logos painted everywhere and Marlene looking over him. His immediate concern is for Ellie, where she is, and whether she’s okay. Marlene makes what passes for small talk in this situation, asking how they made it across the country when she had a group of men with her and almost died. Joel chalks it up to Ellie wanting so badly to get here, and because he won’t be distracted, asks again where she is.

Marlene tells him that Ellie’s being prepped for surgery, which is confusing to Joel because what kind of surgery would she need to undergo if they just needed her blood? Their doctor thinks that the cordyceps in Ellie has grown with her since she was born; that she was essentially accidentally vaccinated against the virus in the split seconds between when Anna was bit and the umbilical cord was cut. Again, Joel demands to know what they’re doing to Ellie, but Marlene just continues her explanation. The cordyceps in Ellie releases a kind of messenger that makes normal cordyceps think that she’s cordyceps, so the plan is to remove it from Ellie to replicate that messaging and create a cure. Realization dawns on Joel’s face because cordyceps grows in the brain, which means removing large parts of Ellie’s brain, which means killing her.

Valerie: I’ll admit the show did a slightly better job than the game of explaining why they needed her brain but I still think it’s absolutely fucking batshit for the FIRST MOVE to be something that would KILL your ONLY source of the potential cure. There was once a show that had me yelling BONE MARROW IS A RENEWABLE RESOURCE and this decision makes me feel the same way. Maybe over time you realize dissection is the only option but wouldn’t you at least want to start with a spinal tap?! Sheesh.

Nic: Joel demands they find someone else, there must be someone else besides this 14 year old girl who can save the world. Someone else who he hasn’t grown to love and care for. But the fact is, there’s no one else. Marlene tries to reassure Joel that Ellie has no idea what’s going on, she’s not afraid and she won’t feel any pain. That’s not enough for Joel; he demands to see her and pleads with Marlene because surely she doesn’t understand his pain. But the thing is, she’s the only other person who can. She promised Ellie’s mother, her best friend in the world, that she would save her, but she can’t; she has no other choice.

But he does. Marlene is prepared for this response though and instructs her men to take Joel to the garage and not give him his things until then. (I’ll also be sending therapy bills to Marlene’s single tear, thank you very much.) The men lead Joel away, but as they get down the stairs, he attacks them, steals their weapons, and goes on a murder spree throughout the hospital. It’s one of the most game-like sequences, complete with the sounds of the theme playing over Joel’s muted shots and reloading. It’s beautiful and mesmerizing in a weird way. He finally gets to the pediatric OR where Ellie is prepped and vulnerable on the table, demands they unhook her, and shoots the doctor right in the head when he refuses. So he turns to the nurses (one of whom is voice actor extraordinaire LAURA FUCKING BAILEY) and makes his demands one more time; they comply, and Joel carries his girl out of the operating room.

One Last Choice

Endure. Survive. Protect.

Valerie: Joel carries Ellie out of the hospital, and runs into Marlene in the parking garage. Marlene says he can’t keep her safe forever; that she might be immune but she could still get torn apart by infected, killed by raiders; she could grow up and leave him. She lives in a broken world, and he could have fixed it. He says this isn’t Marlene’s choice to make, and Marlene points out it isn’t his either. Marlene thinks Ellie would want to be the cure, no matter the cost. Marlene thinks Joel knows it. And maybe he could have been convinced; maybe if the Fireflies had sat him and Ellie down in a waiting room and explained the situation, maybe if Ellie had chosen it and asked him to let her do it herself. Maybe if they had known at the start this would be the only way… Maybe if he wasn’t holding Ellie the way he was holding his daughter on the night Sarah died. But Joel isn’t willing to make that sacrifice; not for Marlene, not for the world. Not again.

Nic: That Sarah/Ellie parallel was PAIN.

Valerie: So he shoots Marlene. And when she survives the first shot and begs him to let her go, he tells her he can’t risk her coming after Ellie and he shoots her again.

And here’s the thing: parents make choices for their kids they can’t undo all the time. Choices they truly believe are made out of love, choices they think are right. Choices the kid has to live with, even though they weren’t consulted, even if it wasn’t a choice they would have made. Hell, even if it WAS the choice they would have made, just the fact they weren’t given the option can leave a mark. So Ellie lost a lot today. She lost the only person she knew who loved her mother. She lost some of her own bodily autonomy, after having JUST clawed it back from David’s hideous hands. She lost the chance to be a hero like someone from one of her favorite comic books. She lost the chance to have all that she lost, all that she’s done, be more than just an ache in her chest that will never fully go away. But she gained something, too. She gained someone who would do anything to protect her. She gained a father. Or, at least, the closest thing to it that she’s ever known. Joel knows now that there’s nothing he wouldn’t do or risk for her. And Ellie knows it, too. For better or worse.

Nic: “If I ever were to lose you, I’d surely lose myself.”

The End

It’s you and me.

Nic: Ellie wakes up disoriented in the backseat of a car that Joel is driving, and the first thing he does is reassure her that she’s safe. He tells her to take it easy because the drugs in her system are still wearing off since they had to run a bunch of tests on her and dozens of others. You can tell he’s been rehearsing some version of this explanation the entire time she’s been knocked out. He continues on that the doctors weren’t able to make it work and they’ve given up on cure. He says that raiders attacked the hospital, and when she asks with her groggy voice if people got hurt, he doesn’t lie to her. But when she asks if Marlene is okay, Ellie is met with silence, and she knows that her one connection to her mom is gone. Joel says he’s taking them home, and as Ellie drifts back to sleep, he says the same two words Ellie left for Sam, “I’m sorry.”

They drive as far as they can before the car craps out on them, and as Joel does a final inspection on the car, Ellie examines her bite mark, presumably wondering what all of this was for. In an adorable callback to episode 2, Joel tells Ellie that they have about a 5 mile hike to Jackson, but they can manage it. Maybe it’s the relief that his Ellie is back safely with him, maybe it’s guilt from lying to her, but as they hike, Joel reveals more about Sarah than even we know. She loved to hike and definitely would have liked Ellie because she’s funny. He does that thing where he tells Ellie the things he loves about Sarah and what makes the two of them different, but immediately makes sure she knows that he’s not implying anything negative about her! It’s very cute and also very sad at the same time.

As they reach a lookout point (all of the most emotionally devastating conversations sure do happen with a view, huh?) Ellie stops Joel. It’s clear that she’s been thinking about what she’s about to say. She’s ready to tell him about the first time she killed someone, and it’s as awful as we imagined. She tells him about her best friend Riley and how they were going to lose their minds together, but only one of them did and Ellie had to end it. Riley was the first one to die, and then Tess, and then Sam, and Joel interrupts her to say that none of it was her fault, but Ellie knows that. He tells her that you keep finding something new to fight for. It’s Ellie’s turn to interrupt Joel, and she makes him swear to her that everything he told her about the Fireflies is true. She just told him her most painful truth and is begging him to do the same for her. Because even if he admits now that he lied, maybe they can get past it together. But Joel doubles down and he swears, because that’s what he needs to do to protect her in this moment.

And I don’t think Ellie believes him; it’s all over her face. But what else can she do when this man who went from being her transport to being a father, is standing in front of her, begging her to trust what he’s saying.

Valerie: The thing is, he could have given her a better lie. Said they had lots of people, that they took her blood or a bone marrow sample but didn’t have beds for them to stay so they had to go; something that wasn’t “well, you’re not special and it was all for nothing” which is exactly what she told him she didn’t want. And I agree: what hurts the most is that she knows it. Cue the clip from Now & Then of Christina Ricci wailing, “he’s all I have left and he lied.”

Nic: Dozens of expressions cross Ellie’s face as she considers Joel’s words, as she considers all that they’ve been through, as she considers how much softer he’s become and how much harder she’s had to be. She looks Joel in his eyes, nods, and says an “Okay” that is filled with the pain of what has been and the hope of what’s to come.

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