The Last of Us Review - Episode 7 Recap: Left Behind
The episode explores young queer love and more tragedy as we peel back a layer of the Ellie origin story AND we find out what becomes of Joel after last week's cliffhanger.
This week, as noted in our episode 6 recap, we get a whiff of Ellie’s Life Before Joel (LBJ - not to be confused with the former U.S. president and architect of the Great Society).
We’ve seen bits of pieces of Ellie before but had to wait 360 minutes to get the lowdown on anything deeper than her love of Will Livingston’s No Pun Intended, the fact that she’s an orphan that grew up in FEDRA schools, is pretty antisocial, likes “Savage Starlight” comics, Mortal Kombat II, and has alluded to losing a loved one and using a gun before she met Joel in what seemed like a prior tragic event.
For episode 7, we go back in time to Boston’s QZ where the Ellie of < 6 months ago (?) is in a FEDRA school being groomed for a leader role. Problem is her best friend and roommate, Riley (Storm Reid, A Wrinkle in Time), ran away, leaving Ellie absent the person that protected her from the mean kids, and one in particular named Bethany, who ends up, receiving many stitches after Ellie goes a round or two with her, unleashing her anger and sadness over Riley’s absence.
In which I go down a nerd hole:
In watching this clutch opening scene, how much of a blip is it that Ellie, pre-fight with Bethany, is listening to 90s grunge pop band, Pearl Jam, on an 80s walkman? I mean did we skip over a Discman in our tech chronology and what about an iPod (released in 2001) or the 90s yellow Sports walkman? I mean the world stopped in 2003, not in the 80s, but then again we know our show runners have an 80s preoccupation. How else do you explain this week’s refrain of Take on Me. And if it’s the batteries argument, that’s bollocks. We all know the the Discman also ran off batteries. But could it be that there’s a hierarchy of tech? Like only FEDRA officers get iPods and fireflies are stuck with cans of soup strung together by string? Or walkie talkies?
And not to get too nitpicky here, but the Pearl Jam version of “Future Days” which Ellie listens on the 80s walkman (and which sounds very Cat Stevens) is from 2013! Would it have even been available on a cassette?
Feel free to jump into any of these ruminations. No, please do.
And we’re back…
Despite seeming unhappy with her current situation, Ellie seems to have a healthy respect for the political leanings of FEDRA, as espoused by the director she talks to, and their mission to keep people safe.
This director gives Ellie a choice - Option 1 is to continue to fight and rebel and end up on the receiving end of people like Bethany, pretty much, maybe catch a stray Firefly bullet and Option 2 is to follow the rules, rise in the ranks, have a good life and keep your head down and do the work.
So if you’ve had a pulse in the past 6 episodes, you know that Ellie doesn’t choose the 2nd option. She goes off on an adventure with Riley, who returns to their room in the middle of the night on that very same day, to take her on what feels like a date. Riley reveals that she’s now a Firefly and the two debate ideologies and why Riley is aligning herself with these “anarchists.” Riley describes to Ellie how she never belonged in FEDRA, wasn’t treated great, and misses being part of a family. The Fireflies feel more like a family to her.
What’s magic about this episode, beyond the glorious mall date with electricity and actual lights, arcade games (Mortal Kombat II anyone?), a working merry go round, and poking fun at Victoria’s Secret (because now we all know her secret is that she’s an old man in Ohio), is that nothing is on the surface is what it seems.
Riley like likes Ellie. This isn’t just a hang. It’s a delicately planned date full of all the things that Ellie enjoys doing. Riley has thought through every moment and prepared for it down to the coins machine in the arcade busting open, though she hadn’t accounted for how exciting an escalator is for a first time non-toddler user. Ellie is enthralled by the moving stairs and Riley has to literally talk her off the ledge so they have time for everything else before she returns Ellie to her dorm room.
The first quasi hint of Riley’s affections for Ellie come by way of her flirt-teasing Ellie outside of the VS, next comes the reach for her hand at the carousel, and finally, in what’s undoubtedly the most fun scene of the show though foreboding of the wall zombie coming for them, the two of them rock out to “I got you babe” (Etta James) while wearing clown and wolf masks and dancing on a glass case, and Ellie gives her a kiss.
And if you also thought Sonny & Cher originally sang this song 🎶 you would be correct. Sonny penned this song originally and sang it with his then wife and musical partner, Cher. Once Etta James got her vocals on it, the song was transformed though. Give it a listen.
A really cool comparison of the Ellie-Riley kiss scene in the show vs the video game. It’s so on the mark.
Beyond love, what is there?
Turns out there’s a lot more. Ellie learns from Riley that this is Riley’s last night in Boston. She’s headed down South for the Fireflies. But after that sweet kiss full of promise, all of this seems up in the air. Well, there’s no time to think this over as this is a zombie apocalypse show and the wall zombie unexpectedly jumps Ellie and Riley biting both of them. Now, of course, future Ellie knows she’s immune to the Cordyceps virus but this past Ellie doesn’t know this. And we can assume in the timeline of events, Riley dies, Ellie doesn’t but she meets up with Marlene, Riley’s boss, and Marlene discovers alongside Ellie that Ellie is immune and then imprisons her in the quarantine room where we meet Ellie first before she’s handed over to Joel and Tess.
But Wait. What about Joel?
Thankfully this show didn’t leave us in the lurch here. Joel is hanging on, holed up in the basement of a house, lying spread out on top of a table. Barely in the episode. No clue how Ellie got him here. What is clear is that Ellie hasn’t abandoned him and even tries to sew up his nasty gut stab wound with an old needle, hardly sterilized. Oh well.
Pedro Pascal is just off doing his Mando thing so we’ll have to settle for the wisdom of Baby Yoda.
Now it’s your time to weigh in.
This episode has garnered its share of criticism. It’s the lowest rated of any of the episodes, censored in some regions which is rumored to be based on a pretty chaste kiss between two girls. Do you think it’s just “filler” episode? Does it have more merit? The Last of Us fandom, now is your time to sound off on episode 7.
And because it’s imperative we track all the variations of zombies we’ve seen before, this episode introduced us to the variety known as "they become part of the wall” or the one who infected and effectively killed, Ellie’s first love, Riley.
I loved seeing Ellie's sweetness in this episode in comparison to the hard sarcasm we've seen from her but know is a protective state.