The Last of Us Review - Episode 9 Recap: Look for the Light
A surprise BEVP guest, a finale that went out with a bang, and serene giraffes in place of very few zombies this week.
Surprise!
I’m excited to share that our finale recap of The Last of Us will be a fab collab between BEVP and MacGuffin or Meaning: Entertainment Newsletter. First off, thank you Alise for finding time this week to be here with me to talk about that finale. I know this week’s a busy one for you, what with the Ted Lasso season 3 premiere dropping.
By the way, Alise is an expert on all things Ted Lasso and if you haven’t checked out her Ted Lasso posts, then you need to. For me, reading them over the last few months hyped me up for this season. It also made me realize how much of the subplots I’d forgotten over the seasons, including the one with Sam’s haircut and how beautiful that was, so my brain thanks you for the short cut here in preparation for Season 3.
Warning: I ask a lot of questions within a single question. And yes, this is a recap, so yeah, spoilers.
The Ted Lasso connection, Parental grief & zero therapy options, and authentic representation of childbirth
Beth: Alise, I got to ask. How much of a “Nate” (Ted Lasso villain) has Joel become in this last episode? I bet you never thought I would compare the two, but my Joel love is shot. Maybe to be redeemed in season 2. We shall see. But all of Joel’s actions in this episode to secure his newfound happiness with Ellie, and getting to be a father again, come at the cost of Ellie’s autonomy and her wishes to be the cure for humanity. Joel, in his mind, sees Ellie as his naive daughter (and infantilizes her) but Ellie’s proved she’s no longer a child and nothing speaks to this more, than in episode 8 in her takedown of the goon squad in Silver Lake after nearly being chopped up for body parts and sexually assaulted.
Alise: I hadn’t really thought about a Joel and Nate connection, but with both we see a really extreme sense of co-dependency that absolutely feeds some really horrible decisions. In the finale of season 2 of Ted Lasso, Nate absolutely decimates Ted, claiming that he showered him with attention and then abandoned him. He leaves no room for any of Ted’s own personal trauma, only focusing on his own and using that as an excuse to be horrible to Ted.
The scene where Joel says to Ellie that it wasn’t time that healed his wounds was a huge red flag moment for me. It’s something that feels like it should be sweet, but ultimately, it’s kind of horrible. Using someone else to fill the void of a lost loved one means taking away a part of that person’s humanity while also putting a huge burden on them to be something they can never be.
Obviously it’s going to be harder to get therapy in the middle of a fungal apocalypse than it is in modern day London, so I’ll give Joel a little more of a pass for his co-dependent ways, but both show how unresolved trauma can lead to hurting those around you, especially those you love.
What is fascinating to me is that between them, we have Nate who is looking for a surrogate father and we have Joel who is looking for a surrogate daughter. Which shows how complicated the whole parent/child relationship can be.
Which brings us to the opening scene with Anna giving birth to Ellie. I mean, there’s not much more complicated than fighting a mushroom zombie while giving birth without any medical intervention!
Why don’t you talk about that some, Beth.
Beth: Thanks Alise. Giving birth is tough business, without a fungal pandemic and a clicker zombie coming at you, so naturally I question the realism in Anna, Ellie’s mom, played by Ashley Johnson in a tremendous cameo (Crissy from the 80s sitcom Growing Pains and also the voice actress for Ellie in the OG video game for The Last of Us), being able to multitask like that, but hey, we needed a dramatic entrance to the world for our “tough” Ellie and we got it.
And boy, was it tragic with Anna’s death by way of Marlene’s gun, but ultimately the clicker bite which precipitated that. There’s a part of me that finds fault with shows that portray the act of childbirth as natural and miraculous and generally without hiccups which is not a reflected reality of the way childbirth happens. I think we need to get better about more honest, authentic, true-to-life portrayals of childbirth onscreen to help normalize this. It’s not all having babies drop out of us after exerting energy in a zombie fight or the clickbait stories of how teenagers can hide a pregnancy for 9 months (another common trope in teenage pregnancy lore).
From experience, I couldn’t have given birth to my kids without a C-section and modern medicine and even with it, it was dicey in post-operative state/recovery as I got an infection and nearly died. I recognize that The Last of Us doesn’t owe society a glimpse of this, especially given it’s an apocalypse situation, but babies we are invested in always seem to make it in these shows and become bad asses. The Walking Dead had Judith, Rick’s baby defying odds. Here we have tough Ellie.
What do you think? Is it a showrunner’s responsibility to have this be more thought through or do we have enough parental grief with Joel and his loss of Sarah? And Alise, how did you feel connected to these themes?
Alise: I always have a pit in my stomach whenever a birth in horrible conditions is about to happen. I experienced a stillbirth in 2014, and that experience tends to make me hyper aware of situations where both the mother and the baby are at risk. So yeah, I have this initial sense of dread whenever that’s about to hit my screen.
But I also get that there’s a certain amount of plot armor that happens in these kinds of shows and movies that allow the impossible to happen. We saw it in A Quiet Place when Emily Blunt’s character somehow survives childbirth and then a crying baby somehow survives monsters that respond to sound. Ultimately, I guess we just have to assume that some people are able to give birth on a floor while simultaneously plunging a switchblade into a Clicker’s brain?
I did appreciate that they showed through Joel, some of the trauma that is specific to losing a child. It’s a unique kind of loss, and having experienced the loss of a child, I felt a connection to Joel right from the start. Overall, I think that line was handled well, even though Joel did not handle it particularly well. Given the prevalence of that kind of loss, it was powerful to see that, particularly from a male perspective. It also showed how there can be a lack of support for fathers who lose children. Again, it’s an apocalypse show, but even in the regular, non-zombie world, there is limited support for parents who lose children, especially fathers, and that can create some toxic situations.
And this episode had one of the most toxic situations we’ve seen in the show.
The Salt Lake City Fireflies’ Annihilation & Other Toxicity
Beth: Ooh. I’m going to jump in here. Obviously, the Salt Lake City hospital massacre comes to mind. It’s hard to watch as Joel hunts down and successfully shoots and kills all of these let’s just say, well intentioned, on the right side of justice rebels (Fireflies), in single pursuit of keeping Ellie safe and never letting her go, now that we’ve firmly established she’s a surrogate for Sarah. What’s pretty toxic on paper is not the lengths Joel will go to, to ensure no harm comes to Ellie/Sarah (that’s heroic) but the reasons that are compelling him to do this, as they are less noble.
The Joel sniper shoot out transpires with muted restraint. It’s less loud than a video game, definitely not as jarring, and is about Joel getting to Ellie, where he finds her lying on a hospital gurney about to undergo a lobotomy? It’s not really clear. The somewhat more clear thing is they need to tap her brain to suck out the antibodies to make the vaccine. Joel isn’t having any of this and he kills the doctor, which is him basically saying, “Down with saving humanity, I’m here for Ellie and Ellie only. And anyways, I’m going to die soon so I may as well live out my life with the one person who I know can make me happy.” Joel’s playing the game as a zero sum. There’s no gray.
What makes this an elevated form of toxicity is Joel’s killing the doctor and later, Marlene. In this act, he’s also robbing Ellie of her autonomy and the chance for humanity to exist as it could, with the ability to eradicate human devastation via cordyceps or at least bring down the infection rate. Ellie was very upfront with Joel earlier in the episode that she wanted to finish this mission ergo, save humanity.
But she wasn’t given the choice by either Joel or Marlene to make an informed decision, however and she was lied to by both adults. In the case of Marlene, by omission of what the odds are of her surviving the surgery, and with Joel, he tells her that the whole thing was a bust and that there are others like her, who are immune, and it didn’t work and there’s no cure. He single handedly erases Ellie’s hope and devalues her sense of purpose over his codependency.
I’m still hooked by the comment you made and want to unpack this a bit more:
The scene where Joel says to Ellie that it wasn’t time that healed his wounds was a huge red flag moment for me. It’s something that feels like it should be sweet, but ultimately, it’s kind of horrible.
So I interpreted these scene in a similar way, but in listening to the official The Last of Us podcast, the analysis by the showrunners was more optimistic. Mazin and Druckmann shared that the tension or pause in these scene is Ellie also coming to terms with how significant she is to Joel. As a kid, she assumes that she’s not someone whom Joel could admire or who is super impactful to him, and this scene turns that around for her. I think this is a nice way to look at it, but I still felt all kinds of cringe as I watched it unfold. Joel is applying a lot of pressure to Ellie, who is now bearing responsibility for Joel’s happiness and that’s a heavy weight.
Role Reversal: Ellie as the adult; Joel as healing dependent
Alise: Just one quick thing - I think it’s interesting that this is kind of the only episode where Joel is unable to offer any comfort to Ellie. Throughout the first season, they seem to offer a kind of back and forth of support for one another. It starts with Joel seeing Ellie simply as cargo, but as they bond, they have a sense of equality between them, which is kind of beautiful. Then Joel breaks our hearts by calling her “baby girl,” but that is a shift in him that ultimately makes things worse between them. I think it’s a clever (and devastating) bit of writing to turn something that is so beautiful and vulnerable into the ultimate downfall of Joel’s character, as that is the moment that he can no longer see Ellie as her own person. Instead, she now finds solace in a giraffe.
Beth: I think your insight on this episode being the only episode where Joel is unable to offer any comfort to Ellie is pretty spot on. Though I think the penultimate episode starts that up and acts as a crossover event in Ellie’s growing independence from him and her being more self-possessed. And the giraffes were pretty dang neat. I had a moment where I related to Joel’s expression of, “Ah come on, I get you Chef Boyardee and Boggle and THIS is the thing you go ga-ga for!” It’s like as a parent, you want to be able to be the source of soothing and comfort for your child and at some point that dynamic evolves as your child gets older but with Joel, to your point about his loss and grieving and zero support, he never got to the point in his relationship with Sarah where there was that level of maturity happening.
Taking a step back, what I really value in a finale is when it wraps up all the loose ends. This episode does! Few shows do this when they know they will have a second season. Albeit, we don’t know that this show will, but based on the average viewership of these episodes is 30.4 million, I’m gonna bet on it will live to see a Season 2.
What are some of the things you would want to see in that?
The Last of Us, Season 2 & Reflections on our favorite S1 episode
Alise: I would certainly hope that Joel comes clean to Ellie. I feel like there’s no way they can move on with that lie between them. I will be very anxious to see how that goes. Also, does that now make the Fireflies an enemy? Will the presence of Joel and Ellie in Jackson now threaten the lone respite from the outside world? It feels like they have to now be a threat to that community. So many questions!
Also, I would not hate a little more action. I love the dedication to practical effects, which I know limits how many big action sequences we can have, but dang. I loved the chaotic energy that we had in The Walking Dead, and I would not hate seeing more of that in season 2.
Beth: Re: Fireflies being the enemy - I think everyone who isn’t Ellie or Joel is the enemy for Ellie and Joel. I don’t even think Tommy’s off limits here. So I haven’t played the video game and have no clue if Joel dies, but I do think at some point he has to run out of his 9 lives. I think Ellie’s life and her world of people then become the main, central story. Would love to see her in a relationship that doesn’t end in tragedy, but realize this is asking a lot. I’ve heard that the theme of avenging the death of a loved one is pretty core to The Last of Us so I have to figure this plays into a future season. We saw it in Episode 8 and last I checked, Hannah, whose father Joel kills, is very much alive and potentially surviving by way of eating a dead David and James.
A former college boyfriend once got me the book, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” Looking back, probably a red flag, but looking present and forward, I have some small stuff gripes I wanna share here. Giraffes don’t get cordyceps? Horses don’t? Can you make sense of this? I mean don’t get me wrong, I was duped earlier this week on the cute animal front, with Jenny the donkey’s non-existent Oscars show, but this feels like an odd nuance. Also, with Ellie’s brain surgery, they weren’t going to shave her head first? This was something my husband picked up on. Any other inconsistencies you picked up on?
Alise: While I can accept that some animals don’t get cordyceps based on how some animals don’t get any number of diseases that affect other mammals, the non-shaved head felt absolutely unacceptable to me. Plus, Bella Ramsey would look rad as heck with a shaved head. I’m not usually someone who gets too up in her feels about stuff like that, so I probably missed other inconsistencies.
Beth: Agreed on Bella Ramsey looking rad with shaved head. I feel like this should be her resting hair state. The other thing I pay attention to in this show is the soundtrack. We’ve had some good covers (Etta James being tops) and 80s music fascination (The Cure, Depeche Mode). This episode, I don’t recall too much music, which was a bummer..
My favorite episode, which by the way, had zero zombies and very little Joel and Ellie, was the Frank & Bill #relationshipgoals #rideordie episode, episode 3. It was comprised of the best elements of this show - love, loss, acceptance, and moments of joy - neatly packaged into a tale with two very interesting characters with two super talented actors. What was your favorite episode of the season?
Alise: I mean, how can you possibly go wrong with Nick Offerman? That said, episode five was just heartbreaking. I loved that they were able to, in a single episode, give us a strong sense of who Sam and Henry were, make us absolutely fall in love with them, and then rip them away just as quickly. It also showed us just how committed to saving humanity Ellie was, while also giving us a glimpse of her as a kid. Gah. Just gorgeous.
Beth: The Sam and Henry episode was a glimpse of Ellie being a “normal” teen. She was staying up late, willfully disobeying the parental figures, reading comics, laughing. She wasn’t just in fight or flight mode. It was beautiful and it also served to soften Joel a bit more.
Alise, I don’t want to end this. I never want to end a good conversation. But alas, time is up.
I have absolutely cherished the ability to be able to write this dialogue with you on the last episode of a very successful HBO show. I hope we get to do this again. In the meantime, I will definitely be on the lookout for your Ted Lasso commentary and movie reviews at MacGuffin or Meaning. I’ve also noted, to skip over the film, 65 with Adam Driver. I’m an Adam Driver fan, but mostly just his Kylo Ren stuff.
Thank you for stopping over at BEVP.
Any last shoutouts before we adjourn here?
Alise: Thank you so much for suggesting this! Super fun! I think you’ve mentioned my other obsession right now, which is Shrinking, so if your subscribers haven’t taken your recs yet, I will add my voice to the chorus. Apple TV+ had a bit of a slow start as a platform, but right now, I think it’s making some of my favorite content. Also, final season of Succession in 10 days, so that’s pretty exciting. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about the Roys in the coming weeks! Thanks again for having me here!
Beth: I feel like the entire Prestige TV ecosystem is watching Succession, so having only watched 1st season, it’s possible I may need to get on the boat. Until then though I’ll have Ted Lasso, season finale of Shrinking…And a few other shows I’m watching this week. How’s that for a teaser?
Now go check out my 3 top shows and songs I’m watching and listening to. And I can say “watching” because I listen to my songs on Spotify.
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Loved this post and the strong opinions included!
“I think it’s a clever (and devastating) bit of writing to turn something that is so beautiful and vulnerable into the ultimate downfall of Joel’s character.”
I love this and agree 100%. I felt Joel and Ellie both had fantastic story arcs written for them that were filled with complication and nuance.
The point in which Joel snaps and finds his way to Ellie in the surgical room was so well written and executed! I felt the muffled battle sounds was an excellent representation of the disassociation that can happen when you have tunnel vision and act out of trauma adrenaline. He wasn’t hearing or seeing himself rationally in that moment.
At the end, his lies and devotion to Ellie are both beautiful and tragic. It’s a loss of innocence and trust that feels more devastating than the trauma of the pandemic itself. It’s not going to end well for him.