How the Last of Us' season 1 finale sets up season 2
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The Last of Us spoilers follow, including the ending.
Despite all Clickers chasing, Bloaters pulverising and humans doing the most appalling things to one another, The Last of Us ends on a comparatively calm note. Sure, there's gunfire and a fight for survival, but the shift in tone is evident.
The finale unfolds with Ellie’s traumatic birth story (not the calm we were referring to but we promise it settles down quite a bit after that dramatic arc).
Hands down, the bravest person during any apocalypse is the heavily pregnant woman just doing her best to survive. Trying to duck and dive from a Clicker between contractions with the baby threatening to slip out at any moment: are you kidding?
Then, imagine after all that laborious effort, having to deliver your own child without any assistance whilst a bloodthirsty Infected advances on you.
That takes a strength beyond any normal human capacity, but it's a strength Ellie's mum, Anna (Ashley Johnson), finds. With her 'lift-a-car-off-her-child' motherly instinct, she valiantly pushes that baby down the birth canal and into existence whilst stabbing a Clicker to death.
We must all doff our hats because that is true strength and love.
Sadly, Anna was bitten while delivering Ellie and after stabbing the Infected violently to death, she now must make a choice about her daughter’s future – one that doesn’t include her.
When her childhood friend Marlene (Merle Dandridge) arrives at the scene, one bite and a dead Clicker too late, Anna hands over her baby. She tells her friend to find someone to raise Ellie before instructing Marlene to shoot her dead.
After a painful, heartbreaking moment of hesitation, Marlene does just that.
So how does this fold into the present-day events, culminating in the end of what has truly been a stunning show?
Here's how.
The Last of Us ending explained
Fast-forward 14 years to Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Joel (Pedro Pascal) still trekking along, defeating the undefeatable and defying all odds just to get her to the Fireflies medical base where they can help her save the world.
She's been through the trauma mill more acutely recently – you saw last week's episode with the very triggering rapey preacher trying to groom her while simultaneously folding her into his cult.
She fought devastatingly hard to escape and though triumphant, that experience left her with wounds so deep that even the emotionally tentative Joel breaks down all his walls and reaches out to her.
It highlights something significant: when it comes to assuming the father-figure role, Joel is all in. If he was 90% committed before, he's 110% ready to jump in front of a bus for her now. If buses existed in the post-apocalyptic world.
Good thing he got to that emotional realisation when he did because when they finally catch up to Marlene, things get pretty tense and unknown to Ellie, she finds herself in need of a defender.
Depending on whose side you take.
When they arrive at the medical base, they are instantly attacked, Ellie is taken and Joel is knocked unconscious.
By the time Joel comes to, he finds that they have been separated and that while he snoozed, Ellie had already been prepped for the operation.
When he asks to be by Ellie's side, Marlene refuses.
Joel then discovers that in order to harvest the genetic material they need from Ellie to create the anti-virus, they must extract it from the Cordyceps within Ellie. The only problem is that Cordyceps lives in the brain.
Now, knowing Joel as well as we've come to, this news doesn't go down well and forces the fighting instinct in him to come out.
Marlene cautions him not to rebel against her and expresses how hard it is for her, because of her relationship with Ellie's mother and the promise she made to Anna in death to keep Ellie safe.
For Marlene, it's not about loyalty any more. As she puts it, she has to do what's right.
Marlene urges Joel to do the same and has him escorted out, but Joel is Joel and Joel's going to do what Joel's going to do.
On the way out, he kills those escorting him as well as everyone on his way to the operating room, where he finds Ellie unconscious and about to be sliced open.
He instructs them to step away and when the doctor refuses to step down, Joel shoots him without hesitation. The assisting nurses don't make the same mistake as the doc, and instead allow him to take Ellie.
The escape is foiled, however, when Marlene catches up with Joel and a still-unconscious Ellie in the basement parking lot.
"You can't keep her safe forever," she warns Joel, before cautioning him on the darkest possible future for Ellie when Joel is no longer around to protect her.
Ugh, didn't she get the memo, Ellie can save herself.
Marlene drives her point home, saying: "How long until she's ripped apart by Infected or murdered by raiders, because she lives in a broken world that you could have saved?"
Joel tells Marlene that the decision to operate isn't Marlene's to make, but she hits back by reminding him it isn't his either.
"What would she decide?” Marlene baits, before adding, "because I think she'd want to do what's right. And you know it."
There are more than a few kernels of truth in what she says, and for a moment Joel considers it. What's right, what Ellie would want… but one look at her face seals his decision. He's not willing to let her go, because in truth, he just can't bear to lose another daughter.
The scene cuts to Joel driving. In the back of the car, Ellie begins to stir. Joel explains what happened.
"They were running some tests on you and some others," he tells her as the scene flashes back to show what really happened.
We see Marlene surrendering as Joel tells Ellie in real-time that there were other immune people like herself.
He tells her that the doctors had tried but couldn't make a cure work and so had given up, when in reality he'd shot and killed Marlene to ensure she would never be able to hunt Ellie again.
When Ellie asks what happened to her clothes, Joel lies. He says that raiders attacked and that they had to escape quickly. Ellie asks if people got hurt but more specifically if Marlene was okay.
Joel, wracked with remorse, doesn't answer. Instead, he tells Ellie that they are going home, back to Tommy's.
How The Last of Us ending sets up season 2
It's a nice little neat story Joel has concocted. Too neat – and Ellie is pretty sharp. Later, when their car craps out and they hike the rest of the way to Wyoming, Ellie opens up about Riley (Storm Reid) and we get a feel for how Riley's death and those that have followed since have impacted her.
Joel tries to explain why that's not her fault, but the suggestion at the back of her mind is that by not being the cure, she is responsible for them and any that follow.
"Swear to me," she demands from Joel. "Swear to me everything you said about the Fireflies is true."
Joel is forced to swallow the lump in his throat and swears.
Though it feels as though Ellie doesn't fully believe him, she is willing to accept his lie because she loves and trusts Joel. More importantly, she wants to believe it.
This version of reality allows her to stay with him, under his protection. In this ‘truth’, she gets to be with the person she loves most in this world.
While it all seems swept under the carpet for now, that pile of dust is sure to come spilling out in season two.
Ellie may have initially been happy to let Joel pull the wool over her eyes, but it won’t be long until his lie begins to create issues in their relationship. It’s no secret that the two had a hard time connecting thanks to Joel’s deep-seated emotional unavailability and his unwillingness to bond.
Still, Ellie was eventually able to crack that hard shell of his with her book of deeply cringe-worthy puns and her inquisitive, f-bombing charm.
The evolution of their relationship as they navigate this huge but well-meaning betrayal on Joel’s part will no doubt form a huge plot point in season two and be the source of much contention.
All episodes of The Last of Us are available to stream now on Sky Atlantic and NOW.
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