This article contains spoilers for theThe Last of Usseason two. Please do not read unless you have seen episodes one to six.
Typical. For the back half of this season, Ellie (Bella Ramsey) has been hunting high and low for Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) in Seattle, desperate to avenge the brutal killing of Joel (Pedro Pascal). But ultimately it was Abby who ambushed Ellie, at exactly the worst possible time. As season-ending cliffhangers go, it certainly served to turbo-charge the suspense. Just who will be left alive after that final panicked gunshot in the theatre lobby?
Even before that emotionally charged confrontation, this finale had been carefully ratcheting up the tension. There were heartbreaking confessions, a close call with disembowelment and at least one deeply regrettable death, all as an ominous tempest rumbled overhead. Do they still name storms in the post-apocalyptic year of 2029? Call this one Storm Metaphor: dark, relentless and getting increasingly violent as the night went on. Let’s look at how it all shook out.
Last time we saw Dina (Isabela Merced), she had just taken a Seraphite crossbow bolt to the thigh. Back in the relative refuge of the theatre, Jesse (Young Mazino) scrambles to fix up his ex-girlfriend’s wound in true frontier medicine style (splash some alcohol on it, push the arrow out). When Ellie belatedly returns, it is Dina’s turn to play nurse, tending to her heavily bruised back. With her shirt off, the usually tough-as-nails Ellie suddenly seemed physically vulnerable. She opens up emotionally, too, telling Dina about hurting Nora (Tati Gabrielle) to get information about Abby’s location.
While she managed to extract a couple of cryptic clues (talk of a “whale” and a “wheel”), Ellie is now more struck by how quickly she took to torture: “I thought it would be harder to do.” This soul-baring spills over into finally telling Dina the truth about what Joel did in Salt Lake City, and how Ellie finally figured it all out. It’s a lot for poor Dina – pregnant, seriously injured and cooped up in a war zone with both the father of her baby and her new girlfriend – to process.
The next morning Jesse is itching to meet back up with Joel’s brother, Tommy (Gabriel Luna), and get the hell out of Seattle. He and Ellie leave the hobbling Dina to barricade herself into the theatre while they strike out for the bookstore rendezvous. En route they witness a skirmish between a lone Seraphite and six aggressive WLF troops, and Ellie is all for wading in, guns blazing, to save the boy. It’s impulse-driven compassion, but to the exasperated Jesse it reads like recklessness. The tension between them foreshadows Ellie’s fateful decision later in the day.
A quick check-in with the WLF leadership: sombre leader Isaac (Jeffrey Wright) and his loyal lieutenant Elise (Hettienne Park) are planning their big assault on the island home of the Seraphites. The storm gathering above seems like a bad omen, but it may provide useful cover for their beach landing operation. Isaac is hung up on the continued absence of Owen (Spencer Lord), Mel (Ariela Barer) and particularly Abby. “You in love with her or something?” half-jokes Elise, which seems like a risky thing to say to your superior. But we learn that Isaac has chosen Abby as the best of her young generation to lead the WLF and “secure their future”. As we haven’t spent much time with Abby this season, it’s some useful context as to how she fits in with the militia.
Back at the bookstore rendezvous, there’s no sign of Tommy. But some WLF radio chatter interrupts Jesse and Ellie’s frenemy bickering and alerts them to a nearby sniper. As they know the Seraphites don’t use guns, they surmise it must be Tommy, and ascend to a decent vantage point to try to spot him. That’s when Ellie spots a ferris wheel and guesses that Abby must be holed up in a nearby flooded aquarium. She has a clear-cut choice: help save Tommy or pursue a flimsy lead on Abby for revenge. To Jesse’s disgust she chooses the latter.
The storm is really whipping up now. Down at the shore, Ellie sees a fleet of WLF boats pushing through the rain toward their invasion target. She manages to find her own little speedboat, but as she sets course for the aquarium it soon becomes clear she is in over her head – heaving waves tip her out of the boat, onto a beach and into the hands of the Seraphites. We’ve seen how this cult treats outsiders: hanging them by the neck and disembowelling them with very unhygienic-looking sickles. Despite her protests, Ellie is strung up and about to be sliced open when an alarm horn from their besieged village scatters her attackers. Phew!
This, of course, would be the perfect time to count your blessings and retreat. But Ellie has come too far and invested too much. She completes her journey to the aquarium, taking time out to methodically dry Joel’s revolver and bullets. As she advances through the darkened corridors, she hears the voices of Owen and Mel. Soon she is threatening to kill them if they don’t tell her where to find Abby. Owen pretends to cooperate but it is just a ruse to get closer to his gun.
All that WLF training is for naught: Ellie shoots him dead and Mel takes a bullet to the neck. As Mel begins to bleed out, Ellie realises with horror that she is pregnant and is using her final, gasping breaths to implore her killer to save her baby by improvising a C-section with a knife. Despite her usual gumption, Ellie is completely overwhelmed by the situation and cannot bring herself to do anything.
That’s when Tommy and Jesse swoop in and whisk Ellie back to the relative safety of the theatre. She is wrestling with the carnage she has caused but still struggles with the idea of leaving Seattle with her revenge quest incomplete. If she doesn’t kill Abby, then what was the point of all the others dying? But the group are determined to return to Jackson, so Joel will remain unavenged. “Are you able to make your peace with that?” asks Tommy. They vow to leave at first light.
It has certainly been an eventful three days in Seattle. But as Ellie and Jesse patch up their tattered friendship in the auditorium, they hear shouts and shots coming from the lobby. As they burst through the doors, they are greeted by gunplay. Jesse takes the brunt of it, and looks like a goner. Abby has tracked them down and seeing Ellie only seems to enrage her more. “You,” she hisses. Ellie tries to offer up her life in exchange for sparing the wounded Tommy, but Abby simply doesn’t want to hear it: “I let you live … and you wasted it!” A gunshot cuts to darkness. It’s a long enough pause to imagine every horrible potential outcome.
Then we are back with Abby in a cluttered WLF compound. There is the briefest glimpse of Manny (Danny Ramirez), the final accomplice to Joel’s murder, who says that Isaac wants to see them. Abby wanders out to reveal she is in a sports stadium repurposed as a settlement. A final caption confirms that this is Seattle Day One, when Ellie and Dina first arrived in the city.
Rewinding the clocks seems to be preparing the ground to tell Abby’s side of the story next time. But ending with a focus on a character who has been so elusive throughout season two feels a little frustrating. And who knows how long it will be before we learn exactly what went down in that lobby.
RIP Owen and Mel. If you count poor infected Nora, that means Ellie has crossed out three of the five young WLF members on her kill list. But what were the pair conspiring about when Ellie ambushed them? It feels as though there is a lot more WLF backstory to be revealed in future seasons.
Back inepisode threeit felt safe to assume Jesse had voted in favour of hunting down and executing Joel’s killers. But during one of his various exasperated exchanges with Ellie he revealed he was actually one of the eight council members who voted against the motion.
Jesse also mentioned that while infiltrating the city, he and Tommy had found Ellie’s horse, Shimmer –last spotted back in episode four– thankfully safe and well in that hipster record shop.
A third season of The Last of Us was confirmed before season two even launched. But would that be enough to finish adapting all ofthe second (and so far final) game? Last week co-showrunner Craig Mazin suggested thatseason three might end up being longer, and that his hopes were pinned on a fourth season to wrap up the story.
What did you think? Did this feel like a satisfying end to season two? What do you hope is explored in the next season? Have your say below, but please avoid spoilers from the game …