Before The Last Of Us finale, we’ve got some burning questions to consider
What surprises are in store for experts and new fans alike as Ellie and Joel approach their destination?
TV News The Last Of Us
It feels like just yesterday we were getting ready to head out of the Boston QZ with Ellie, Joel, and Tess (remember Tess?) and now here we are, heading into the first season finale of The Last Of Us. It’s been a wild and emotional ride with some unexpected—but not unwelcome—detours that surprised fans of the game as much as newcomers. Each camp is naturally going to have different questions about what’s in store in episode nine, but there’s plenty of overlap too. We’re going to cover those areas of common ground without giving away any spoilers for the end of the game. The details are out there if you want to know, and besides, there’s no guarantee that showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann are going to go the same way anyway.
With Joel still healing up from the physical wound he sustained way back in episode five and Ellie dealing with fresh psychological wounds after her ordeal with David in the previous episode, neither of them is in top shape as they approach their final destination. At the end of their long road is a hospital in Salt Lake City and a lab where the Fireflies are supposedly working on a cure for the cordyceps infection. What happens in this last stretch and what awaits them if and when they get there are big questions looming over the end of the season. But they’re not the only ones.
How closely will the finale follow the game?
Even if the showrunners follow the broad strokes of the game’s ending, there are bound to be some elements lost in translation, as we’ve seen over the course of the season. There’s also lots of room for adaptive choices that add depth to the story and characters. Fans will have certain expectations and set pieces they’re hoping to see, and we expect the powers that be will do their best to deliver them. They are, after all, admitted fans themselves. But can it all be done in a way that will be satisfying for an audience that includes newbies as well as gamers who know and love the source material?
Does the show even need to provide a satisfying ending? HBO has already renewed The Last Of Us for at least one more season, so Mazin and Druckmann have some leeway to set up a cliffhanger if they want to, and they can pay it off at the beginning of season two. That’s not something Druckman and his team necessarily knew when they completed the first game. We’re not saying we want this to happen, but it could. Conversely, they could also take the opportunity to move up some scenes or events from the second game to give us something to chew on while we wait for the show to come back.
Will we find out why Ellie is immune?
The reason for Ellie’s immunity to the cordyceps fungus has never been explicitly explained in the games, or in any supplemental material for that matter. Fans have been speculating about the cause for years. Was Ellie born with a genetic mutation? Was her mother bitten while she was in utero? Did it have something to do with the circumstances of her birth? There are hints, but no real evidence to back up any of these claims. That may be about to change.
In an interview with Newsweek, Druckmann said that he had written a scene about Ellie’s mom, Anna, that he couldn’t fit into the game but was able to include in the show. We know from the cast listing that Ashley Johnson, who played Ellie in the game, will be playing Anna Williams (in a flashback, we assume), so maybe this mystery will finally be solved. The scene or scenes could also answer other lingering questions about Ellie’s past too, like how well Marlene knew her mother and whether she was aware that Ellie was special before she was bitten.
How will Ellie be affected by her ordeal with David?
Ellie has been through a lot in a relatively short amount of time. When we (and Joel) first meet her in Firefly custody it’s only been three weeks since she and Riley got attacked at that abandoned mall. We didn’t see it, but we know that Ellie had to kill her best friend. Death has been a part of this journey from the beginning. Tess, Bryan, Sam, Henry—they all hit hard in different ways, but her ordeal with David was by far the worst of it. Everything Ellie has been holding inside came out in a mess of frenzied blows as she hacked him to pieces in that burning restaurant. Something inside her snapped.
Although Joel was able to bring her back to her senses we can’t help but feel like what’s now broken in Ellie won’t be easily fixed. She may be tougher than most kids, but she’s still just a kid. The horrors she barely escaped are going to stick with her, maybe even well into the next season. Will Joel let himself slip into dad mode permanently to help her through it? Has their bond fully evolved into its final form? And will that be enough to save the last shreds of Ellie’s youthful spirit or is her innocence lost for good?
Will there be any more zombie action?
With the exception of a few scattered set pieces, The Last Of Us has been fairly light on zombies (or “infected,” if you prefer) this season. That’s been one of the biggest differences between the show and the game. Mazin and Druckmann took advantage of being freed from the restrictions of gameplay and gave us richer character moments and backstories instead. The result was that the threat felt farther removed than it did in the game. Since a horde came rushing out of that fiery sinkhole in Kansas City in episode five, there’s only been one infected attack, and that was shown in a flashback. The creative team went to all the trouble to create some amazing creature designs for the clickers and the bloater, and then barely used them.
We get that the theme of the show is that humans are the real monsters. It’s not a particularly original concept. But human puppets being controlled by a fungus and using echolocation to track down more humans to infect? Now that’s interesting. Would another sequence like Kansas City be too much to hope for? Or have we already seen all the extreme makeup effects we’re going to see in season one?
It won’t be long until we have the answers to these questions, and probably some more we didn’t even realize we had. The season one finale of The Last Of Us airs on Sunday, March 12, on HBO.
56 Comments
“With Joel still healing up from the physical wound he sustained way back in episode five”That was episode 6. Episodes 4-5 were Kansas City. Episode 6 was Tommy’s commune and the university.
so Mazin and Druckmann have some leeway to set up a cliffhanger if they want to IMO (to keep it as spoiler-free as possible), you end with the cliffhanger of Joel stabbing the guy at the end. Open up season two with the escape, then maybe a time jump.
…the guy at the end.And that guy…was Frank Stallone.
SPOILERS, DAMN IT!
I really hope neckbeard game fans can contain themselves and not spoil this for me!
At the end of the game, it is revealed that Bobby Ewing isn’t really dead and the whole season of Dallas has been a dream. We only find out when Victoria Principal finds Patrick Duffy in the shower. No one who played the game could believe this happened.I am a fan of the game, but I just couldn’t contain myself. Sorry.
turns out, it was all an episode of Family Guy the whole time….
In the end, the real cordyceps were the friends they made along the way.
As it turns out, the real cordyceps was inside us all along
Joel realizes Ellie has to die for her blood to be used in a vaccine, kills the entire firefly medical staff, then carries her away alive, dooming humanity. That act gets him killed early in part two. Fuck you and you’re welcome.
So bold of you.
I chose to save Ellie and doom mankind, but I’m a nice person like that.Does the sequel take the player’s choice into account at all or is it as pointless as it seems?
Whhhy would you post this. I feel like some asshole is gonna reply with a spoiler now.
In the end, Joel finds a crucial clue and solves the mystery. To a packed room of suspects, he reveals that the butler did it!
So far the show runners have expanded elements of the story without any real structural changes. I suspect the end to be the similar. Loved the games and am loving the show so far. They will stick the landing.
We’ll probably get more Marlene, including the flashback with Ellie’s mom. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have a cold open where Marlene and Ellie’s mom are doing Firefly stuff together, and then the latter dies. Not to spoil anything for future seasons since it comes up in the sequel game, but I’m leaning towards “It’s the fungus inside her” rather than Ellie being special.
I’m fully expecting the surgeon to say something like “My daughter’s waiting at home,” but not to actually show Abby, so that the second season can use the mystery of why she hates Joel for the people who aren’t familiar with the games.
Yeah 100% because it gives them freedom to cast her later instead of locking her in now when next season is years away. Creators hate to be locked into a decision that they can delay until later, often with pretty good reason. What if you hire this person for 1 season and then she goes all Cara Dune? Now you wanna recast her and it becomes harder, all for the sake of like one scene.
I wanted to jump through the screen to help Elle vs. David. And then I felt like Joel when he said “I have you baby girl” as he must feel fucking broken that he couldn’t protect her from what she went through. Such a fucking powerful episode. Can’t wait till sunday.
The REAL questions is: can you eat them? In the real world, cordyceps is an edible mushroom. Could you make a clicker omelette? A bloater duxelles? They could be sitting on the next black truffle here!
There are a great many delicacies that seem horrific until you get past the part where you’re eating people. I’ve never been able to manage it, but you do you boo.
You don’t have to eat the person, per se. You can cut off the fungi and fry it up. Who knows, it may even grow back and you have a renewable food source locked up in your shed.
Better than having one you just play video games with like Shaun did with his friend.
Given that the cordyceps fungus originally infected humans via the food supply, wouldn’t a clicker omelette just turn you into a zombie?
Maybe not if you sautéed them with a nice olive oil and some shallots? The Indonesian mycologist should have tried that first before suggesting bombing!
Depends if it was still alive. A cooked mushroom is dead. Still, you might get some of the living fungus on you while you were preparing it, I suppose.
There’s even a terrible mushroom-based coffee substitute that uses cordyceps. I wonder if the show is hurting their sales. You’d think that the taste alone of the “coffee substitute” would to it alone, but no. Also, the ant-mind controlling fungus isn’t really cordyceps anyway. It was thought to be for many years (and presumably thay’s why the game used it) but it is actually from a related genus.
I really like a lot of the deviations from the game that the show has made to deepen the characters and the universe. However, I think it would be a big mistake to deviate much from the ending of the game.The ending of the game is one of my favorite endings in recent media, and certainly one of the top endings to a game ever. The ending is why I always thought it would be hard for this show to fail-they had an incredible conclusion to work back from no matter what. People are still talking about the way this saga wrapped up ten years later, and there is a good reason for that. I am more and more concerned that they are going to mess with the end, specifically that they will make some kind of cliff hanger out of it-which I don’t think would be nearly as effective as showing it all as a piece.The show has been really great, so I have high hopes. But I am also starting to get a little nervous. Most of the changes the show made during the first part of the show were gold, but I think they made some changes last week that were not great for the story. So, I guess we’ll see.One thing is for sure: I will be there with popcorn and an adult beverage ready Sunday night!
I am more and more concerned that they are going to mess with the end,
specifically that they will make some kind of cliff hanger out of
it-which I don’t think would be nearly as effective as showing it all as
a piece.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t they only renew it for a second season after they they aired a couple episodes? Seems to me like that would kind of force their hand into having the season wrap up a complete story.
You’re correct, which leads me to believe they didn’t mess with the ending much, if at all. In the event they didn’t get renewed, the story(of the first game) would be complete on the show.
This is a very good point that I had not considered, but the more I think about it the less it comforts me. I am assuming all involved were pretty sure they had a hit on their hands, and acted accordingly. The fact that the game was already so successful and the speed of renewal points to that. Although certainly if they were wrong about that and did a cliffhanger, lots of fans would have been awfully pissed!Anyway, I hope you are right, and it is very possible you are. Because I think breaking up the ending would be a big mistake.
Then just stick to the game.
Nah.You should go around the internet and post this for everyone comparing the game and the show. I am sure there will only be a few of us doing it.
There’s no way they didn’t go into production with an understanding that there would be at least two seasons, and then the announcement was only made later. That’s just the way the business works.
The deviations were a little different for me. When it came to alterations to pre-established things, I not once did I think they were ever better than what the game already did. But when it came to a wholesale new thing, I usually found myself more excited by those kinds of changes.
Well, all the burning questions have been answers by decade-old game. I have some additional questions:-When will this show become good?-When will this writing improve?-When will this show bring anything new to the table?-When will GLOW get renewed?-When will I get 8 hours of my life back?-If you were a mushroom zombie, would you eat yourself? -When will this show become good?-When will people stop losing their minds over subpar genre television disguised as prestige tv?-When will Pedro Pascal return my calls?-Etc.
Well, five of these questions are answered by “after the opening credits of Episode 1.” Honest mistake, easy to miss if you take an hour long coffee break once the opening title flashes.
20 years ago people like you were the type of person that would say at parties, “I don’t even own a television!” with the implication that they were superior and more cultured. I was bored by those people back then too.
Except he did not imply anything like that, only people who like to project think that. Obviously you never learnt to respect other peoples opinions and insult them instead. Sad.
I get it, dude. I am also a bitter, failed writer.
When are you gonna suck my wiener, you dumb chode?
Sad, dude. If you insult everyone who does not share your opinion, you won´t be having any friends anymore in the future. Oh wait…
Oh this is based on a game? It’s never been brought up in the comments before. Can you please list how the show is like the game and how the show isn’t like the game? Please include some cryptic hints about season two and light spoilers. Thanks!
You watched 8 hours of a TV show you didn’t even like?
-If you were a mushroom zombie, would you eat yourself?Hey Norm!
Be careful living so far out on that edge, champ
anyone whos played the game knows how it ends and what the obvious cliffhanger could be if they wanted to deviate from the books. i hope they dont as showing the full game ending would be better.
“Mazin and Druckmann took advantage of being freed from the restrictions of gameplay and gave us richer character moments and backstories instead.”
lmao okay. The character moments are CW quality ass. The show looks like shit and it’s boring as hell. The pretensions of the showrunners are so pathetic 😭😭
The finale just better include a certain animal and I’ll be happy no matter what else happens.
The reason for Ellie’s immunity to the cordyceps fungus has never been
explicitly explained in the games, or in any supplemental material for
that matter. Fans have been speculating about the cause for years. Was
Ellie born with a genetic mutation? Was her mother bitten while she was
in utero? Did it have something to do with the circumstances of her
birth?It’s her high midichlorian count making her Force sensitive, obviously.
I hope that TLOU season finale crushes the Oscars in terms of viewership
I will watch Oscars until 9 and then Last of Us, the 9pm to 10pm Oscars block will be like a few unfunny bits, a few musical numbers, montages and like Best Live Action Short or whatever, not going to miss much and the episode is only 45 minutes long
The aftermath of David should be its own cooldown episode. Considering everything else the ending is going to do, squeezing both these things together concerns me bit.
So when I played the game, I literally have already watched the show. Good. No need to spend money on HBO then.
I really enjoyed both TLOU 1 and 2. my only problem was the violence…at times it just seemed TOO much, and just increases between games. the show is definitely beginning to reflect that. I know I sound like an old fuddy-duddy but I hope they tone the violence down or use the threat of violence instead of actual violence.. I’m worried at how normalized extreme violence is on more and more tv shows these days.
Overall I would say that the show is a fantastic adaptation (with a couple of interesting minor changes) of the already fantastic cutscenes of The Last of Us. I kind of wish they had adapted a bit more of the gameplay elements from Episode 6 onwards though. I really wish there had been Ellie and David fighting off the wave of Infected culminating in the Bloater arriving. Also I’m confused why they didn’t use the “He ain’t even hurt” line from the game in episode 4 considering how faithful the adaptation is and just had Joel say “No”. Was it too action movie hero ish?I guess if they split up Part II they could have more of those big action moments