In episode 9 of The Last of Us, called “Look for the Light,” Joel and Ellie’s journey comes to an end. After a long time and several close calls to death, the characters in The Last of Us are now in Utah looking for the Fireflies. Surprisingly, everyone is happy. Joel is smiling for once, but Ellie isn’t, because she’s sad that their time together might be coming to an end.
She starts to feel better when they find something fun in the abandoned city which gives the story more weight. It was a rare break from the Cordyceps haze they were in, and it helped Joel decide what to do later.
But before any of that happens, we see a painful flashback to when Ellie was born. Her mother, Sarah, is being chased through a forest by an infected. Sarah’s voice was done by Ellie’s original voice actor, Ashley Johnson. She makes it to an empty house, where she hides in a room on the second floor.
Sarah is able to kill the zombie after she gets in. Even though Cordyceps is changing her body, she still gets hurt and gives birth. Sarah begs Marlene to take the baby when she comes to visit. Marlene backs down, but in the end, she gives in. She takes Ellie in and kills Sarah before her whole mind is taken over.
This was never said outright in the game, so saying it now makes it even more important for how Ellie and the Fireflies meet up. She is a child who was born into a world of terrible violence and has only known more tragedy and loss in a society that is getting worse and worse as time goes on. Joel and she don’t fully understand the cycles she’s been through since before she was born, which makes us feel even more sorry for what she has to carry.
It fits the scene in Utah where Ellie watches some free-roaming giraffes. When he looks at the light on Ellie’s face, Joel can get a hint of what might happen next. They could find happiness again because happiness can still be found and made. Ali Abbasi, who is in charge of the movie, did a great job of recreating the scene from the video game.
Not everything from the past is dead or going bad. Fireflies, FEDRA, it all goes away for a second. After that, our main characters go to the hospital, where they are caught by security guards and brought inside.
When Joel wakes up, he sees Marlene. From this point on, the show moves towards something stark and inevitable. They talk about their dangerous paths, and Joel finds out that Ellie is going to have surgery. The Fireflies will take a piece of her Cordyceps infection to study and maybe come up with a way to stop it.
But Cordyceps lives in the brain, so that means… yes, Ellie won’t make it through the procedure. Joel is furious, but Marlene doesn’t care. He has led away, but Pascal‘s face shows pain and anger. This can’t happen again, especially not to Sarah.
He attacks the guard who is escorting him out of the hospital and then goes on a violent rampage through the hospital. Every Firefly that tries to stop is killed so quickly and efficiently that John Wick would be impressed. Most of the time, the camera follows Joel’s face and zooms in on how determined he is.
This is the Joel he had been talking about, the one who had done whatever he had to in Boston and other places to stay alive. He had to be remorseless, and he’s like a bull running over Fireflies to get to Ellie.
The doctor who tries to stop him at the surgery is killed once he gets there. Two others are left alive, which is an option in the game. Joel then takes Ellie upstairs and brings her downstairs to a car. Marlene tries to talk sense into Joel in the parking lot, telling him that this is the only way.
We could argue all day about whether or not what the Fireflies wanted to do was possible, but it doesn’t matter because Joel won’t let Ellie die for anything to happen. We find out he killed Marlene when Ellie wakes up in the back of the car and he tells her what happened.
She asks him what happened, and Joel tells her that the massacre never happened. He tells her that the doctors just took a sample and will be back soon at Tommy’s outpost. Even though we can’t do anything about it, the truth is between him and us.
Before they get to Tommy‘s base, Ellie asks Joel one last time. She doesn’t believe everything he says, but she’s willing to do so. So he says yes, and she says yes too. Credits.
Like the last episode, “Look for the Light” is short and maybe even too short. It could have easily been a two-parter, but while the quick pace of episode 8 made me feel like I was being suffocated, I think it helps here. We’re caught up in the fiery adrenaline of Joel’s rampage, where he destroys the whole reason they went through everything to save Ellie’s life.
In the blink of an eye, their lives change and a lot of people die. The Last of Us is a thriller series that shows how much a quick choice can change our lives. What’s important and real can change so quickly that we can be left confused and spinning through time.
Even though it seems that way, Joel knew exactly what he was doing to keep Ellie safe. All that matters to him is that he is giving himself and Ellie a chance at life. You’ll have to decide for yourself after watching the show. The perfect way to set up season 2 of The Last of Us. The ending was just as powerful and thoughtful as it was in 2013.
To know more about the series check our guides to Bloaters and Clickers.
