After the horror of “When We Are in Want,” the eighth episode of The Final of Us, which discovered Ellie (Bella Ramsey) preventing off a sadistic cannibal preacher she’s compelled to stab, repeatedly, in a match of sorrow and rage, one hoped that the season finale, “Search for the Gentle,” would give the resilient however battered teenager a well-deserved break from carnage and horror. And, in a way, that’s what Ellie acquired, however solely as a result of she’d been anesthetized right into a deep sleep for an operation she was each unaware of and would by no means get up from. It’s not straightforward being “The Treatment” in a zombie-infested hellscape.
Enter Joel (Pedro Pascal), who had lastly embraced Ellie as his household on the bloody, brutal finish of “When We Are in Want” and was going to cease at nothing to save lots of her life, even when it meant demolishing humanity’s final hope for a remedy to the Cordyceps plague, which it seems to exist not in Ellie’s blood however in her mind. The contingent of Fireflies who promised a method to safely switch Ellie’s immunity to the plague to the world at massive, the very individuals who Joel and Ellie spent all season shifting in direction of, at nice private value, to offer humanity a preventing likelihood towards the zombie plague, may solely carry out their miracle by killing Ellie within the course of. It was a sacrifice Joel wasn’t keen to make and one Ellie was by no means given a say in.
And so, after Ellie survived the horror of the preacher’s cannibal neighborhood, there she was, drugged into her last slumber with Joel being marched out of the Salt Lake Metropolis hospital at gunpoint, powerless to cease it. However having already survived his daughter’s homicide, which he by no means stopped blaming himself for, and after having practically given up on himself as being succesful protector of Ellie, nothing, nothing was going to cease Joel from getting her out of that hospital. So Joel does what Joel can do—he kills everybody save for 2 terrified nurses (extra on them in a second) and spirits Ellie out of the hospital in Salt Lake Metropolis to take her again to his brother’s compound in Wyoming.
Then Ellie lastly involves within the SUV Joel took from the Fireflies and asks him what occurred; he spins her a story about the way it seems she’s not that particular, that there are dozens of different individuals who have the identical immunity to Cordyceps that she does, and, that the Fireflies realized there was no method to switch that immunity to anyone else. Then, accounting for the necessity to escape the hospital, Joel tells her that some raiders attacked, and he was fortunate to get them each out alive.
The season ends with Joel and Ellie lastly making it again to his brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna)’s Wyoming compound. They’re protected finally, however their whole mission was for naught, and one thing is simply not sitting proper with Ellie. Within the season’s last seconds, Ellie asks Joel to inform her the reality about what occurred when she was unconscious—was the place actually attacked by raiders, did the Fireflies actually reveal that Ellie’s blood couldn’t assist them, and was there actually no hope for a remedy? Joel seemed like he was about to waver, there was a second’s hesitation on his face, however then he lies to her and says that sure, that’s exactly what occurred, even when we see the gleam in Ellie’s eye that she is aware of he’s mendacity. It was a massively bittersweet finale, with Joel and Ellie alive however at such a horrible value, and the trace of discord to come back when Ellie inevitably finds out what actually occurred.
Creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have revealed that they’ll be lifting storylines from the unique online game’s sequel, The Final of Us: Half II, to inform a a lot bigger story going ahead, one that can take greater than only one season. The second installment within the online game arrived on PlayStation 4 in 2020, seven years after the unique, and boasts characters, extra flashbacks, larger motion set items, and extra contaminated. Talking with GQ, Mazin and Druckmann confirmed that adapting Half II would require a number of seasons.
Whereas neither Mazin nor Druckmann would say simply what number of seasons can be required to inform the total story of Half II, Mazin did inform GQ that “a couple of is factually appropriate.” Half II of the online game consists of a few of the core characters from the unique recreation, most crucially Joel, Ellie, Tommy, and Maria (Rutina Wesley). It was additionally revealed that one of many actors from Half II, Laura Bailey, who performs a personality named Abby, was one of many nurses within the working room the place Ellie is being prepped for surgical procedure.
Season two will probably be a bloodier affair, too. Not that season one didn’t have its moments (see above), however Mazin and Druckmann teased that in future seasons, viewers can anticipate much more contaminated on the display, and totally different varieties, too. Contemplating many people are nonetheless having nightmares concerning the clickers, that is each a blessing and a curse.
For extra on The Final of Us, take a look at these tales:
“The Final of Us” Finale Attracts Large Rankings as Season One Bests “Home of the Dragon”
“The Final of Us” Manufacturing Designer John Paino on Constructing a World in Ruins
“The Final of Us” Cinematographer Eben Bolter on Episode 4 & Extra
How “The Final Of Us” Episode 3 Departed From The Sport in a Lovely, Heartbreaking Approach
Critiques for HBO’s “The Final Of Us” Name it an Astonishing Adaptation on Each Stage
Featured picture: Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. {Photograph} by Liane Hentscher/HBO
