Tag: HBO Max

*SPOILERS*

Christopher Nolan‘s Dark Knight films are nothing if not quotable, but there’s perhaps one line that rings truer than most. “It’s not who you are underneath, it’s what you do that defines you.” Spoken as a principle reminder to Christian Bale‘s Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, the dialogue is just as relevant to Pedro Pascal‘s Joel Miller in the shocking finale of HBO’s The Last of Us – a series that survives on the actions of love and, more importantly, their consequences. The show spent its entirety building the relationship between Joel and Bella Ramsey‘s Ellie to substantiate a wildly controversial, yet immensely effective, ending that will come to redefine its characters and recontextualize the season for all time.

From the very beginning of The Last of Us‘ 9-episode run, showrunner Craig Mazin and franchise creator Neil Druckmann have emphasized their desire to portray a world filled with grey areas and difficult decisions. The idea of making a hard call, specifically one that may not be morally correct, for the sake of love has been woven into the series’ DNA and made visible in nearly every installment. Whether it be Tess’ final stand, Bill’s choice to drink the wine, Henry’s sell-out for medicine, or even David’s cannibalism, viewers have been shown over and over again what people are capable of when the life of someone they care about is on the line. It’s the fabric that holds The Last of Us together, and the through line that’s pushed each episode past the point of decency. As such, it’s only fitting that the season finale, titled Look For The Light, confront the topic head-on, putting both Joel and the viewers at home in a near-impossible predicament and forcing them to sit with the outcome after it’s all said and done.

Those who played the original game may have seen it coming, but for first-time watchers, Joel’s ultimate decision to choose Ellie over a universe was likely a heartbreaking surprise. The minds behind the show did an excellent job of seeding the climactic moment beforehand, giving the duo a collection of sweet moments as a lead-in to demonstrate how strong the connection between Joel and Ellie has become and give further evidence of Joel’s thought process. They even successfully adapted one of the game’s most iconic scenes, with the pair encountering giraffes in Salt Lake City, to make a point of Ellie’s innocence and the beauty the world stands to lose. Pascal‘s performance is exquisitely desperate throughout, at first as a wanting father and later as a wounded protector, injecting the episode with the appropriate amount of distress in an underlying, ever-present fashion.

The true genius of Look For The Light, however, lies in the subtle way it compares two separate reactions to the same difficult decision. With Ellie unconscious for the majority of Joel’s monumental actions, the episode finds itself needing someone else to act as a foil for the protagonist. The season has spent much of its time convincing viewers of Joel and Ellie’s motives, and that’s not easy to shake. It makes people far more apt to root for Joel’s murder spree, saving a character they love, without considering the viewpoint of the other side. The magnitude of what Joel’s done cannot fully sink in unless there’s someone to present an alternative route, and for the audience to actually respect that secondary opinion, the character who vouches for it must be one with a decent amount of credibility. As she did in the original game, Merle Dandridge‘s Marlene is the one who brings that presence to the table.

Joel and Marlene are two very different types of survivor. Joel, as has been stated countless times, is a protector. In his mind, he exists solely to keep the ones he loves alive. There is no world but his own, and anyone who challenges that is merely an obstacle. Marlene, on the other hand, is fighting for something bigger. She’s trying to revive the planet, an end goal she feels justifies the sacrifice of anyone it may require. It’s a wonderfully dramatic parallel that’s rich for dissection and gives the episode that signature extra layer fans have come to both expect and admire. While this climactic face-off has always been integral to The Last of Us, the finale episode is able to do something with it that Druckmann‘s initial version of the story simply wasn’t allowed to. After numerous references, the extent of Marlene’s ties to Ellie is revealed, and it does wonders for the final moments of the first season.

Look For The Light opens with the first-ever glimpse at Ellie’s mother Anna, played by Ashley Johnson (who brought Ellie to life in the games), and gives Marlene’s decision to end Ellie’s life an immense added weight. Druckmann has been attempting to grant Anna’s story a space for nearly a decade, and this episode might have been the perfect place to finally place it. The sequence is haunting, further emphasizing the damage even a single Infected can do, and although probably not the full scope of what Druckmann would like to explore with Anna’s character, it’s exactly what’s needed for the hour at hand. The audience gets a peek into the relationship Marlene shared with Anna and a much better idea of what Ellie means to the former. Present for her birth and now the would-be harbinger of her death, despite a promise made to a dear friend, the difficulty behind Marlene’s decision is now clear.

So, when Joel’s disquieting rampage through the hospital inevitably ends with a confrontation between Marlene and himself, it’s the kind of storytelling payoff that dreams are made of. An entire series focused on the survival of one girl, coming down to two powerful forces who had both been assigned to protect her. One has grown willing to take her life for the larger majority, and the other has grown willing to murder countless innocents to ensure she stays alive. Neither character is entirely in the right. It’s a problem with no real solution, the perfect final example of The Last of Us‘ cherished grey area.

Ellie, on the other hand, is robbed of her agency. As has always been her draw in life, she is not allowed a say in her own future. A shepherd, once again sedated as a sheep. Every major plotline culminates in these closing moments, punctuated by the last idea left unaddressed – consequence. Joel makes the most dramatic decision of his life, and then to salvage what he has left, he lies. The lie, and the anxiety of what might come with it, is something Joel and the folks watching from home will be forced to sit with for the foreseeable future. It’s been a miracle of a season, and the finale is appropriately breathtaking. One can only hope it’s made the same impact it had on gamers in 2013.

Just make sure to remember – when you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light.

The latest episode of HBO’s The Last of Us implies there are two types of people in the apocalypse – natural-born leaders and those that follow them. Or, as the Machiavellian cannibal preacher David explains it, fearless shepherds and their simple sheep. This week’s installment of Craig Mazin‘s acclaimed video game adaptation is almost entirely about one thing: proving Bella Ramsey‘s Ellie is among the former, and giving her the most traumatic fulfillment of the status it possibly can. Trapped for the first time without Pedro Pascal‘s Joel, a lone Ellie is forced to fight her way out of an overwhelmingly sticky situation, and the resulting hour of television is a striking look at the immense brutality of a world gone mad.

Titled When We Are In Need, the eighth episode of The Last of Us is another incredible chapter in Ellie’s long developmental journey. Thus far, throughout her travels, Ellie has been consistently warned about the horrors of humanity, and the far more monstrous consequences their actions have when compared to the Infected. Even so, she has continually underestimated the threat of people, often willing to engage in risky interactions that Joel would not. Until this point, it’s served as a sign of her age. A childlike innocence obtained from a youth behind protected walls. When We Are In Need, however, aims to break that innocence, and it does so with sickening barbarity and some pretty bleak implications.

If the first half of the season was about solidifying the importance of Ellie’s relationship with Joel, then the second half has been about the validation of her capabilities as an individual. She is a survivor, and she will do anything to survive. Not only that, but she’ll do anything she can to make sure the people she loves survive too. This makes her a force, and one not so easily reckoned with. It’s an attribute that almost everyone she’s come across has been able to see. FEDRA military officers, Storm Reid‘s Riley, Merle Dandridge‘s Marlene, Anna Torv‘s Tess, Rutina Wesley‘s Maria, and now Scott Shepherd‘s David have all found themselves impressed by – and afraid of – what Ellie can do. The only real question has been whether or not Ellie can see her potential herself, having always been able to mask it behind the protection of others.

When We Are In Need does an excellent job of giving Ellie’s demons a shocking coming-out party, effectively shattering any illusions she may have had about the post-apocalyptic world and the people living in it. The slow building of tension between her and David is a masterful way of making her ultimate, violent breakdown feel more jarring and impactful. Had the episode taken the same route as the game, with Ellie slaughtering most of David’s forces before their climactic showdown, the viciousness of her eventual pyrrhic victory would have been undercut by each of the numerous preceding kills. Instead, viewers are made to watch in horror as Ellie unreservedly chops a man to pieces, tragically revealing herself to be exactly what said man thought she was. It’s a disturbing moment of triumph that promises to haunt the show, and its audience, going forward.

On the other side of the same clever coin, allowing Joel to take the role of “resort slasher” role from Ellie helps reaffirm his dark side to the audience, who may have been growing too accustomed to his warm, paternal tendencies the last few weeks. Joel is not an altruistic person, a defining trait that the series had begun to stray away from in recent episodes. Reminding viewers of this also has the effect of mirroring his actions with Ellie’s. A man too far gone, and a daughter on the verge of joining him. Again, these characters and the relationship between them define The Last of Us in every way, and it’s rather admirable how Mazin and franchise creator Neil Druckmann can so expertly keep finding ways to make this apparent.

Ingeniously, however, Joel is not the only character used to reflect Ellie in the episode. David, played to sadistic perfection by the aptly named Shepherd, is essentially another warning for her future. A self-proclaimed shepherd, he correctly points out that Ellie is dangerous, and is likely to one day become a leader herself. His downfall, aside from being an obviously terrible human, is not realizing the intensity of Ellie’s attachment to Joel, who she is already modeling herself after. While there are likely very few timelines in which Ellie ever joins David’s legacy, his commitment to doing whatever he deems necessary to survive and keep his followers alive – admittedly, through cannibalism – is not something foreign to Ellie. Their conflict, and his demise, is a brilliantly disgusting way for the story to tackle Ellie’s growth, and hint at where she could end up down the line.

With only one episode left, it will be interesting to see how the themes introduced and continued in When We Are In Need play out. The established ending of the original game, on which this first season is based, seems logical when considering what’s been set up here, but there’s still time for the series to pull off a surprise and give viewers something they aren’t expecting.