The Last of Us recap: Ellie's violent heart
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
As the snow blows outside, a tidy, bespectacled man reads from the book of Revelations to a small community of survivors in an old steakhouse. Hanging from the ceiling is a white sheet with the words "When we are in need He shall provide" written in shoe polish. A young girl cries and the man, David (Scott Shepherd), has little patience for her tears. Her father has died, but David wants her to remember that there is "no more death" in the End Times. When the girl asks when her father can be buried, David calmly tells her "it's too cold to dig." He'll be buried in the spring.
This community isn't nearly so large or developed as Tommy's new home in Jackson. They're struggling, with only enough rations to last them two weeks at most. "The last six months have been hard," says David's right hand, James (Troy Baker, who plays Joel in the Last of Us games). Desperate, they set off to go hunting.
Elsewhere, the wound Joel (Pedro Pascal) sustained at the college is only getting worse. He drifts in and out of consciousness in the same basement where Ellie (Bella Ramsey) brought him in last week's episode. They're as low on food as David's community, but Ellie knows it'll take more than meat to save Joel. For now, though, food is her main concern.
Taking his rifle, she ventures into the woods in search of game. She lucks out after spotting a large deer, and puts Joel's teaching to good use with a shot that mortally wounds it. It limps off into the woods and she chases after it, following a trail of blood.
Liane Hentscher/HBO David (Scott Shepher) leads his flock in 'The Last of Us'
Unfortunately, David and James reach it before she can. They're planning to abscond with it before Ellie sneaks up on them, rifle pointed. David plays it cool: "You're quite a hunter! We didn't even hear you coming," he says with a grin. David tells her he's with a larger group with women and children and that they're very hungry. Ellie lies and says she's also with a large group. "Also very hungry," she says through gritted teeth. Still, he's not wrong when he tells her she can't drag a deer that size back on her own. He proposes a trade and Ellie pounces — if they can give her medicine, she'll give them half of the deer. David tells James to return to the camp and bring back two bottles of penicillin and a syringe. James is hesitant. David assures him "it's not code" and to do as he says.
With James gone, Ellie stays vigilant. She unloads their rifles, all while keeping her own on David. He persuades her to hole up in a nearby cabin with the deer until James returns. He tries to make conversation but, understandably suspicious, she remains stone-faced. "I'm a decent man just trying to take care of the people who rely on me," he says, identifying himself as the leader of his community. He's a preacher — "standard Bible stuff," he says — though it wasn't until after cordyceps that he found God.
After several years in the Pittsburgh QZ, he set off with others, picking up more on the way. Their previous settlements were captured by raiders, but he's optimistic about their current situation. When Ellie calls him lucky, he shakes his head with a smile. "No such thing as luck," he says. "I believe everything happens for a reason." He can prove it, too. After sending four of his people out for supplies, he discovered that one of them was murdered by a "crazy man" who was traveling with a little girl. Chillingly, he credits fate for bringing her (and, by extension, Joel) back into his orbit.
James has returned. His rifle is trained on Ellie and he's ready to pull the trigger. Revenge for his dead friend. David stops him, though, and encourages James to give Ellie the medicine he retrieved. Ellie takes it and sprints into the snow, but not before David tells her he knows she's not with a large group and won't survive without his protection. David appears to be obsessed with the idea that people need him.
Back at the house, Ellie injects Joel with the penicillin, then lays with him. Breathing weakly, he leans his head gently against hers. Night falls.
We get a glimpse of the meager supplies back at David's resort, and, curiously, the hesitancy with which the cook asks what meat they'll be cooking. It's venison, says her cohort, but not without an ominous pause. David and James return with the deer as everyone eats. He reveals to the group that they found the girl who was with the "crazy man" and will track them both down in the morning.
"You should kill him," says the daughter of the dead man. "Kill both of them." David responds to her with a vicious slap that knocks her out of her chair. "I know you think you don't have a father anymore, but the truth is you will always have a father," David says, seemingly referring to God. When he demands she "show him respect when he is speaking," however, it becomes clear that David sees himself as much more than a preacher.
The next morning, Ellie gives Joel more medicine. Is he getting better? It's unclear, but he's still breathing, so that's good. She goes outside to feed Shimmer, then notices David and his men through the trees. She runs back inside and warns a half-conscious Joel, explaining that she's going to try and lead them away. Knowing the men want Joel dead, she tells him to kill anyone who finds him.
David wants Ellie alive, much to James' displeasure. Not only does James want revenge on both Joel and Ellie, but he knows they can't afford another mouth to feed. When Ellie blazes by on Shimmer, he fires off a shot that kills the horse and sends Ellie tumbling into the snow. With David occupied elsewhere and his cohorts urging him to kill her, he again points his rifle at her. David stops them with a shot into the sky. He scoops up Ellie in his arms, then orders the men to go door-to-door looking for Joel since they're "so hungry for vengeance."
Liane Hentscher/HBO Troy Baker's James arrives in 'The Last of Us' episode 8
It doesn't take long for one man to find the house where Joel's holed up. He steps down into the basement, but Joel is waiting for him. Though weak, he's able to stab the man in the neck and slowly choke the life out of him. Joel, who we know is quite good at murder, is able to kill or immobilize the rest of David's men. With two left alive, he ties them up and tortures them — including driving a knife into one man's knee and threatening to "pop the kneecap off" — to find out where Ellie's been taken. Even after they give him the info he wants, he slaughters them in cold blood.
Ellie, meanwhile, wakes to find herself in a cell. She's in a kitchen, it seems, and a butcher table sits nearby. David appears fascinated by her. He reiterates what he said in the woods: She can't survive on her own, and he's the one who can protect her. He wants to offer her a "new beginning."
She glimpses something disturbing on the butcher table: a human ear. David and his flock have been eating human flesh, and she worries he plans to chop her into "tiny little pieces." He's ashamed. Only a small handful of them know the truth, he asserts. It was a last resort. "Should I let them starve?" he asks.
Besides, he doesn't want to kill her, let alone eat her. She reminds him of himself: a natural leader, smart, loyal, and violent. "You have a violent heart, and I should know," he says. "I've always had a violent heart, and I struggled with it for a long time. But then the world ended and I was shown the truth."
The truth, he posits, is that cordyceps isn't evil, but rather something to be emulated. "It's fruitful, it multiplies, it secures its future with violence, if it must," he explains. "It loves."
His people can't understand that. "They need God and heaven and a father," he says. Not Ellie, though, she's "beyond that." David sees himself as a "shepherd surrounded by sheep" and all he wants is "an equal, a friend."
"What about my friend?" Ellie asks.
David says his men will spare Joel if he asks them to. But he's more interested in her. "Think about what we could do together, as strong as we are," he says, placing one hand on the bars of her cell. "We could make this place perfect." Ellie places her hand on the bars beside his and he wraps his hand over hers. "Imagine the life we could build," he says, his tone dripping with sexual undertones. Ellie, playing along, places both her hands on his, then twists his fingers, breaking them, and bites into his hand, drawing blood.
Furious and deeply humiliated, he retreats. "Let's see what I go tell the others now," he spits before implying that maybe he'll chop her up into "tiny little pieces" after all.
Outside, Joel stumbles through the blowing snow onto the resort. He's pale and tired, but spots a trail of blood — likely Shimmer's — that leads into a shed. After breaking the lock and going in, he finds Shimmer's corpse, but also much more: Decapitated humans, hanging from hooks like slabs of meat. Will these bodies also be buried in the spring?
Back inside, a spurned David returns with James. They drag Ellie from the cell and throw her onto the chopping block, David preparing to gore her with a butcher knife. She screams that she's infected and, since she bit David's hand, now he is, too. She shows them her wound, which confuses them long enough for Ellie to seize the butcher knife and drive it into James' throat, killing him. She escapes into the steakhouse, quickly pursued by David.
Ellie grabs a flaming log from the hearth and chucks it at him. It misses, but strikes one of the curtains, igniting a fire that will quickly spread throughout the dining room. A manic David laughs, informing her that she's trapped; the doors are locked and he's the only one with keys. Ellie is able to duck out of sight and grab a steak knife. David continues to stalk her, his own butcher knife in hand.
As smoke fills the room, Ellie strikes and lands a blow on his side, forcing him to drop the butcher knife. It's not enough to stop him, though, and he gains the upper hand, holding her down and creepily saying that "the fighting is the part I like the most."
"Don't be afraid," he says. "There's no fear in love." Before he can overwhelm her, Ellie is able to grab the butcher knife he dropped. She strikes him in the head, then jumps on his body and stabs him more than a dozen more times. Blood splatters her face and the flames continue to crawl across the walls.
Ellie, crazed and exhausted, emerges into the cold air in a cloud of smoke. Joel finds her and she shrieks in terror before realizing it's him. They hug. He puts his coat around her shoulders and they walk away from the burning resort, his arm firmly around her shoulder.
"It's okay, babygirl," he soothes.
But, based on the look on her face, it's not okay, and it's looking unlikely it ever will be again.
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
Related content:
