The Last of Us recap: Love at first bite
An abandoned row of desolate ranch homes. A blood-stained path in the snow. Shimmer the horse stands in a garage with broken windows. Joel (Pedro Pascal) lies on a dirty mattress in a basement, bleeding out. Ellie (Bella Ramsey) knows he's going to die if he doesn't get help. In his weakened state, he begs her to leave him. She considers this, then climbs the stairs to the house above. Faced with the decision to leave or to try and save him, the screen goes black.
Next we see Ellie, she's jogging to the dulcet tones of Pearl Jam's "All Or None" in sweats that indicate we've traveled back to the Boston FEDRA facility where she lived before meeting Marlene, Joel, and Tess.
After an older girl, Bethany, knocks off her headphones, Ellie makes like she wants to fight. "You don't fight. Your friend fights," Bethany taunts. "She's not here anymore, is she?"
Ellie calls her bluff and the scuffle lands her in the office of Captain Kwong, one of the FEDRA officers overseeing the facility. She's been here before, we learn, and her rebellious streak has only grown worse over the past month. "Put me in the hole," says Ellie, who's now got a black eye. (Bethany, meanwhile, is in the infirmary with 15 stitches.)
Whatever "the hole" is, Kwong's sent her there before and he doesn't plan on doing it again. Instead, he tells her that she should put her smarts to good use and straighten up because "there's a leader" in her. She could be a high-ranking FEDRA officer like him and get a nice bed, hot meals, and a job that doesn't require any of the dirty work needed to keep the QZ in order. If she keeps acting out, however, she'll never be more than a grunt, burning bodies and cleaning up waste.
"We're the only thing holding all this together," Kwong says of FEDRA. "If we go down, the people in the zone will starve or murder each other, that much I know."
Liane Hentscher/HBO Bella Ramsey on 'The Last of Us'
That night, she reads comics in her room beneath faded posters for Mortal Kombat II and the 1987 comedy Innerspace. An empty bed sits opposite her, bringing to mind Bethany's remark about a friend that's "not here anymore." Later, as Ellie sleeps, her window slides open and a girl climbs in. It's Riley (Storm Reid), her old roommate and, according to Ellie, her "best friend." Riley's been gone roughly three weeks, we learn, having abandoned the orphanage to join the Fireflies.
Ellie, who's spent the majority of her life being told that the Fireflies are terrorists, is concerned, but nevertheless intrigued when Riley tells her she has a surprise for her. The pair sneak out and slip through an adjacent building, where they find a fresh corpse with a handful of pills and a bottle of booze by its side. They swipe the booze and trade sips, giggling the whole time. When Ellie sees that Riley has a gun, she asks if she can hold it. Riley lets her, despite being told not to by the Fireflies. At their age, friendship and curiosity always override discipline. None of it is real to them yet.
Riley explains how she became a Firefly: While sneaking out one night, an older woman told her she was impressed with her ability to evade FEDRA. The woman asked how Riley felt about FEDRA, and when she replied that the "fascist dickbags" deserve to be hanged for their crimes, she was brought into the fold. Ellie challenges her, parroting Kwong's line about FEDRA being the ones holding things together. There's also the storage depot recently bombed by the Fireflies, which Riley disregards as "propaganda bullshit."
After leaping across rooftops in a way that could only be described as "video game-y," they arrive at an abandoned shopping mall that Ellie believes has long been sealed off. Riley not only knows a way inside, but also how to turn on its lights. Ellie marvels at the illuminated storefronts, each dressed in varying shades of neon. The shops are trashed and looted, but the breadth of this consumerist wonderland, a relatively intact relic of a time she never knew, dazzles nevertheless. (So does the now-working escalator, which has a giddy Ellie sprinting up and down the steps with childish abandon.)
Slightly drunk, the pair explore the ruins against the kaleidoscopic synths of A-Ha's "Take On Me." Ellie is particularly interested in the lingerie (and photography) on display in Victoria's Secret. Riley takes her to one of the several "wonders" of the mall: a working carousel. They hop on aluminum horses and, as they turn, Ellie raises the idea that Riley could return to the QZ and "run things" with her. But Riley won't have the same opportunities as Ellie, as she's been told that "sewage detail" is the only job in her future. "That's what they think of me," she says.
Liane Hentscher/HBO Bella Ramsey and Storm Reid in 'The Last of Us'
Riley's next wonder is a photo booth that snaps five photos of the pair before spitting them out in a strip that Ellie tucks into her bag. A buzzing arcade is the next wonder, and Ellie declares its array of glowing, blooping cabinets "the most beautiful thing" she's ever seen. They settle in at the Mortal Kombat II cabinet, hooting and teasing and oblivious to the spore-ridden monster that's stirring just down the hall.
Ellie and Riley are having so much fun that the moment nearly moves Ellie to confront what might be romantic feelings for her former roommate. The moment passes, though, and Ellie, uncomfortable by this rush of emotions, says that she needs to get back to the facility before they discover she's missing. Riley keeps her around by promising a gift.
The gift, which Riley's stored with her bedroll in the backroom of a taco restaurant, is the book of puns Ellie will later entertain Joel with on the road. They read a few, but their laughter dissipates when Ellie discovers a handful of pipe bombs that Riley's been constructing. Ellie feels betrayed by Riley's complicity in Firefly violence. Furthermore, she's hurt by the possibility that their reunion was less about their relationship and more about recruitment.
She's not entirely wrong. Riley reveals she's being sent to the Atlanta QZ by the Fireflies and that this is her last night in Boston. She wanted to try and convince Ellie to come with her, but Marlene (who we know Ellie will meet soon) wouldn't allow it. Confused and overwhelmed, Ellie storms off, but quickly gets lost navigating the mall. When she hears screams, she runs to them, concerned, only to find Riley in a store filled with shrieking Halloween decorations. This is her last wonder of the mall.
"So you leave me. I think you're dead. All of a sudden you're alive," Ellie says. "And you give me this night, this amazing f---ing night, and now you're leaving me again forever to join some cause I don't even think you understand."
Riley concedes that maybe the Fireflies "aren't what I think they are," but she wants to be with them anyway because "they chose me, I matter to them."
Liane Hentscher/HBO Bella Ramsey and Storm Reid on 'The Last of Us'
"But you mattered to me first," Ellie says, softening enough for Riley to rope her into her last event of the evening. She pulls out a pair of Halloween masks and puts on Etta James' "I Got You Babe." They dance on the counter until they're breathless, then Ellie takes off her mask. "Don't go," she says. Riley takes off her mask and says she won't. Then they kiss.
There's a giddy sense of awkwardness, but it quickly curdles into terror when the monster we saw earlier bursts through the shelves of the Halloween store. Ellie stabs it multiple times as they struggle, then, as it threatens to overwhelm Riley, delivers a deathblow to the side of its head. It's dead and she's exhilarated… until she sees the bite on her arm. Riley's got one, too, smaller and on her hand.
Ellie is furious, shattering glass displays and shouting. Riley is despondent. She says they have two options: kill themselves or keep going. "It's this way for everyone sooner or later," she says. "Some of us just get there faster than others. But we don't quit, whether it's two minutes or two days." She'd rather "get all poetic and s--- and lose our minds together." And, for now, that's all we know about how their story ends.
Back in the present, Ellie scours the drawers of the abandoned house and eventually finds a needle and some thread. Looking at Joel's wound, she squeezes his hand and then works to stitch it up. Riley refused to give up, even in the face of sure death. Ellie's doing the same for Joel.
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