Summary
After its seventh weekly installment, HBO’sThe Last of UsSeason 2 has drawn to a close. The finale was jam-packed with the events of Ellie’s Seattle day three, which ultimately culminated in her coming face to face with Abby and the episode ending on a dramatic cliffhanger, where Abby raises her gun at Ellie’s head when the show cuts to black, and the sound of a gunshot is heard.
The very final scene of the episode flashes back to the start of Abby’s day one in Seattle, revealing that, just like inThe Last of Usgame, the audience are now going to watch the events of Abby’s three days unfold before finding out what happens in the theater. Meaning, sadly, audiences will be without Ellie, a fan favorite and icon of the franchise, for a while. For the most part, the Season 2 finale does justice to Ellie’s arc. However, there was one scene that felt very out of place and arguably did not need to be included at all.
The Last of Us Season 2 finale Sees Ellie Wash Up On The Seraphite Island
In the final act of the finale, Ellie and Jesse are making their way through Seattle to find Tommy until Ellie discovers Abby’s location, which wasrevealed to her by Nora. At this point, Ellie and Jesse fight over whom to go after; Tommy or Abby. Ellie can’t let Abby go and Jesse insists on helping Tommy. So the two stubborn-minded characters decide to part ways and pursue their own leads. Ellie then finds a WLF boat and sneaks on board, and starts making her way to the aquarium.
Everything up to this point was almost identical to the events of the game series. The HBO showfrequently breaks from the canon of the gamebut always makes a point every episode to borrow exact moments from the game and mirrors them on the TV screen. It seemed like this would be that moment for the finale, and everything was happening in accordance to the games' events, but this time, when a giant wave takes out Ellie’s boat, she washes up on an unfamiliar shore.
The Seraphite’s Island in the game is only seen in Abby’s day three, when Abby and Yara travel to the island to save Lev amidst awar raging between the Seraphites and the WLFon the island. So, in the TV show when Ellie washes ashore, she does so at the time of the war on the Island. This could have led to interesting new story moments. When the show does break from canon, it often leads to some of the most interesting and memorable moments, as no one, including people who played the game, was expecting it. However, in this scenario, this is not the case.
The show has teased the concept of mixing around Ellie and Abby’s plot points before. In the teaser trailer for Episode 5, the audience sees Ellie in the basement of the hospital, while a WLF agent says the line “…not even rats”. This had some fans theorizing that Ellie would come face to face with the rat king, before or instead of Abby, and this potential deviation actually had fans excited rather than skeptical. Further proving that having Ellie on the Seraphite island could have created some exciting new perspectives onThe Last of Us: Part 2’s story, perhaps she could have come face to face with Yara and Lev,one of Abby’s WLF allies, or even Abby herself.
In reality, Ellie’s time on the island is very brief and inconsequential. After washing ashore, she is grabbed by two Seraphites and dragged into a torch-lit forest. In front of her she sees a noose hanging from a tree, and another Seraphite wielding a scythe. At this point, Ellie and the audience would undoubtedly have been reminded of the moment in Episode 5, where herself, Dina and Jesse stumble uponone of the Seraphites ritualistic sacrifices, where they hung a WLF soldier by a noose before cutting out his organs with a scythe and letting him bleed to death. All whilst the scythe wielder declares “they are nested with sin, free them so they may feel her love”. And it looks like Ellie is about to suffer the same fate, as her neck is placed on the noose, but it is at this point that a horn sound is heard, alerting the Seraphites to return to the village. Ellie then escapes the island by finding a sea-ready boat conveniently placed on the shore directly in front of her.
After this scene, Ellie continues back to the aquarium where she confronts Owen and Mel. This gets the narrative back in line with the events of the game. The only deviation was the detour to the island. Which really begs the question as to why. If this scene was completely removed from the episode, nothing would be out of place, because there isn’t any pay off, it’s never brought up again and seems to be quickly forgotten by Ellie. There isn’t even a scene where another character questions the marks from the rope on Ellie’s neck, likely because she doesn’t have any. Raising the question:Was this a continuity erroror did the showrunners decide to throw this scene in after filming the rest of the episode and, if so, why? What impact did they want it to have?
Ellie’s trip to the Seraphite island was a disappointing stain on an otherwise very concise and effective finale episode forThe Last of UsSeason 2. Which would undoubtedly have had a lot of fans scratching their heads, and it’s very unlikely that this scene will have any pay off in Abby’s arc next season. So it will be interesting to see what the showrunners say about their decision to include this seemingly irrelevant scene in a crucial moment of the finale.
