(Publisher’s note: This article contains spoilers for the video game of season 2 “The Last of Us” and “The Last of Us Part II”)
Anyone who played the “Last of Us” games – or, to put him in the language of Regina George, was personally the victim of the “Last of Us” games – may have planned to see Joel (Pedro Pascal) in Flashback even after his disappearance in the hands of Abby (Kaitlyn Dever). His perfectly planned journey for the 16th anniversary of Ellie (Bella Ramsey) occurs as a flashback at this stage of “The Last of Us Part II”, after the player obtained the theater of Seattle as a base of operations to drive out the member of the Liberation Front of Young Washington.
Our happy trip from Sally Fangirl’s favorite immune survivor in a museum of science is covered with the same warm glow of the filmmaker Ksenia Sereda as with the re-evaluation of space, he helps the experience of Joel inside the Apollo capsule, as it is almost made for the shot in the HBO Show by the Director / Co-Wruter Neil, Shot in the HBO Show by the Director / Co-Writ exists in the form of a kinematics.
But one of the most interesting choices of season 2 of “The Last of Us” was to transpose a Joel flashback into episode 6, “The Price”, which only occurs at the very end of the second match.
It was only once the player has gone through the entire story of Ellie (played in the game by Ashley Johnson) – and the story of Abby (Laura Bailey) too – that we see Ellie had a conversation with Joel (Troy Baker) after dance, where he explained how he killed all these fires in Salt Lake City, For Cordyce and against Cory de Salt Lake City, even at the cost of a potential gathering for Cordyce and against Coryce, even in Salt Lake City, even at the cost of a potential gathering for Cordyce and against Coryce and at the end of Salt Lake City. Wishes. Place this scene in This The moment of the show will naturally create training effects for everything that comes after.
“Neil and I felt where he belonged because we wanted to understand Ellie before going further. We needed to know what she knew, and we had to understand how she really left things with Joel before her death,” said Craig Mazin, Showrunner and Co-Scenarist. “I think most people probably noted that when Ellie spoke to Gail (Catherine O’hara) in the hospital, she was lying, but we also (we have shown her) Joel and we are not talking to her. So arriving at this point was extremely important to me and for Neil. ”
Visually, the scene recreates most of the composition and the blocking of the game kinematics, design on the cup of Joel when Ellie nervously beats the banister of the porch. What Ellie and Joel know each other in the game are however different from their level of knowledge in the show. So what each of them wants and fear each other at this time in the series is also a little different.
“Unlike Ellie in the game, which goes to Salt Lake City and she finds evidence, our Ellie does not have as much evidence as this simple instinct based on questions that disturbs her for all these years and the way in which Joel lied to her about Eugene (Joe Pantoliano),” said Mazin.
It is this confirmation, as much as anything else, that the show had to establish before the conspiracy in Seattle goes further. Obtaining this confirmation extends Joel and Ellie’s conversation of a kinematics of about four and a half minutes to an eight -minute scene from the HBO series. This additional material makes less emphasis on the conversation on how Joel tries to control and protect Ellie’s life in Jackson, and more on the choice that Joel makes in Salt Lake City.
“There is a reason why we start the wholesale season with Joel talking to a therapist. Because it is a story about the lies that we hold in ourselves, and we do not just hold them up. We hold them there because we are both shame of them and also proud of them at the same time; Joel would refer it,” said Mazin.
Instead of simply demanding Joel’s responsibility for what she already knows that he has done, Ellie the Force to choose his wishes, actively, in the calm New Year’s evening. “If you lie to me, we are finished,” she said, and even when Joel cannot resolve to tell the truth, he chooses to give him the truth as best he can. Instead of simply saying that if he should do it a second time, he would make the same choice, Joel explains why.
“I love how difficult it is for Pedro, how difficult it is to get him out,” said Mazin at that time. “He understands that he will chase her. And it is a bit in the context of what we now know about his own childhood and his own father, and to be able to express something incredibly important to him, that is to say that there is a love that parents have for children that children do not understand.
The wound, fear and love and love of Pascal in the scene are superb to see, framed by Druckmann just close enough to see the wet in his eyes. But what is perhaps more interesting is how to set the scene here affects Ellie, and how Ramsey goes through with him.
As an epilogue, this moment is so much more on Ellie and what could have been possible for her if the next day had not dropped as he did; Which could still be possible if it can keep the version of her that had this conversation. You can feel Johnson weaves this subtle and vulnerable question mark in “I would like to try”, as if it were in Joel. It opens to lose it potentially to have the chance to build something better. What is heartbreaking in this version of the scene is that Joel then says: “I would like it.” He will never apologize to his daughter adopted for the choice he made, but he East Ready to listen to it now. There is a tragic meaning that after that Ellie takes breathing and says: “OK. I will see you around ”, they could have had the chance to build a better relationship together.
Putting it here, as a moment of revelation for Ellie, Ramsey’s Hurt is raw, both new and old, and as relentless as Ellie. She needs answers, whatever happens, and it is Joel who must make the vulnerable choice to be honest, even at the cost of losing it. The bill is due. Then miraculously, Ellie the pay. She intends to echo the words of her own father, and it turns out that she can hold the two explanations for her unleashing through the hospital to save her – that he is selfish and that he loves her in a way that she cannot understand. The sequence simply ends on the expression on Pascal’s face, receiving the unexpected mercy that Ellie could still give it a chance. The tragedy is that Joel will not have time to take it.
“I look around in our regular non -zombie world of the apocalypse, and we all walk with these things, all of us with these things we mean, but we cannot. These things we have done with which we have ashamed and proud, and I think that is why people connect to the show,” said Mazin. “In the end, we care about these relationships.”
If this scene is the last time that we have seen Joel on “The Last of Us” – and there is still an 18th Seth birthday cake (Robert John Burke) may or may not have done – it raises interesting possibilities for Ellie. The series positions us the best for her and for her to become the best version of herself. We have now seen exactly what it looks like. But as Gail reminds us, some people just can’t be saved – at least not alone. “The Prize”, and this particular scene, concerns all the ways in which Joel and Ellie have been saved. It takes time and love, things that the world does not always deign for us.
“I hope that when people see this moment, they think:” OK, it was the last moment before their last moment. These are the last words they said to each other: “I don’t know if I can never forgive you for that, but I’m ready to try.” And the question is, if Ellie can forgive, what can she forgive others?
“The Last of Us” is streaming on HBO Max. To make sure you don’t miss the upcoming episode of Craig Mazin from Filmmaker Toolkit, subscribe to the Podcast on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
