The Last of Us never intended to reveal what happened to Riley

The latest episode of The Last of Us once again reached through the screen and tugged at the heartstrings of millions of viewers around the world. This week, we went back in time to look at a crucial moment in the life of Ellie (Bella Ramsey): when she spent a night in an abandoned mall with her best friend Riley (Storm Reid) and experienced brutal loss for the first time, as well as discovered that she was immune to the cordyceps fungus that’s turned much of the rest of humanity into zombies.

Once again, The Last of Us found a way to introduce heady emotion into a genre — the zombie apocalypse genre — that a lot of people probably expect to be a little more action-focused. “Who would have thought that we would be zooming in on two teenagers figuring out an awkward friendship-crush situation?” Ramsey asked Variety. “It’s something that was very much just there in the script. I’d seen quite a lot of gameplay of ‘Left Behind,’ so I sort of felt it from that, too.”

“Left Behind” is both the name of the episode and the expansion to Naughty Dog’s 2013 The Last of Us video game; the episode adapts the expansion very faithfully. “In terms of me and Storm, we just got along instantly,” Ramsey continued. “We didn’t have a lot of time to get to know each other beforehand. We very much just got to know each other as we were shooting, and it helps that we got along instantly. We just, like, trust each other, and felt very safe with each other. It wasn’t awkward at all.”

Why Ellie and Riley react differently to their tragic fate on The Last of Us

Typical for The Last of Us, “Left Behind” ends in brutal fashion. Ellie and Riley spend a terrific evening together, possibly their last before Riley leaves with the Fireflies and the pair never see each other again. The two even share a tender first kiss. It may be the happiest moment in either of their young lives…

…so of course it’s interrupted by an infected who bites both of them, meaning they’re both doomed to become mindless zombies. The characters have different reactions: Riley grows contemplative while Ellie smashes everything in sight. “I hadn’t seen that bit of gameplay, and I’m really glad that I didn’t,” Ramsey said. “I became aware after that I reacted differently to how Ellie reacts in the game. I think it was maybe more explosive, and there was more anger, rather than fear. I think that Ellie’s response is such intense emotion that she doesn’t know what to do with. It becomes very outward and expressive and explosive. That was really cool. I was very much trusting Craig and Liza [Johnson], the director, to guide me in that way. I loved that scene. I love scenes where you get to feel things really intensely, because you don’t often get the chance to do that in a super safe space. To get that chance was awesome.”

Storm Reid also weighed in on that heavy final scene between the two characters:

"It was an intense scene. I think we’re so used to seeing Riley so optimistic about everything: “Oh, yeah, everything’s gonna be OK. Yeah, we can keep going. Yeah, we’re in this post-apocalyptic world, but it’s us. We’re about to have fun.” I think it’s our first time really seeing her realize the weight of the world. The possibility of her world ending is earth-shattering to them, and they process it in different ways. Riley’s emotions are a little bit more internalized, because I think it’s the moment where she realizes this is no joke — not that she took it as one before. But you know that things can happen, and then when you when they happen to you, you’re like, “Oh, this is what this feels like.”"

The Last of Us never shot a scene showing what happens to Riley

In the end, Ellie and Riley decide that since there’s nothing they can do to stop what’s coming, they might as well go out together. We know that doesn’t happen, since Ellie is still around.

So what happened? Did Riley turn, meaning that Ellie had to kill her best friend? Did Ellie discover she was immune here and leave Riley in the mall? We don’t get a firm answer, and according to Ramsey, we were never meant to. “I’m sure they talked about that possibility [of shooting a scene where Riley turns], but the first scripts that we got, you didn’t see it. I think sometimes the things that you don’t see are more impactful, because then it’s left to your imagination, which can sometimes be even darker than what maybe you’d see on screen,” she said.

"I like that it ends so poetically. I think it’s more heartbreaking, Riley saying, “Let’s be all poetic and lose our minds together,” it’s horrendous to then know what happens after that. The fear and the confusion that Ellie felt, and the survivor’s guilt. There’s so much that comes with that."

We do know that this experience had a profound effect on Ellie. Back in the present, Joel lies dying in the basement of an abandoned house after an encounter with raiders. Ellie does whatever she can to save him. After what happened with Riley, she’s determined not to lose anyone else she loves.

The Last of Us stars brush off homophobic backlash

A few weeks back, The Last of Us had an episode about the love story between Frank and Bill, two men who managed to find happiness in impossible circumstances. This week, we got another, very different kind of love story between Ellie and Riley. In both cases, the stories reflect back on the one at the center of the show: Ellie and Joel.

And in both cases, the episodes received backlash, with “Left Behind” currently being drubbed by some fans online as “woke BS,” which is code for, “there are gays on my TV and I don’t like it.”

Storm Reid gave her take on the situation: “I think Bella put it perfectly a couple of weeks ago: ‘If you don’t like it, don’t watch.’ There’s so many other things to worry about in the world,” she said.

"I think being concerned about who people love is just absurd to me. I just don’t — I will never understand it. I don’t get it. I think despite what people are going to say, if they don’t like it, I think there are going to be a lot more people that appreciate it. A lot more people that feel represented and seen and heard. So that’s what matters. That’s where the work comes in. And that’s when it’s appreciated, and you prioritize looking at those tweets rather than the ones that aren’t the best."

New episodes of The Last of Us premiere Sunday nights on HBO and HBO Max.

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