Marlene actor ponders whether Joel did the right thing on The Last of Us

HBO’s adaptation of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us stuck very close to the source material, but only one actor played the same role on the show as they did in the games: Merle Dandridge, who played the Firefly leader Marlene.

Marlene is the one who first brings Joel (Pedro Pascal) together with Ellie (Bella Ramsey), setting them off on their cross-country quest. She’s also the one who, at the end, stands in Joel’s way. After he finally gets Ellie to a hospital run by the Fireflies, Marlene reveals that they can use Ellie’s immunity to the cordyceps infection to create a cure…but the procedure will kill her. Joel, who by this point thinks of Ellie as a daughter, is unwilling to let this happen.

But if Joel thinks of Ellie as a daughter, so does Marlene. As we learned in the opening flashback sequence, Marlene took care of an infant Ellie after her mother Anna (Ashley Johnson) was attacked by an infected. Before that, Anna and Marlene were friends, which makes the scene where Anna asks Marlene to shoot her especially painful. As Dandridge put it to TV Guide: “Anna was the last bit of her former humanity and she had to basically shoot her own heart, and that is beyond devastation.”

Why is Marlene prepared to kill Ellie on The Last of Us?

And yet Marlene does it, because she puts her duty to her friend above her personal reluctance to end her friend’s life. “Marlene [goes from choosing her]self… which is ‘I can’t. I can’t kill you. I can’t. Perhaps I can even find a cure in this moment. But I will not take your life,’ to rising above and setting [her]self aside as she does as the leader of the Fireflies, as a leader of the resistance, as you see everything that she becomes in this post-apocalyptic world,” Dandridge said. “[At] this moment [she is] setting self aside and giving mercy to the dearest part of her heart.”

And that’s kind of what Marlene does at the end of the episode, where she’s willing to kill Ellie in order to create a vaccine that could rid the world of the zombie virus that’s ended civilization as we knew it. And according to Dandridge, Marlene didn’t make that decision lightly. “In my understanding and research and preparation to play Marlene, I talked out those scenarios in which she investigated it and understood and made sure that she knew as much as her non-biology scientist mind could understand the science,” she said.

"[In the second game] you see that she is rigorously questioning and pushing back on this doctor’s technology and science that there has to be some other way. There has to be another way, and only after exhaustive time and understanding and work and explanation and testing has she come to the realization that this is the only way. And that realization, when she sees that come over Joel, [she] does get it. “I have been in the exact place of denial that you are right now. And I can confidently stand in front of you and say, I have loved her longer and more. And this is still the right choice.”"

Will Ellie find out about what Joel did in The Last of Us finale?

But again, Joel isn’t at the place where he can process this. Instead, he wipes out nearly everyone in the hospital and saves Ellie before the Fireflies can carry out the surgery. When Marlene offers him the chance to recant, to sacrifice Ellie in the name of curing the world, he kills her, reasoning that if he doesn’t, she’ll come after Ellie.

Dandridge doesn’t dispute that Joel was probably right about that last part. “You can argue every facet of this emotional World War III that they’re contending with but it’s not for us to say who is right,” she told TheWrap. “The argument and the facts of both Marlene and Joel’s situation and heartbreak around this moment are both valid and I think that they both say things that are right on the money. The difficult part is we are making these decisions on Ellie’s behalf and she has no agency in this.”

Ellie has been unconscious this entire time, hence why she doesn’t have agency. No one ever asked her what she would want. And after she wakes up, Joel lies to her and says that the Fireflies have given up on finding a cure for the cordyceps infection. “Something about it is not truthful and she knows it,” Dandridge said. “That is poisonous in a relationship in which they’ve learned to trust each other so much. That question mark of why he chooses now to not be straightforward with her… I don’t know, we’ll see. I’m holding my breath just thinking about it.”

Marlene’s death in The Last of Us game vs the show

The second and third seasons of the HBO show will adapt the events of The Last of Us Part II video game, and we expect them to be just as faithful to that more recent game as the first season was to the older one. How faithful are we talking? Take a look at the video below, which compares Marlene’s death scene in the game to her death scene on TV:

"Which one was better? Be honest from thelastofus"

The Last of Us season 2 probably won’t air until late 2024 at the earliest. Unfortunately. 2025 is more likely.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels