The season 2 finale of The Last of Us, "Convergence," aired the other night. Ellie continued her dogged hunt for Abby, the woman who killed her father Joel at the start of the season. In the finale, she goes a little far even for her, killing a pair of people — Owen and Mel — who accompanied Abby to Jackson.
Ellie did swear to kill Abby's whole posse after Abby killed Joel, but saying it is one thing and doing it another. Ellie is unsuccessful in getting Owen and Mel to tell her where Abby is, and shoots Owen after he pulls a gun on her, The bullet goes through Owen, killing him, but also mortally wounds Mel, who we find out shortly afterwards is pregnant. With her dying breath, Mel tries to talk Ellie through giving her a c-section, but Ellie is hopelessly out of her depth. Mother and unborn daughter die right there, leaving Ellie wondering if any of this is worth it.
Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie, talked to Variety about this particular scene. "I was really excited to get to do it and absolutely terrified, because how awful!" Ramsey said. "That’s maybe worse than seeing Joel die, because I think in that moment, Ellie realizes she has become all of the parts of him that she never wanted to become. And now she’s seeing the consequences of her actions and her grief and her revenge and being unable to stop and think for a second."
The moment is a bit different in The Last of Us Part II, the video game that the show is adapting this season. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, showrunner Craig Mazin broke down the differences. “In the game, Ellie fights Owen (Spencer Lord), and then fights Mel, and it’s only after Mel dies that her coat opens and Ellie realizes she’s pregnant,” he explained. “But for this, Ellie is not really capable of killing Owen — you look at Bella and you look at Spencer Lord, he’s 6’4″ and just incredibly imposing. A physical struggle wasn’t going to go well, and she’s not there to kill them. She just wants to kill Abby. I remember saying to [co-showrunner Neil Druckmann] that as fucked up as that moment was in the game, I think it can be more fucked up and not to be a tormentor.”
In the game, Ellie stabs Mel to death with a knife, which I think is considerably darker than her accidentally killing Mel with a bullet meant for somebody else. But the show does add on the scene where Mel tries to talk Ellie through a c-section, which is indeed upsetting. "Mel is a doctor and understands in that moment as she’s dying that there is a chance to save her child," Mazin continued. "This is ingrained in our theme — parents doing whatever they can to save their child. And poor Ellie in this circumstance is confronted by the horrible consequences of her pursuit and also a terrible panic. This is like my worst nightmare —somebody telling me how to save their child, and I don’t understand what they’re saying because they’re running out of oxygen and slipping away. Bella sits back understanding the totality of her failure here, and what’s even more heartbreaking is her failure isn’t over yet. She just doesn’t realize it.”
Season 3 will become a different show
Ellie's failures compound when she returns to the movie theaters she and Dina turned into a base of operations. Ellie is on the brink of finally giving up her vendetta against Abby when Abby herself shows up, now on her own revenge quest. Abby kills Jesse, wounds Tommy and trains her gun on Ellie before we cut to black.
“It’s an interesting situation because Jesse dies in part because of Ellie, but Ellie doesn’t pull the trigger — Abby does,” Mazin said. “And we understand that Dina had this great relationship with Joel and she has gone in pursuit of Abby out of a sense of justice for that. So now the question is: Who does she blame [for Jesse’s death]? Jesse’s death is going to change things for her.”
That will no doubt cause complications for everyone next season, but it might be awhile before we see them. At the very end of the episode, we go back in time three days and wake up with Abby. As fans of the games know, we'll now see the same story play out from her perspective.
“I don’t think television is supposed to work like this,” Mazin said. “We’re clearly breaking quite a few rules, and I love that. And I love it because that is the point. This is not something we’re doing as a gimmick. The point of this story — and this is looked at from so many different angles in so many different ways — is that the entire concept of protagonist is flawed."
"The entire concept of villain is flawed. Our way of processing the world through heroes and villains is a mistake. It ends up creating these barriers between people that shouldn’t be there. It ends up giving ourselves justifications and conveniences for bad behavior, and it ends up allowing us to judge others summarily for things that we don’t quite understand the motivation behind it. We know this is a challenging thing to keep track of emotionally. We understand people are going to be provoked. But part of this story is about examining why we’re so comfortable with following one person’s point of view about everything."
And that's where we'll pick up in season 3, which so far as we know will start filming next year. Hopefully HBO gets a move on, because that would mean a very long wait.
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