HBO’s The Last of Us seems to have finally ditched the dreaded video game adaptation curse. The show was not perfect, but it was widely viewed positively by critics, fans of the game, and new fans of the series. The show was able to tell the story that gamers have loved, while also expanding on it in fun, new ways like Bill and Frank’s backstory, and providing the signature Sunday night HBO prestige drama that TV viewers love.
With Sunday’s finale of HBO’s The Last of Us, a whole new audience was brought into a decade old debate among the gaming community. With Joel and Ellie finally completing their journey and reaching the Fireflies in Salt Lake City, the world would finally be able to develop a cure for the dreaded cordyceps fungus. However, there’s one key detail that HBO left out from the game which greatly impacts how fans likely view Joel’s decision at the end of The Last of Us.
What Happened in the Finale
The finale of the HBO show follows very closely what happens in Naughty Dog’s game. The episode opens with a new scene featuring Ellie being born and her mom being bit by an infected right as she was birthed, perhaps explaining Ellie’s immunity. Fans then pick up with Joel and Ellie on a highway just outside of Salt Lake City. Ellie, still traumatized from the events with her kidnapper, David, has seemingly shut down and is having a hard time. In an attempt to connect with her, Joel finds a game of Boggle in a van and suggests they play it together. Ellie says yes, but is clearly going through the motions of what Joel expects.
In a scene directly mirroring The Last of Us game, Ellie finally starts to seem more like herself after entering Salt Lake and finding a pack of giraffes, who seemingly escaped from the local zoo. Ellie and Joel bond over their past traumas, Joel’s with Sarah and Ellie’s with Riley, and Ellie decides they should push on to the Fireflies’ camp, despite Joel’s hesitation. They are then jumped by a few Firefly guards and taken to a hospital while Joel falls unconscious.
In the hospital, Firefly leader Marlene thanks Joel for getting Ellie all the way to Salt Lake City. She explains that Ellie has already been prepped for surgery and their doctors are beginning a procedure that will make a cure, but will ultimately kill Ellie. Since cordyceps grows in the brain, the doctors have to remove it in order to develop the cure everyone has been looking for over decades.
Faced with the prospect of once again losing a daughter, Joel goes on his infamous rampage, killing countless Firefly guards on his way to the surgical suite. When he arrives, Ellie has already been put under, but the procedure hasn’t started. Joel kills the doctor and takes Ellie, unconscious, down to the parking garage. In a final desperate attempt to stop him, Marlene meets Joel in the garage and tells him that Ellie would have sacrificed herself to make the cure. Joel says it doesn’t matter, kills Marlene, and then drives away. It should also be noted that, similar to Joel, Marlene also didn’t give Ellie the chance to make her own decision and put her under anesthesia without telling her what would happen.
The Missing Detail from HBO’s The Last of Us
While fans have long debated over whether Joel made the right decision, one detail from the game is left out that completely changes the calculus. In HBO’s version, Marlene makes it sound like the doctors will absolutely be able to make a cure using Ellie’s brain. However, long-time fans know that the cure was not guaranteed in the game. Ellie still gave the doctors their best hope for creating a cure or vaccine, but it was just as likely that Ellie’s death would be for nothing.
It’s easy to see why HBO chose this route. Throughout the show, there were added details about how hard Sarah’s death was on Joel. When fans reconnect with Joel in the Boston QZ in the game, it’s clear he’s turned into a hardened version of his old self, but fans don’t really see the trauma his daughter’s death inflicted on him. In the show, Joel deals with panic attacks over the thought of losing Ellie. He breaks down crying in front of Tommy when he thinks he can’t protect Ellie anymore. He admits that he attempted suicide in the wake of Sarah’s death. Joel’s mental health issues were much more front and center in HBO’s version. HBO’s Joel doesn’t need any added motivation to rescue Ellie. After admitting that Ellie was the one who finally helped him heal from Sarah’s death, nothing else mattered to him. Losing Ellie would have been the end of Joel’s world.
Of course, there’s still the issue of what Ellie wanted. In both the show and the game, Ellie always went out of her way to try to help others. Maybe she would have been willing to sacrifice herself for the chance of creating a cure, or maybe she wouldn’t have. Given the traumatic experience she just went through with the cannibals, it’s also fair to consider whether she would be in the right frame of mind to make that type of decision on her own. Either way, the fact that neither Marlene nor Joel considered her opinion is the root of the problem. The question about whether Joel did the right thing will go on as long as people care about the game, and HBO leaving out questions about the efficacy of a potential cure will continue to stoke debate.
The Last of Us Part 1 is available now on PS5, and a PC port will be released on March 28.
