This put up accommodates spoilers for this week’s episode of The Final of Us, which is now streaming on Max.
Between its huge motion set piece and the brutal homicide of one of many present’s two lead characters, the earlier installment of The Final of Us, “By way of the Valley,” was about as seismic as an hour of TV might be for a drama like this. The dying of Joel, the timing of it this early within the season, and the sadistic vogue during which it occurred, have left avid gamers and non-gamers alike speaking all week — with some questioning whether or not they’re nonetheless in watching the present if Joel and Ellie’s relationship isn’t on the heart of it.
Earlier than penning this episode, Craig Mazin needed to know that Joel’s dying can be divisive, simply because it was when it occurred early within the second recreation. So, this episode has two large duties to carry out. The primary is to permit viewers to take a breath from the depth of “By way of the Valley” whereas Mazin and firm arrange the sequence’ subsequent large arc: Ellie and Dina getting ready to trip to Seattle to hunt revenge in opposition to Abby. The second is to attempt to set up that the sequence can go on with out Joel — that Ellie is a compelling solo lead even with out her surrogate father, and that her interaction with this much-expanded forged makes up for lots of what we’ve misplaced with Pedro Pascal’s exit.
It undoubtedly succeeds on the first task. The second is TBD, although there are some promising indicators in Bella Ramsey’s work with Isabela Merced as Dina.
After the one-two punch (or burning, or stabbing) of the siege on Jackson and Joel’s homicide, a extra sedate, transitional episode lets the characters regain their composure as a lot because the viewers. We decide up within the hours after these twin tragedies. Tommy is solemnly cleansing his brother’s physique, and tries to discover a good thought inside this awfulness by telling him, “Give Sarah my love.” Ellie wakes up within the hospital with a central line(*), nonetheless in shock from what she witnessed, and that’s the final we see of those preliminary phases of grief.
(*) Palms as much as each viewer of The Pitt who noticed this and instantly started questioning what procedure-chasing Dr. Trinity Santos is as much as on this post-apocalyptic world.
After the opening credit, three months have handed. The city is unbroken, and the wall is being refortified. Ellie is bodily prepared to depart the hospital, simply as long as she will get previous a remedy session with Gail. Ellie doesn’t need to be there, and Gail needs to do it even much less — it’s clear that the one motive she’s even practising today is as a result of she’s the one residing particular person with psychology coaching wherever within the area. In Season One, we noticed that Ellie has an amazing capability for shifting previous the worst points of this world to seek out issues to be cheerful about. However her conduct with Gail, and with everybody on the town later within the episode, isn’t that. Although she is making an attempt to sound wholesome and chipper, she’s very clearly not. Bella Ramsey is a superb actor, and right here hits the precisely candy spot of the shaky efficiency their character is giving: It’s simply exaggerated sufficient that we are able to all see that she’s faking it, and that the folks of Jackson can roughly inform the identical, however it’s not such a blatant put-on that her pals and neighbors would really feel no alternative however to name her out on it. Ellie’s emotional restoration is a lie agreed upon by the city, as a result of everybody beloved Joel(*), and everyone seems to be feeling protecting of the younger girl he left behind.
(*) We see that there’s nonetheless a big memorial for Joel, stuffed with flowers and notes of gratitude. If the opposite individuals who died that day acquired related therapy, we don’t see it, as a result of they had been unnamed extras who don’t matter to this story. Or maybe Joel — brother-in-law of Jackson’s chief, and a management determine in his personal proper on patrols and in development — was simply thought of that large a deal, relative to Joe Random who acquired stepped on by the Bloater.
After Ellie has made it house, Dina springs some information that we all know she’s stored pocketed for months now: that Abby and her crew are a part of a Seattle-based militia referred to as WLF (Washington Liberation Entrance). Dina is prepared and prepared to go attempting to find them with Ellie. However Tommy insists they take the plan to the city council, promising to again them in the event that they do.
We then lower to Seattle, to not examine in with Abby, however to fulfill a brand new group: a non secular cult of some variety that wears matching outfits, and sports activities matching facial scars. They use bows and arrows moderately than weapons, and talk with a sequence of difficult whistles that certainly one of their members guarantees to finally educate his younger daughter. Whereas strolling within the woods, the group comes underneath assault, and the dad refers to their opposition as “Wolves” — a.ok.a. the WLF.
Placing the scene right here is an fascinating, if not wholly satisfying, alternative. It gives a little bit of motion in an episode that’s in any other case full of speak and exquisite panorama pictures. It establishes the Wolves as an actual menace, even earlier than we get to the closing scenes the place Dina and Ellie discover their corpses, and we see that the Wolves are a lot greater and better-organized than our heroes have foolishly assumed. However the cultists, who’re from the sport, evoke a number of the sillier and extra pretentious parts of The Strolling Lifeless, and the purpose concerning the hazard the Wolves current might have been made with out that interlude. There’s additionally one thing to be stated for maintaining us inside Ellie’s POV for now, even when the present needed to deviate earlier within the season to ascertain why Abby was in search of revenge on Joel within the first place.
Listening to arguments on the Jackson city council assembly.
Liane Hentscher/HBO
The city council assembly has a humorous beat the place a person named Scott mainly acts just like the Colin Robinson (the power vampire from What We Do within the Shadows) of the post-apocalypse, droning on about crops when everybody else is there to speak about Ellie and Dina’s proposal. Speak on that latter entrance doesn’t go nicely, primarily as a result of the people who find themselves in opposition to the plan are so clearly proper. In a world like this, there is no such thing as a worth to going after Abby. It dangers manpower and sources. It probably places Jackson on the radar of different communities who would possibly attempt to come and attempt to seize what Maria and the others have constructed. Ellie stays calm and tries to paint her trigger as being about justice moderately than vengeance, however the two are wholly interchangeable on this circumstance, and the council rightly votes her down. It doesn’t assist Ellie and Dina that essentially the most forceful voice in assist of revenge is Seth, the loudmouth homophobe who drunkenly referred to as out the ladies for kissing on the New 12 months’s dance.
Earlier than the vote, Ellie guarantees to abide by the council’s determination, however after all she goes to Seattle regardless of how they rule. And shortly she and Dina are loaded up with provisions and weapons (together with a sniper rifle that Seth insists Ellie take instead of her personal, lesser gun) and starting the 800-mile trip northwest.
Ought to anybody be stunned? Not in the event that they’ve identified Ellie for 5 years. Earlier within the episode, Gail — who is way colder and extra misanthropic than you’d need somebody in her job to be — bluntly tells Tommy, “Some folks simply can’t be saved.” That is an extremely silly and pointless factor Ellie is doing. When Joel slaughtered the Fireflies, it was a minimum of with a productive objective in thoughts: saving her life. If Joel might in some way converse to her when she visits his grave, he would scream for her to return house and get on together with her life.
However plenty of drama includes characters who make decisions which might be clearly unhealthy the moment they make them. And within the brief time period, the journey(*) forces Ellie and Dina even nearer than they had been in Jackson. Jesse’s not round to distract or tempt Dina. There’s nobody else there who could make Ellie really feel self-conscious, even when she’s afraid to just accept the indicators that Dina retains giving her — ”I wasn’t that excessive,” she says of their kiss — as a result of she’s fearful of placing herself on the market and being rejected. Nothing can change the chemistry between Ramsey and Pascal, however Merced makes an fascinating scene companion, and Ellie’s battle to maintain her guard up round her crush gives some good materials for Ramsey to play in order that Ellie doesn’t appear solely centered on this ill-advised plan of hers.
(*) As they discuss music alongside the best way, their references are to older artists like Frank Zappa. This is sensible not solely as a result of Ellie spent a lot time round previous man Joel, and since vinyl is way simpler to come back by and play on this actuality, however as a result of on the earth of the present, the cordyceps outbreak occurred in 2003. On this universe, there’s no Taylor Swift, no Kendrick, and Beyoncé by no means had a solo profession.
If the 2 run into any contaminated alongside the best way, we don’t see it. However the implication is that the journey is picaresque and uneventful. That feels proper, not solely as a change of tempo after the huge horde that attacked Jackson final week, however as a reminder that the contaminated are actually only a means to an finish with this story, inserting characters like Ellie right into a chaotic, lawless, harmful world.
It’s a nasty alternative Ellie and Dina have made to go to Seattle. We now have but to see whether or not all of this has been a nasty dramatic alternative by The Final of Us.
