We made it, all people. We’ve reached the top of HBO’s The Final of Us. Wait, sorry, I’m getting phrase in my earpiece that…we’re solely midway executed with it as a result of this present’s going for 4 seasons. At this level, I’m largely feeling deflated. Final week’s episode was such a catastrophic bummer that it cemented for me that the present essentially misunderstands The Final of Us Half II, the sport this season and people which might be nonetheless but to return are adapting. However you know the way your mom would inform you to not play ball in the home since you would possibly unintentionally break the priceless vase on show in the lounge? Nicely, in case you’ve already damaged the vase, you would possibly as effectively hold enjoying ball, so we’ll most likely be doing this music and dance into 2029. For now, we’re on the season two finale, which basically wraps up Ellie’s aspect of this condensed revenge story and divulges the premise of season three. Most recreation followers most likely assumed this was the place the season would finish and, if nothing else, it’s nonetheless a daring cliffhanger to depart off on.
Responsible as charged
After final week’s flashback-heavy episode, we open on Jesse (Younger Mazino) tending to wounds the Seraphites have inflicted on Dina (Isabela Merced), which suggests we get an actual heinous scene of him doing a little beginner surgeon’s work to take away the arrow she took to the knee. He douses it in alcohol and gives her a sip to uninteresting the ache, however she staunchly refuses with out explaining why. They made Jesse an asshole on this present, however he’s nonetheless a sensible man. The gears begin handing over his head about why she would possibly flip down a swig proper now. Nonetheless, he takes that motherfucker out with no anesthetic, booze, or supportive bedside girlfriend to assist Dina via it.
Talking of the absent girlfriend, Ellie (Bella Ramsey) lastly returns to their theater base of operations. Now that she’s again, all her concern is on Dina, however Jesse remains to be questioning the place the hell she’s been this entire time. Dina is resting backstage, and regardless that we solely see these particulars for a couple of minutes, I as soon as once more wish to shout out the set designers who recreated this little protected haven, which is roofed in previous present posters and graffiti from bands and artists that carried out there earlier than the cordyceps took over. I’m positive Joel would have beloved to have seen it.
Dina stirs awake and Ellie checks her wound. Jesse’s effort to wrap the damage leaves rather a lot to be desired, nevertheless it ought to heal in time. Ellie asks if the infant’s alright, and Dina says it’s okay.
“How are you aware?” Ellie asks.
“I simply do,” Dina replies.
The one who shouldn’t be okay within the room is Ellie, who’s bleeding via the again of her shirt. Dina helps her undress and begins to wash the scratches on her again. As she does, she asks what occurred whereas they have been separated. Ellie says she discovered Nora (Tati Gabrielle), and she or he knew the place Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) was, however solely mentioned two phrases: “Whale” and “Wheel.” Ellie says she doesn’t know what it meant. It may have been nonsense. She was contaminated, and it was already beginning to have an effect on her cognitive state.
“I made her speak,” Ellie whispers. “I assumed it might be more durable to do, nevertheless it wasn’t. It was straightforward. I simply stored hurting her.”
Dina asks if Ellie killed her, however she says she simply “left her,” that means that someplace on this timeline, Nora is wandering the depths of a Seattle hospital with damaged legs and an contaminated thoughts. I assumed the present couldn’t probably concoct a worse destiny for her than what occurs within the recreation, however they discovered a manner. It takes dedication to place down a personality like showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have executed for Nora throughout each video video games and tv. Personally, I feel while you already know that individuals are cautious of the way in which you deal with one of many few Black girls in your franchise as if she doesn’t deserve the identical dignity as everybody else, perhaps you need to do higher by her when given a second likelihood, slightly than worse. However that’s simply me. I’m not the one being paid a bunch of cash to butcher this story on HBO Max each Sunday at 9 p.m. Jap. So what do I do know?
Perhaps that is simply a part of the contrived sadism the present has hooked up to Ellie. She thinks violence is simple and it comes naturally to her, so I suppose she would beat a lady almost to loss of life till the fungal an infection made her lose her thoughts. In the meantime the sport model is so traumatized by what she’s executed on this second, she’s virtually speechless by the point she reaches the theater. God, I knew this shit was going to occur. Mazin has repeatedly insisted that Ellie is an inherently violent particular person, one thing he’s communicated each in interviews and by having Catherine O’Hara’s Gail, the therapist who tells you what the story is about, say that she’s all the time been a sadist, most likely. Now, after we get to moments just like the post-Nora debrief which used to convey that Ellie is Not Reduce Out For This Shit, the framing as a substitute turns into “Ellie likes violence and feels unhealthy about how a lot she likes violence.”
Earlier than The Final of Us Half II got here out, numerous Naughty Canine’s promotion for the sport was form of obscure and even misleading in an effort to maintain its largest twists below wraps, and among the messaging it used to speak in regards to the recreation’s themes have irrevocably set a precedent for the way the sport’s story is talked about years later. When the sport was first revealed in 2016, the studio mentioned the story can be “about hate,” which paints a way more damaging and myopic image of Ellie’s journey than the one pushed by love and grief she really experiences via the course of the sport.
One of the annoying issues about being a Final of Us fan is that its creators love to speak in regards to the collection in ways in which erase its emotional complexity, making it sound extra cynical and underhanded when the precise story it’s telling is something however. I can’t rely what number of occasions I’ve heard individuals reductively parroting notions that The Final of Us Half II is simply about “hate” and “guilting the participant” for participating in horrifying actions once they actually haven’t any selection however to take action, slightly than cracking the textual content open and dissecting that nuance. Mazin’s openly-expressed perception that Ellie is an intrinsically bloodthirsty particular person equally bleeds into how numerous the general public perceives her as a personality, seeing her as a violent ruffian slightly than a grieving daughter who was solely ever taught to specific her ache by inflicting it on those that made her really feel it within the first place. Discussing these video games as a fan means having to battle in opposition to these notions, however they’re born from a recreation constructed on subtext, and thus willingly opens itself to these interpretations.
Its willingness to dwell in ambiguity solely makes it a extra fascinating textual content to unpack, or it might, if we lived in a world the place discussing video video games wasn’t a unstable expertise wherein you continuously run the danger of being focused for performative on-line dunks, or operating up in opposition to rabid console tribalism. Now, the Final of Us present has determined to lean into essentially the most boring interpretation of what this story is about with out an oz of subtlety, nuance, and even sympathy for Ellie’s plight. She is a sadist who does horrible issues not just because she’s grieving her father determine, however as a result of that is simply who she is. Mazin has deemed it so, and right here we’re, and this imaginative and prescient of her will little question weave itself into the material of how we speak about Ellie Williams, even within the recreation.
This story solely has any thematic weight if Ellie’s violent outbursts are rooted in ache, not pleasure. Yeah, what we’re seeing within the present is her performing from a mixture of these issues however, within the recreation no less than, essentially the most affecting moments of Ellie’s Seattle revenge tour occur when she has to confront how she shouldn’t be constructed for acts of violent extra in the identical manner Joel was. She by no means has been. Again in Half I, she was sick to her abdomen when she dedicated her first kill to avoid wasting Joel, and the complete level of Half II was that we see her reduce off components of herself to do what she feels she should, solely to seek out that she’s unable to acknowledge herself when it’s throughout. Within the present, she is as a substitute mesmerized by carnage, solely to determine she doesn’t like that she feels that manner, really. However all this self-reflection is fleeting, as a result of she’s solely killed one particular person on her record, and there’s much more work to do. What number of Joels is Nora’s life value to Ellie? One-fifth?
Whereas Ellie is wrestling with these emotions, Dina is about to see issues with extra readability than ever. At first, she says that Nora could have deserved this destiny worse than loss of life, to which Ellie says “Perhaps she didn’t,” earlier than telling her girlfriend every part. She tearfully recounts Joel’s bloodbath of the Fireflies on the base in Salt Lake Metropolis, how the group was going to make use of her immunity to create a remedy, and the way Joel killed Abby’s father to avoid wasting her. Dina places all of it collectively and asks Ellie if she knew who Abby’s group was. She says she didn’t, however she did know what Joel did. Dina sits with that for a second, then flatly says the group must go dwelling.
So I suppose that is how the present will get Dina, who’s been fairly revenge-hungry to date, again onto the monitor she’s on within the video games. With out spoiling scenes within the late recreation for the uninitiated, some main factors of battle on the finish of Half II require her to be much less on-board with Ellie’s vendetta, so the truth that she’s been egging her girlfriend on to trace down Abby was an odd selection. I wasn’t positive how the present would deal with it down the road, nevertheless it appears the way in which HBO’s present has course-corrected was by having her condemn Joel’s actions. Dina had her personal relationship with the previous man within the present, so I think about that in a later season she’ll interrogate how she feels about him in gentle of this new data, however having her roughly get off the experience when she learns what Joel has executed units up a distinction between her and Ellie that I’m curious to see how the present handles.
The disgrace of it, although, is that this is only one other thing that undermines one of many core foundations of the supply materials, and I’ve to get no less than yet another jab in on this subject earlier than we finish the season. In The Final of Us Half II, while you take a look at what is definitely expressed in dialogue, you see that characters are sometimes missing essential details about one another. This lack of communication is a vital a part of its storytelling, however the present is as a substitute having characters inform everybody every part. In Half II, Joel and Ellie don’t know who Abby’s father was. It’s strongly implied that nobody apart from Joel, Ellie, and Tommy knew about what occurred in Salt Lake Metropolis, not even Dina. The extra the present bridges these gaps of communication, the extra mindless this complete tit-for-tat feels. To be clear, it was mindless within the recreation, nevertheless it was in a tragic, “these individuals are so blinded by their feelings that they will’t fathom one other path ahead” kind of manner. This time round, everybody is aware of precisely what’s taking place and chooses to partake in violence anyway. We don’t have any thriller or lack of communication to fall again on as a we wrestle to know why the characters hold making these self-destructive selections. Everyone seems to be simply knowingly the worst model of themselves this time round, and I suppose Mazin thinks that’s the purpose, which is the form of boring interpretation that makes the present such an inferior model of this story.
Household issues
We now start our third day in Seattle. Ellie and Jesse are packing as much as get going within the theater foyer. The plan is to seek out Tommy (Gabriel Luna) someplace within the metropolis after which head again to Jackson. Nonetheless, Jesse is rather a lot much less talkative this morning. Dina limps into the foyer, and after a quick scolding for being on her ft, she provides Ellie a bracelet for good luck.
“I’m unsure it’s been working for you,” Ellie jokes.
“I’m alive,” Dina replies.
Jesse is clearly uncomfortable watching his ex (or are they technically nonetheless collectively now? I’m unsure) give Ellie a prized possession, and says he can go alone if Dina desires Ellie to remain. Ellie says they’ll be safer collectively. Jesse relents and says they need to be again by sunset. The strain is radiating off him, however the pair leaves Dina within the security of the theater.
Ellie and Jesse awkwardly stroll via the stays of Seattle. She lastly breaks the silence by asking how he discovered Ellie and Dina’s theater base. He recounts his two days of monitoring, giving a shoutout to the horse Shimmer who’s nonetheless vibing within the document retailer the ladies left her at, however he’s clearly pissed. Ellie assumes it’s as a result of he and Tommy needed to cross state traces to return discover them, however no, there’s one thing else on his thoughts. Why do Ellie and Dina take a look at one another in another way? Why did Dina flip down a free drink for the primary time in her life? He’s placing all of it collectively. Dina and Ellie are not simply gals being friends, and his (now ex?) girlfriend is pregnant.
“None of this has to vary issues between us,” Ellie says.
“The whole lot altering doesn’t have to vary issues?” Jesse asks. “Nicely, how about this for one thing new: I’m gonna be a father, which suggests I can’t die. However due to you, we’re caught in a warzone. So how about we skip the apologies and simply go discover Tommy so I can get us and my child the fuck out of Seattle?”
Wow, okay. Judgey, a lot? I imply, you’re proper, Jesse. It is a no good, very unhealthy state of affairs, and Ellie has put your child in peril and gained’t even inform you she was torturing a lady final night time. However god, I miss kindhearted Jesse. I miss Ellie’s golden retriever finest good friend who, when discovering out Dina was pregnant, firmly however gently instructed Ellie it was time to get the fuck out of Seattle. Now that the present has created a messy dishonest love triangle out of those three, I’m as soon as once more reflecting on how The Final of Us Half II may have very simply made this storyline a dramatic, indignant one, and as a substitute it was one of many brighter spots in a darkish story. In the meantime, within the present, the entire thing feels prefer it’s regressed to a rote and predictable earlier draft of the story that’s a lot much less refreshing and compelling than the one we already know. Justice for Jesse. That is character assassination of the goodest boy in all of Jackson. Nicely, really, that’s Abby’s job. Sorry, sorry. That’s really not for an additional 35 minutes.
As the 2 transfer additional into town, they see extra artwork praising the Seraphite prophet on the buildings, however she appears notably completely different than in photographs we’ve seen beforehand. This artwork depicts a Black lady, whereas others have usually portrayed the prophet as white. Ellie wonders aloud if there’s “multiple of her.” Jesse says it’s potential, however ushers her ahead as rain begins pouring down. I’m curious what the present may be doing right here, as this can be a divergence from Half II. May the Seraphites be a form of polytheistic group within the present that follows a number of prophets? May they imagine the Prophet was reincarnated into a unique lady sooner or later? All we are able to do is theorize, however we haven’t seen a lot of the Seraphites this season so we don’t have a lot to go on. Which is by design, and feels fairly in-line with Half II, which didn’t inform you a lot in regards to the group throughout Ellie’s three days in Seattle. We’ll choose this thread again up subsequent season, I’m positive.
The pair takes shelter however earlier than they will catch their breath, they hear the popping sound of gunfire close by as a W.L.F. squad corners a lone Seraphite. Ellie and Jesse watch in horror because the wolves strip and drag him away. Simply as Ellie almost will get out from cowl to intervene, Jesse pulls her again. As soon as the coast is obvious, Ellie walks away in a huff. As Jesse follows, he factors out that they have been outnumbered and would have misplaced that battle.
“He was a fucking child!” Ellie shouts.
“Ellie, these individuals [are] taking pictures one another, lynching one another, ripping one another’s guts out,” Jesse says. “Even the youngsters? I’m not dying out right here. Not for any of them. This isn’t our conflict.”
Who the fuck is that this man? I touched on it in episode 5, however what’s with this present placing all of Ellie’s unlikable traits on different characters so she retains attending to be the hero? Jesse turns from a selfless guardian right into a egocentric asshole who will watch a child get tortured to avoid wasting himself whereas Ellie is all of a sudden very involved a few conflict that, within the recreation, she appeared largely detached to. It’s as if The Final of Us’ second season is so involved with us liking Ellie and feeling like we are able to root for her that it’s overlooked the rest.
So Jesse will get to be the belligerent asshole and Dina will get to be the revenge-driven one within the relationship. Ellie? She’s simply bee-bopping via spouting cool house details, and so when she tortures Nora, it appears like tonal whiplash. I don’t acknowledge Jesse. More often than not, I don’t acknowledge Ellie. However actually, the extra I watch this present, the extra I hardly acknowledge anybody, and I don’t have any religion within the collection to determine these characters and their relationships out, even when it’s going to go on for 2 extra seasons.
Will the circle be unbroken?
We shift away from the Jackson crew to test in on Isaac (Jeffrey Wright), who we haven’t seen in a number of episodes. Sergeant Park (Hettienne Park) updates the W.L.F. boss that the incoming storm will worsen because the day goes on, besides, the group remains to be making ready some form of operation. She additionally lets him know the rank and file is somewhat nervous about no matter’s occurring, however Isaac’s solely involved about one particular person: Abby. From the sound of it, she and most of her crew have all disappeared over the previous few days. We’ve seen what occurred to Nora, Manny remains to be round, however Owen and Mel are gone and not using a hint. Once more, Isaac isn’t involved with them. He’s nervous that they’re going into no matter operation they’re planning with out Abby. Park is clearly exhausted by this lane of pondering and asks why he cares a lot in regards to the lady.
She begins off asking why one “nice” soldier is so essential once they have a military, after which will get right into a bizarre apart the place she exasperatedly asks Isaac if he’s harboring emotions for the lady when he’s no less than 30 years her senior. I don’t know if this line is meant to be a joke, nevertheless it’s not humorous, regardless that Isaac laughs at it. She acknowledges it’s an out-of-pocket query, however says he “wouldn’t be the primary previous man” to make selections primarily based on such inappropriate impulses. As a lot because it’s a silly factor for Park to say, it’s additionally a silly factor for the writers room to nonchalantly whip out in a humorous vogue given The Final of Us’ historical past of previous males preying on younger girls with the character of David. Why write this non-joke into your script in case you don’t need viewers to probably view his fixation on Abby as doubtlessly untoward? Isaac’s following speech focuses on the preservation of his militia, in a really comparable method to how David’s preoccupation with Ellie in season one was born from the cannibal’s warped views on longevity, and in case you’re not making an attempt to make this direct connection, why even gesture at it? Yeah, I don’t think about anybody thought of the optics of this clearly flippant, throwaway line, however Christ, in case you’re that determined for a joke or second to chop the stress, this was the most effective you might give you? Newbie shit.
Isaac sits Park down and tells her why he cares a lot about one soldier. He says there’s a really sturdy likelihood that the W.L.F. management shall be useless by tomorrow morning. If that occurs, who can lead the militia of their stead? He wished it to be Abby. It was “supposed” to be her.
“Nicely she’s fucked off, Isaac,” Park says as she leaves. “So perhaps it wasn’t.”
We return to the Jackson crew as Ellie and Jesse attain the rendezvous level in a bookstore, and Tommy isn’t right here. The place is in unhealthy form like most locations are on this metropolis, however Ellie gravitates to the youngsters’s books part. She picks up an previous Sesame Avenue ebook, the Grover traditional The Monster on the Finish of This E book, and picks it up for the bun within the oven as Jesse says she picked a very good one. Because the quiet creeps in on the 2, Ellie tries to interrupt the silence by clarifying what occurred, however Jesse says they’ve sufficient issues for the second, so he desires to bury the difficulty.
He says he loves Dina, however not in the identical manner Ellie does. He remembers a gaggle that handed via Jackson, and the way there was a woman he fell exhausting for. She requested him to depart along with her to Mexico, however he declined as a result of he’d discovered objective and neighborhood in Jackson, and he was taught to place others first. Individuals look to him to develop into the “subsequent Maria” and lead the city, and he couldn’t abandon them for a lady he’d identified for 2 weeks, even when she made him really feel issues he’d by no means felt earlier than.
Ellie instantly sees via this story. It’s not about him mentioning how he’s felt love and is aware of that he and Dina aren’t the true deal; it’s about how she’s placing her personal wants and needs forward of everybody else’s.
“Okay, received it,” Ellie says. “So that you’re Saint Jesse of Wyoming, and everybody else is a fucking asshole.”
“You may make enjoyable of me all you need,” Jesse responds. “However let me ask you this, Ellie: If I am going with that lady to Mexico, who saves your ass in Seattle?”
Earlier than she will reply, they hear W.L.F. radio chatter a few sniper taking out a squad and assume it’s gotta be Tommy. The 2 head out to greater floor to get a greater look, and Ellie sees a Ferris wheel within the distance. She lastly places Nora’s ultimate phrases collectively: Abby is within the aquarium on the fringe of town. Instantly, her focus shifts away from Tommy as she begins making an attempt to determine methods to attain Abby’s obvious hiding spot. Jesse is confused and says that Tommy’s received the W.L.F. pinned down in the wrong way. Ellie begins arising with justifications for her plan. They don’t know if that’s really Tommy. Whether it is him, he’s received the group pinned down. Both manner, he would need her to go after Abby to avenge Joel. Ellie doesn’t perceive why Jesse is so in opposition to this. He voted to go after Abby’s crew again in Jackson, proper?
No, really. He didn’t. He believed this vendetta was egocentric and “wasn’t in the most effective curiosity of the neighborhood.” That units Ellie off.
“Fuck the neighborhood!” she screams. “All you do is speak in regards to the fucking neighborhood, you hypocrite. You suppose you’re good and I’m unhealthy? You let a child die as we speak, Jesse. As a result of why? He wasn’t in your neighborhood? Let me inform you about my neighborhood. My neighborhood was crushed to loss of life in entrance of me whereas I used to be pressured to fucking watch. So don’t take a look at me such as you’re higher than me, or such as you’d do something in another way in case you have been in my sneakers, since you’re not, and also you wouldn’t.”
Jesse takes a beat, then tells Ellie he hopes she makes it to the aquarium as he leaves. Whereas this scene does exemplify the present’s typicalal “no subtext allowed” strategy to writing that I discover so irksome, the storyline of Ellie feeling ostracized by the individuals of Jackson whereas continuously being instructed that she should make compromises for them whilst they’re incapable of extending the identical to her is among the few gildings The Final of Us makes that resonates with me. It’s straightforward to jot down off Ellie’s revenge tour as a egocentric campaign that places everybody else in hurt’s manner, however when she’s additionally one of many few out queer individuals in a city that largely coddles bigotry and she or he’s being continuously belittled and stored from doing issues she desires to do like engaged on the patrol workforce, why would she really feel any kinship to this neighborhood? Now, when she’s so near her purpose that she will virtually style it, Jesse desires her to contemplate the individuals of Jackson? Why ought to she do this? They’re tons of of miles away, and the one individuals who got here to avoid wasting her and Dina have been those who already cared about her. Ellie’s disillusionment along with her neighbors is among the few additions to the story that The Final of Us manages to drag off.
Ellie reaches the harbor from which she will use a ship to succeed in the aquarium and finds a number of Wolves assembly up on vessels heading someplace off the coast. Isaac is right here main the cost, nevertheless it’s unclear the place they’re going or what they’re doing. Sport followers have the benefit of figuring out what’s occurring, however the W.L.F. storyline feels underbaked on this season, which is among the actual points with the present dividing the sport’s storyline into a number of seasons. Throughout this part of the sport, you get a way that there’s an untold story taking place within the background, and you may study extra about it via notes you’ll find within the atmosphere and ambient dialogue from enemies. The present doesn’t have those self same storytelling instruments, so I wouldn’t be shocked if newcomers felt somewhat disoriented each time we hopped over to Isaac.
As soon as the W.L.F. forces make their manner wherever they’re going, Ellie finds one of many spare boats and begins to make her method to the aquarium. The storm is hitting exhausting, although, and the tide shouldn’t be on her aspect. A large tidal wave knocks her out of the boat and into the ocean. (Good factor you realized methods to swim, queen.) As she washes up onto the shore, Ellie hears Seraphites whistling as a gaggle of them descends upon her. She’s too weak to get onto her ft and run, so the cultists seize her and carry her to a noose hanging from a tree within the woods. She screams that she’s not a Wolf and that she’s not from right here, however they don’t pay attention. As they wrap the noose round her neck and begin to hoist her upward, a horn sounds off within the distance. The lead Scar says to depart her, their village is in peril, so I suppose that’s what the W.L.F. operation is focusing on? This concludes our newest little exposition detour, as Ellie will get proper again into the boat to the aquarium.
She manages to succeed in the constructing and finds a damaged window via which to enter. Inside, she finds a number of makeshift beds. No matter Abby’s doing right here, she’s not alone. As Ellie makes her manner deeper into the aquarium, she finds a ton of medical provides, together with bloody bandages and surgical gear. Was Abby injured? Is that why she’s been lacking in motion because the W.L.F. undergoes an enormous, all-hands-on-deck mission? Who’s to say?
Fast sidenote: When Ellie infiltrates the aquarium within the recreation, she’s attacked by a guard canine named Alice. The W.L.F. used educated canines of their conflict in opposition to the Seraphites, however that component has been notably absent from the present. Between this and sparing Shimmer from her explosive destiny, The Final of Us has been firming down the animal homicide.
Ellie retains strolling via the desolate aquarium and finally finds recent footsteps. She follows them and shortly finds their supply: Abby’s buddies Owen (Spencer Lord) and Mel (Ariela Barer). The 2 are arguing about one thing, although it’s not clear what. Owen desires to go someplace behind enemy traces, even within the midst of the battle Isaac has simply initiated. He says he doesn’t have a selection as a result of “it’s Abby.” Mel says he does have a selection and so does she, and the Abby of all of it is why she’s not going together with regardless of the plan is. Owen says he’ll do it on his personal, and if Mel’s nonetheless right here once they get again, she will “hold going with [them].” Both manner, Owen’s leaving. Mel let’s out a hearty “fuck you, Owen” earlier than realizing that Ellie is there. Certain looks as if there’s a complete different story that’s been occurring whereas we’ve been hanging out with Ellie, huh? I’m wondering if we’ll ever get any additional perception into no matter that is. Maybe in a season solely devoted to the opposite aspect of what’s occurring in Seattle? Perhaps in a pair years it would premiere on HBO Max (or no matter it’s referred to as by then)? That may be one thing!
Ellie holds the 2 at gunpoint and tells them to place their arms up. When she asks the place Abby is, Owen realizes who she is and factors out that he was the one who stored her alive. Ellie isn’t swayed by this, so he says they don’t know the place Abby went. However, after all, they have been simply speaking about her, so Ellie is aware of that’s not true. She spots a map on the desk and decides to drag out an previous Joel Miller normal: She tells Mel to convey her the map and level to the place Abby is, saying that subsequent she’s going to ask Owen the identical query, and the solutions had higher match. Owen appears at Mel and says that Ellie will kill them both manner, so there’s no purpose to conform. Ellie says she gained’t as a result of she’s “not like” them. When she crosses state traces to torture and kill somebody who killed anyone essential to her, it’s very completely different than once they do it, after all.
Owen stops Mel from grabbing the map by saying he’ll do it. He slowly turns to the desk, however as a substitute of selecting up the map, he grabs a handgun stowed below it. Ellie is fast along with her set off finger and shoots him proper within the throat. The bullet goes straight via him, and hits Mel within the neck as effectively. She falls onto her again and, as a substitute of cursing Ellie, she asks for her assist. To not save her life, however another person’s. She opens her jacket to disclose her pregnant stomach, and asks if Ellie has a knife to chop the infant out of her earlier than she dies. Ellie is in shock and doesn’t know what to do. Mel tells her she simply must make one incision. That isn’t sufficient course, and Ellie panics. She doesn’t understand how deep or which course to chop. As Mel begins to develop into delirious, she asks Ellie if the infant is out. However she hasn’t even made one reduce. Mel lastly drifts off, and Ellie realizes it’s too late. She sits there till, finally, Tommy and Jesse discover her. Tommy makes an attempt to consolation her, however she’s in shock and doesn’t communicate. Lastly they depart and head again to the theater.
Why can’t this present cease giving the viewers outs to not flip in opposition to its leads? The loss of life of Mel, particularly, feels just like the present bending over backward to show Ellie a lesson with out laying blame at her ft. Mel’s loss of life right here is an accident. She’s an harmless bystander who dies as a result of Owen and Ellie made decisions, and she or he was, fairly actually, caught within the crossfire. In Half II, against this, Mel “shot first.” Nicely, she tried to stab Ellie, however that doesn’t have the identical ring to it. Ellie reacts in self-defense and stabs her proper again, however she did it totally figuring out she was about to ship Mel to an early grave. The intestine punch Ellie feels upon studying that she’s pregnant is a second of dramatic irony, as a result of the sport’s shifting views had already revealed her being pregnant to the participant manner again within the opening hours. So while you’re slamming the sq. button to battle again, that Mel isn’t the one one about to succeed in her premature finish. Right here, she doesn’t even get that second of company to battle to guard herself. She’s simply collateral harm. It’s a small however essential distinction. At this level within the present, Mel’s solely actual trait is a transparent distaste for Abby’s violence, and now, when she lastly reveals up once more, she’s simply an unintended sufferer of Owen pulling a gun on Ellie. Certain, season three will fill in these gaps, however the finish outcome would be the identical. Mel died not as a result of she was preventing again, however as a result of she was an inch too far to the left.
Then there’s the matter of her being pregnant. Once more, within the recreation gamers already knew about this by the point Ellie reached the aquarium, whereas the present stored it secret till the top. It’s exhausting to not see this last-minute reveal as a knife being twisted for shock worth.
The opposite aspect of the coin
The group makes it again to the theater and Ellie remains to be in shock, a lot in order that she doesn’t even take a look at Dina as she enters the constructing. A while passes, and Tommy and Jesse are mapping out their route dwelling on the stage. The storm remains to be fairly tough, so that they’ll keep in a single day and hope the solar is out once they get up. Ellie lastly joins the group, and Tommy reassures her that Mel and Owen performed their half in Joel’s loss of life, and so they made the alternatives that introduced them to that fateful finish. Ellie can solely fixate on what she didn’t get to do.
“However Abby will get to reside,” she says.
“Yeah,” Tommy responds. “Can you make your peace with that?”
“I suppose I’ll must,” she says, defeated.
She appears to Jesse, who gained’t even search for at her. Tommy realizes they could have one thing to speak about and walks to the foyer to pack. After some awkward silence, Ellie thanks Jesse for coming again for her, regardless that he had no purpose to after the way in which they clashed.
“Perhaps I didn’t wish to,” he says. “Perhaps Tommy made me.”
“Did he?” Ellie asks.
After a second of contemplation, Jesse drops the act and says, “No.”
“Since you’re a very good particular person,” Ellie responds.
“Yeah,” Jesse agrees. “But additionally the thought did happen, that if I have been on the market someplace, misplaced and in bother, you’d set the world on hearth to avoid wasting me.”
Ellie says she would, and the 2 lastly see each other, even when only for a second. Jesse acknowledges that Ellie’s vendetta isn’t solely egocentric, and that in the case of defending the individuals she cares about, useless or alive, you gained’t discover somebody extra loyal in all of Jackson. It’s good that they lastly had this second of connection in spite of everything this drama. However rattling, I miss Ellie and Jesse being bros, and I miss her giving him shit for being a sap in these ultimate moments. However most of all, I miss that dopey good ol’ boy with a coronary heart of gold saying his buddies “can’t get out of their very own rattling manner.”
All that understanding is short-lived, as the 2 hear some ruckus within the foyer, seize their weapons, and ebook it to the doorway. The second Jesse opens the door, bam. A gunshot rings out within the foyer, and he’s on the ground. We don’t even see that it was Abby who fired it till after we get a gnarly shot of him along with his face blown open. He’s gone. It was instantaneous. The Final of Us Half II tends to attract out loss of life. It’s both lengthy and torturous prefer it was for Joel or Nora, or it’s quick like Owen’s and Mel’s, however in any case, the sport usually lingers on the fallout for a bit. Jesse’s loss of life, against this, occurs so quick which you could’t even course of it earlier than you need to take care of the state of affairs at hand. The present follows swimsuit, and it’s recreated virtually shot for shot. However that’s hardly essentially the most disorienting (complimentary) factor that occurs in these ultimate minutes.
“Get up,” Abby growls forcefully from the opposite aspect of the desk Ellie has taken cowl behind.
She repeats herself: “Stand. Up. Palms within the air or I shoot this one, too.”
Ellie can see Tommy on the bottom with a pistol aimed proper at his head. He tells Ellie to only run, however she tosses her gun the place Abby can see it and crawls out from cowl. Abby acknowledges her instantly. Ellie asks her to let Tommy go, to which Abby replies that he killed her buddies. Ellie says no, she did.
“I used to be searching for you,” Ellie says. “I didn’t imply to harm them. I do know why you killed Joel. He did what he did to avoid wasting me, I’m the one that you really want. Simply let him go.”
Hm. Okay. We’re virtually on the finish. I gotta get one other little quibble in earlier than the curtains shut. I imply, come on, we’ve been via seven episodes of me complaining collectively. You’ll be able to’t take one final gripe? This line from Ellie is barely altered to account for the truth that she is aware of extra about Abby within the present than within the recreation, and it means we miss some of the essential delicate interactions in all the story. As I discussed earlier, Ellie doesn’t know something about Abby’s father in Half II. She assumes that Abby killed Joel as a result of he took away any likelihood of the Fireflies creating a remedy, so she cites that on this high-stakes second. The unique line is nearly equivalent to the one within the present, however as a substitute, Ellie says “there’s no remedy due to me” and means that killing her can be the extension of Abby’s presumed vendetta. Then, we get some unbelievable, delicate performing from Abby actor Laura Bailey, who hears what Ellie’s saying, has a quick second of indignant disbelief on her face, after which scoffs below her breath earlier than selecting proper again up the place she left off. In only a few seconds, you see Abby understand that, after every part, these fuckers don’t know how a lot ache she’s been via over the previous 5 years. However they’re not definitely worth the breath it might take to elucidate herself. They don’t should know the person her father was and what he meant to her. All that issues proper now could be that Ellie pays for what she’s executed.
Abby nonetheless views herself because the righteous one right here, as she factors out that she let Ellie reside when she didn’t have to try this. It seems that Ellie wasn’t deserving of her mercy, that she squandered it by killing her buddies. A part of me has puzzled if all of the exposition-heavy dialogue on this present, akin to Dever’s villain monologue in episode two earlier than she murdered the shit out of Joel, was written to present its actors extra phrases to say in entrance of a digital camera. While you’ve received large names like Kaitlyn Dever, Catherine O’Hara, and Pedro Pascal in your forged, you don’t need them to not speak, proper? However all these elongated exchanges have additionally robbed actors like Dever of these delicate moments. Hell, she led a whole movie with subsequent to no dialogue in 2023’s No One Will Save You, and was nice in it, so she has the chops to drag off that form of performing. Speaking one thing via physique language and expression is simply as highly effective as a poetic piece of dialogue (or on this present’s case, essentially the most literal, unpoetic dialogue an individual can fathom), however this present not often, if ever, understands that.
Anyway, Abby says that Ellie wasted the prospect she was given when the ex-Fireflies spared her, and factors her gun proper at Ellie. We hear a bullet hearth and Ellie shouts earlier than a tough reduce to black. However wait. That’s the season finale? You count on us to attend for 2 years, most likely, to seek out out what occurred? Nicely, about that. You’ll most likely have to attend even longer.
We do have yet another scene this season, nonetheless: a flashback. We see Abby mendacity down on a snug sofa with an unfinished ebook resting on her abdomen. She’s in a deep sleep earlier than Manny (Danny Ramirez) loudly enters the room and wakes her up. He says Isaac desires to see them, and she or he stirs awake. She will get up and walks out of this cozy residing house and into a large soccer stadium. The whole area has been repurposed for agriculture, manufacturing, and housing. Abby takes a second to have a look at the entire operation earlier than heading to Isaac’s, however the digital camera lingers over the sector as daring white textual content flashes on the display screen: Seattle, Day One.
Alright, TV newbies, welcome to the second divisive twist of The Final of Us Half II. Within the recreation, the participant goes via Ellie’s three days in Seattle, killing Abby’s buddies and largely ignoring the conflict between the W.L.F. and the Seraphites. In the meantime, Abby has been form of an enigma the entire time. Each time Ellie finds a brand new lead, Abby has already come and gone. When Abby lastly reveals up on the theater for an additional spherical of vengeance, it’s clear that numerous the story taking place on this recreation has occurred off-screen. That’s since you’re about to see a wholly completely different perspective on the final three days, and also you’re going to play as Abby while you do it.
As you may think about, this shit drove some gamers nuts on the time, and also you’ll nonetheless discover indignant individuals on-line complaining about it to at the present time. For all my issues with this season, I’ve to commend the present for really going for it. HBO has taken the coward’s route in adapting this story for thus lengthy, it’s virtually stunning that it’s ending right here and, from the sound of it, season three shall be solely about Abby and what she’s been doing these previous three days. It’s very doubtless we gained’t see Ellie once more till subsequent season’s finale after we’ve adopted Dever’s character for a number of episodes. Regardless of some ham-fisted makes an attempt by the present to construct sympathy for Abby early on, it looks as if swaths of TV newbies nonetheless demand blood. Will viewers complain for a whole season as Dever takes on the lead position? I’d prefer to suppose they gained’t. I hope that new audiences are extra open to her than the worst individuals you’ve ever met have been when the sport launched.
Regardless of all of the golf membership swings I’ve taken at this present, I’m wanting ahead to analyzing it additional as HBO rolls out the subsequent two seasons. The Final of Us Half II is one among my favourite video games of all time, however I genuinely fucking hated The Final of Us’ second season. I don’t count on my emotions to enhance in season three. At this level, the rot of Mazin’s poor inventive selections runs too deep for the present to be salvaged and attain the highs of the video games. But when nothing else, it’s been a rewarding experience. Thanks for becoming a member of me on this seven-week journey. I feel I’m due for a replay of The Final of Us Half II to scrub off this stink. This shit was ass, HBO. I’ll see you within the ring once more subsequent time.
[Update: 5/26/25, 8:30 a.m.] This text initially cited a misheard line from Mel, and the related textual content has now been eliminated. We remorse the error.
