One of the best things showrunner Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) brought to the table when it came to the adaptation of 2013's masterpiece The Last of Us- resulting from his clear love for the material - is joining the dots between the themes in the original story and how they relate to Joel and Ellie's respective character arcs. The way in which the story, characters and dialogue mirror each other is genuinely astounding. A lot of this is present in the original game, but much of it has been enhanced or highlighted for the show. For all the differences in opinion for how various scenes were executed, it is Joel and Ellie's emotional journey that the HBO show priorities and, in my opinion, perfectly brings to life.
Joel: Loss, Failure & Love
Joel's arc is expertly foreshadowed again and again throughout the show. Everything builds like a crescendo until every single narrative thread culminates in his one terrible, necessary act of violence to save his new surrogate daughter:
In Episode 1, we see that Joel has always had a capacity to be selfish to save the people he loves when he tells Tommy to drive past a family on the road on outbreak day: 'We got a kid too'. At the end of the episode, we also witness the PTSD he has over his daughter's death when he beats a FEDRA soldier to death.
In Episode 2, he fails to protect Tess, one of the only people he trusts implicitly, and she compels him to protect Ellie.
In Episode 3, Bill says to Frank 'I was never afraid before I met you', mirroring Joel's growing fear of losing Ellie throughout the show as he begins to love her. Bill's letter to Joel is also incredibly explicit in foreshadowing Joel's decision to kill the Fireflies ("That's why men like you and me are here: We have a job to do. And God help any motherfuckers who stand in our way"), and reinforces the idea that he failed Tess
In Episode 5, Henry reveals that he did "a bad guy thing" when he betrayed a good man, a leader of the resistance against FEDRA, in order to save Sam's life when he fell sick. In essence, Henry gave up any chance of the resistance potentially improving the world to save someone he loves - which is exactly what Joel does to save Ellie when he massacres the Fireflies at the end of the show.
Also in Episode 5, Henry's tragic suicide after losing Sam is a mirror of Joel's suicide attempt after Sarah's death, something we learn about in the finale. It's the path that could be ahead of Joel if he ever lost Ellie. He would not survive going through his daughter's death again.
In Episode 6, Joel finds his brother, Tommy, living a contented, happy life. Even being in Tommy's presence brings up the shadow of Sarah for Joel, and so he withdraws from Ellie, scared about losing her too. We see another continuation of his PTSD, and he also explicitly states that he feels like he "failed her" (Sarah or Ellie, we don't know), visually represented throughout the show by the watch gifted to him by Sarah, broken at the moment of her death.
In Episode 8, we see the full extent of Joel's need to protect Ellie for the first time, when he brutally tortures two of David's men to find out where she is. As the audience, we feel uncomfortable but also vaguely thrilled - after all, these men have got what's coming to them, right? The next time isn't so simple...
All of this culminates in an almost inevitable finale in Episode 9. When presented with the choice between letting Ellie die to potentially save humanity, and saving her, Joel cannot and will not 'fail' again. In a disturbing sequence, he ruthlessly executes nearly every Firefly in the hospital and takes Ellie. The way in which the sequence is filmed, drowned out by music, and the haunted look in Joel's eyes suggests that part of his mind is fixated on the trauma we've seen he has about losing Sarah.
In the game, the final battle against the Fireflies is a moment that the player is meant to feel conflicted about. Up until now, Joel's brutality has been empowering (see his torture of the cannibals in Episode 8), but now it feels horrific. And yet... we love Ellie just as Joel does. We don't want to see her die. It's an act of terrible violence but also powerful love.
Finally, we reach the 'full circle' moment of the entire show. Joel holds an unconscious Ellie in his arms, with Marlene holding a gun to him, in a mirror of the very first episode with Sarah and the soldier. But, this time, he does what he could never change in his dreams. He kills Marlene and saves his daughter. He does not fail.
Ellie: Abandonment, Violence & Hope
Where Joel's arc leads to a resounding conclusion, Ellie's arc is characterised by the fact that it is incomplete (until perhaps the second season). She never fulfills her destiny of being the cure for mankind, and will now have to deal with the guilt of that:
In Episode 1, watching Joel's rage when he beats a FEDRA soldier to death affects Ellie in two ways. One, she experiences what it is like for someone to protect her and secondly, it activates her innate propensity for violence, something that will become key in future seasons
In Episode 2, she watches Tess die after being bitten by a Clicker. Though Ellie later tells Joel that it is unfair to place the blame on her, we can guess that, inside, she still feels responsible for Tess' death
In Episode 3, Ellie learns that Bill and Frank were content with a life of peace together, a glimpse at a different way of survival to Joel. It's clear that it's something she doesn't quite understand. This is a theme that will return in the next seasons.
In Episode 4, Ellie's 'violent heart' is hinted at by the way she sadistically kills the infected trapped under rubble. We later find out about Riley, which explains Ellie's anger towards the thing that killed her best friend. The episode also introduces us to Kathleen, a woman hell-bent on vengeance no matter what the cost - for those who have played the second game, it's a familiar motif.
In Episode 5, Ellie bonds with Sam. It's a chance to be a normal kid again, but is quickly snatched away (even more devastating after she admits that she is afraid of ending up alone). She desperately tries to cure Sam with her blood, innocently believing it would work. Her note on his grave 'I'm sorry' is a sign of her guilt and also a promise that she will fix things.
In Episode 6, Ellie finally admits that she needs Joel ("So don’t tell me that I would be safer with someone else because the truth is I’d just be more scared"). Earlier in the episode, she is also told by Tommy's wife, Maria, that "the only people who can betray us... are the ones we trust", foreshadowing the conflict she'll have with Joel after the fallout of the Firefly hospital and his lie.
In Episode 7, we see the loss of Riley, the first person Ellie had to watch succumb to the Cordyceps infection. In the episode, her memory of waiting with Riley during their final moments together motivates her to stay with an injured Joel. It also marks the beginning of her deep-seated desire to help eliminate the infection that killed her friend. Also, before Riley's death, she tells Ellie that she is leaving to join the Fireflies, furthering Ellie's fear later on that Joel will abandon her and she will end up alone.
In Episode 8, Ellie's traumatic experience with David and his men changes her forever. From a girl that didn't understand how humanity could be worse than the infected, she suddenly understands the true horror of the world and loses the spark of innocence that made her a kid. It is this trauma that leads to the question - is Ellie in the right frame of mind to choose to sacrifice herself for a cure? Is humanity doomed forever even if there were a vaccine?
Ellie's storyline builds towards her being the cure for mankind, a way for her to make sure that Riley and Tess and Henry didn't die in vain. Ultimately, however, her choice is taken away from her by both Marlene and Joel. Whether or not the cure would work, or if the world is too broken to be fixed or if a 14-year old should be allowed to make such a huge decision at all is up for debate, but in some ways that doesn't matter. What matters is that Joel lies about it. And, by my interpretation of the show's (and game's) final shot, Ellie knows he is lying but loves him too much to say anything about it because, just like Joel, she simply cannot survive being alone again.
Joel + Ellie
Joel and Ellie's separate character arcs are compelling enough as it is, but it's when both arcs collide that the real magic happens, and demonstrates why this story resonates with so many fans. On the surface, both Joel and Ellie's stories have two things in common: they are both learning to love one another as father and daughter, and they are both motivated by a form of survivor's guilt and grief. However, that love is made all the more complicated by their motivations which are at somewhat of a dichotomy.
Though they both want a family to belong to, their experiences in every episode shape them differently. Joel's arc ends with him finding "something to fight for" in the form of Ellie. As the show progresses, he becomes more and more afraid of losing Ellie, while Ellie feels less and less afraid as she puts her faith in Joel. However, unlike him, her actual motivation to fight isn't Joel- it's to find a cure to alleviate the survivor's guilt she feels about Riley, Tess, Sam and Henry.
What makes the show so powerful is that it places the two leads in a situation where those motivations are in direct opposition to each other. If Ellie were to sacrifice herself for a potential cure, Joel would have failed to protect his daughter again, but Ellie would have succeeded in her own personal goal (whether that is right or wrong is another question). Though the series finale is the shortest episode of the bunch, it largely works because every small moment foreshadows Joel’s decision. Ultimately, Joel ends up saving Ellie, but that means that Ellie never gets to fulfill her goal of finding a cure. Joel's decision alleviates his own trauma, but leads to dark consequences for Ellie's future story. She is left with unresolved grief and a surrogate father who she loves, but who has both betrayed her trust and points her towarsds a life of violence.
Going forward, the conflict that arises from their opposing arcs is exacerbated by the fact that Joel and Ellie are not all that good at talking to each other. Ellie feels uncomfortable when Joel is vulnerable because she admires his strength, and Joel's emotional trauma has lead him to process things in a different way. Along with teaching her a way of survival centered around violence (as Tommy points out during their conversation), this sets the stakes and conflict for Part II, which is set to be an even darker, emotional story than the first.
Thank you for reading this article- there were dozens more small moments that I couldn't fit in here and lots more I missed. Look out for another The Last of Us piece coming very soon about how it adapts the video game. I absolutely love the show and am so sad it's over- I hope it wins all the awards come next year.
I do not own any of the images used in this post.