In “The Last of Us” recap, Ellie transitions from grief to rage in the wake of Joel’s death and she wants to go after Abby but the entire town isn’t exactly behind the idea…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
If the second episode of “The Last of Us” season 2 didn’t immediately speed up the story of this show by already getting rid of the lead character, the series is moving even quicker to get to the next confrontation between Ellie and Abby.
Last week saw the tragic events of “The Last of Us Part II” video game play out in devastating fashion as Abby and her group finally caught up with Joel — the man who murdered her father in cold blood while he was rescuing Ellie from the Fireflies who wanted to use her to create a cure to the Cordyceps infection. As soon as he realized Ellie would have to sacrifice her life for the sake of finding that cure, Joel executed anybody and everybody who got in his way including Abby’s father, who was the doctor about to operate on her.
Five years passed but Abby never stopped looking for the man who killed her father and once she met Joel there was no saving him. Even after he prevented her from being eaten alive by the infected, Abby didn’t feel any sense of remorse — Joel had to die and he had to die in the worst way possible.
After shooting his leg out with a shotgun and beating him viciously with a golf club, Abby finally finished the job by stabbing Joel through the neck — and Ellie had to witness the final blow as the man she came to know as a father died right in front of her. Ellie vowed to find Abby and make her pay with her own life but her revenge would have to wait.
Back in Jackson, the town was fighting off a horde of infected that managed to breach the walls and put everybody inside in dire jeopardy — and even more people died horrible deaths.
In the aftermath of all that tragedy, a town is trying to pick up the pieces and Ellie is more determined than ever to make Abby pay for taking Joel away from her.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of “The Last of Us” titled “The Path”…
The Longest Goodbye
When the episode begins, we’re in the immediate aftermath of the attack on Jackson by the infected and Ellie watching an unknown assailant torture Joel before stabbing him in the neck with a shard of a golf club to kill him.
At the makeshift morgue where the dead are being collected, Tommy arrives after learning that his brother is gone. He takes over cleaning him up for burial, which includes removing his broken watch and spending a final moment with the only family had left until meeting his wife and welcoming his son into the world. Tommy clearly can’t believe Joel is actually gone and the only thing he can do is hope his brother is in a better place reunited with the daughter he lost when this fungal apocalypse first broke out.
“Give Sarah my love”
~ Tommy
As for Ellie, she wakes up in the hospital and it only takes her a few moments to remember the last thing she saw with Joel being executed and she lets out a horrific scream.
Fast forward three months later and Jackson is still putting itself back together again. The walks are up, the town is recovering but the losses felt from the infected invasion are still felt.
Ellie has spent that much time recovering in the hospital but she’s finally ready to get discharged when the doctor gives her a clean bill of health. But before she can leave, Ellie first has to talk to Gail and speaking to a psychologist is the last thing she wants right now.
Of course, Ellie does her best to use sarcasm as a tool to avoid talking about her emotions but Gail isn’t letting her off that easy, especially not after hearing about the altercation at New Year’s Eve and then knowing Joel died just after that moment.
Obviously, Ellie feels terrible that the last thing she said to Joel was filled with anger and she didn’t attempt to mend those fences after returning home that night. She’ll live with that regret forever but almost as if she’s trying to justify it to herself, Ellie tells Gail that the one incident with Joel doesn’t ruin the relationship they’d built together for the better part of the past six years.
Ellie: “But your final moment with someone doesn’t define your whole time with them.”
Gail: “It shouldn’t but it often does.”
Ellie eventually says enough to convince Gail to let her return home but clearly neither one of the truly believes she’s actually processed losing Joel. She’s been so consumed by hatred for the people who took Joel away from her that Ellie really hasn’t had any room for mourning yet.
It’s not until she returns to the home she shared with Joel and finds a box on the bed filled with his watch and gun that Ellie starts to realize he’s really gone. She sees the remnants of the room she once occupied and the empty frame where he bed was until she insisted on moving into the garage just to get away from Joel.
The regret starts to fill Ellie and she eventually bursts into tears after going into Joel’s room and finding his coat hanging there. She knows he’ll never fill those sleeves again and the loss really begins hitting her — and then she hears Dina calling her from downstairs.
Ellie cleans herself up and heads down to meet with Dina, who has arrived with a box of cookies as a peace offering for what she’s about to say next.
While Ellie was recovering in the hospital she was desperately trying to get any information about the people responsible for killing Joel but Dina claimed she couldn’t remember anything. Dina then reveals to Ellie that she’s been lying — she remembered a lot about those people but she knew if she unloaded all of that at the beginning, Ellie would have clawed out the tubes sticking into her body and immediately gone after the killers.
Abby then proceeds to tell Ellie everything she knows including the names of the people in the group ending with Abby — the person responsible for killing Joel. She also reveals the symbol on the backpack belonging to one of the members of the group and she remembers from her time working with Eugene (a former Firefly) that it stands for the Western Liberation Front — WLF with a symbol of a wolf — and they’re based out of Seattle.
Dina also remembers Eugene complaining that if all these various rebel groups really wanted to do some damage, they’d band together but instead they all keep operating as separate entities. That clue tells Dina and Ellie that they’ll be able to go after this group and it’s probably not a number of people that they can’t handle before getting to Abby.
They decide to share this information with Tommy, who also doesn’t know that Dina remembered anything from her encounter with Joel’s killers. He’s understandably upset and he knows that Ellie is thirsty for revenge but he cautions her against going off half-cocked and without the support of the town council.
Tommy prefers letting the council hear this argument and then voting to approve a posse to go out hunting for Joel’s killers. That idea doesn’t sit well with Elllie, who tells Tommy that his brother would have already left for Seattle if these same people killed him.
“He’d be halfway to Seattle to save my life but when we lost people no, it would just break him like it was his fault. I saw that time and time again and don’t talk to me like I didn’t know him. He was my brother.”
~ Tommy
Joel’s loss is pretty clearly still tearing Tommy up as well but now that he’s helping to run a town — a fractured and damaged town still trying to recover from the attack three months ago — he has to let the council decide the next course of action.
As for Ellie, she’s getting back into her training with Jesse, who has now taken a spot on that very council after the attack left so many dead. He tells Ellie that she’s almost back to full strength following her hospitalization but he can’t tell her one way or another about how he plans on voting for this mission to go after Joel’s killers.
All Ellie really wants is for somebody to justify her desire for vengeance but the people she wants to support her most just aren’t coming through right now.
Nature Versus Nurture
At the town meeting after one guy drones on and on about growing corn and then professing he doesn’t have an opinion on “the Seattle thing,” Maria finally moves onto the real business at hand. The council is hearing arguments about whether or not to send a group of 16 to hunt down the people responsible for killing Joel.
One woman named Rachel lets her voice be heard and she says as much as Joel meant to everybody in town, the entire population of Jackson is mourning right now and definitely not back at full strength after the attacks. She can’t help but wonder if sending 16 of the town’s best soldiers on this mission is the best idea, especially because they’re still largely walking into the unknown and they’d be leaving Jackson undefended.
Before anyone else can speak, Seth — the man who insulted Abby and Dina and got shoved to the ground by Joel during New Year’s Eve — rises from his seat and gives an impassioned and heated speech about why the town needs to seek out and kill the people responsible for Joel’s death. He says doing nothing is a good way to prove that Jackson is vulnerable and the next time those people come back in greater numbers, they’ll just laugh at the town before invading and taking over.
He ends his speech by calling all of the townspeople a bunch of willing victims.
When it’s finally Ellie’s turn to speak, she decides to read from a letter she’s written rather than just popping off about all the ways she wants to gut Abby and the group of people who took Joel away from her. Instead, Ellie tells the citizens of Jackson that her mission isn’t built on vengeance but rather one centered on justice.
Getting justice for Joel — the same principles that founded Jackson in the first place.
“It’s not about revenge. What I want is what you used to give people. I want justice. It’s either that or we do nothing. That’s what everyone else out there is going to do for us. Nothing.”
~ Ellie
Sadly, Ellie’s attempts to form up a posse and go after Joel’s killers fail with the council voting 8-3 against sending a group outside the walls to hunt down Abby and her soldiers.
Ellie is dejected but far from defeated.
Later that day while a pee-wee baseball game is happening, Tommy stops to talk to Gail, who is enjoying a beer and watching the action that sadly reminds her of the 2003 Detroit Tigers. Tommy is worried about Ellie because he knows this decision from the council isn’t going to satisfy her thirst for revenge and there’s a good chance she’s eventually going to snap.
But as much as Tommy wants to find a way to talk Ellie out of this need for revenge, Gail explains that this is just built into who she is as a person and traits she shared with Joel.
“Turns out nurture can only do this much, the rest is nature. If she’s on a path, it’s not one that Joel put her on. No, I think they were walking together side by side from the very start.”
~ Gail
It seems Tommy’s concerns weren’t unfounded because Ellie is arming up and preparing for a journey to Seattle to hunt down Abby. When Dina arrives, Ellie has no desire to see her because she’s effectively surrounded by an arsenal and gear she plans on packing up to take with her to Seattle but her best laid plans weren’t so secretive after all.
Dina knew as soon as that town council meeting ended that Ellie was going to go out after the killers on her own. But as much as Dina loves her friend she knows Ellie wouldn’t go with the kind of preparation and provisions needed for the 800 plus mile trip not to mention mapping out a course that would safely lead her to Seattle.
So Dina then reveals that she’s put together a map with a path to Seattle and a list of all the supplies they’ll need for the trip. Yes, Dina casually says “we” during the conversation because she’s going with Ellie to Seattle to track down Joel’s killers.
Oh and one last thing, Ellie has to trade in her Converse Chuck Taylors for a real pair of boots.
When they meet up later that night, Ellie waits by the gate when Dina arrives with her horse Shimmer — they’ll ride together to save space and supplies — but she’s surprised to find out that Seth is the one who has been helping her gather all the necessary provisions they’ll need for the trip.
Seth trades rifles with Ellie — his is much better — and he lays out some helpful hints to keep them safe as they make their way to Seattle. Perhaps Seth really does believe that the town needed to strike back against the people who killed Joel but then again maybe he’s still trying to make up for the hurtful and hateful words he used towards Ellie and Dina on New Year’s Eve.
Either way his help is appreciated and Ellie even shakes his hand before heading out of the gate to leave Jackson and begin the trip to Seattle.
Just 10 miles outside of town, Ellie visits the gravesite where all the dead from Jackson are buried including Joel. She visits his tombstone and shares a somber moment before getting back on the horse to go after the people who killed him.
Wolves At the Door
Ellie and Dina ride on horseback and share stories while also playing word games trying to pass the time. When a storm arrives, they bed down for the night inside a tent where there’s little conversation before trying to get some sleep — but then Dina decides she has a question.
She brings up New Year’s Eve and the kissed they shared — and Ellie immediately says that she knows it didn’t mean anything. Dina agrees but she’s curious how Ellie would rate her kissing skills.
“My question is how would rate it? Scale of 1 to 10. Come on, you kiss girls before. You’re gay, I’m not, I’m just curious if I’m any good at it.”
~ Dina
When Ellie rates her at a 6, Dina is understandably offended.
While it’s pretty obvious that Ellie harbors real romantic love for Dina, the feeling isn’t reciprocated — at least not yet anyways. Dina then tells Ellie that she predictably got back together with Jesse but she’s concerned about him because he always seem so sad when they’re together.
Dina can’t help but wonder if she’s the cause of Jesse’s sadness because he never really wants to discuss why he’s so somber all the time.
In the morning, Ellie and Dina head back out but soon discover a grisly scene on the road they’re traveling down.
Earlier in the episode we met a group of travelers all marked by some slashes on their faces and a communication system that involved whistles. A father and daughter walk at the front of the group and discuss their prophet and attempts to stay safe, which leads to the little girl receiving a hammer as a weapon so perhaps she’ll feel a little more capable if bad things happen.
A few moments later a panicked whistle follows from the end of the line and the group is told to go into hiding because the wolves are on the hunt.
When Ellie and Dina arrive at the same location, presumably a few days later, the entire group — including the little girl and her father — have been slaughtered. The group was gunned down by different weapons with various caliber bullets, which lets Ellie know that it wasn’t FEDRA but somebody is responsible for killing these people.
After getting back on the horse and beginning the trip again, Ellie and Dina find a sign that marks nine miles to Seattle and they’re getting very close to their destination. They look at the skyline where buildings are still standing but very much in ruin yet Seattle still looks pretty to them.
The city seems very quiet, which to Ellie and Dina means that the group they’re hunting aren’t great in numbers so it should allow them an easier mission to hunt down and kill Abby and the people directly responsible for killing Joel.
Dina: “I guess there aren’t than many wolves.”
Ellie: “There’s about to be a whole lot less.”
Back in Seattle, we find Danny sitting in the Space Needle where he’s tasked with keeping a watch on certain checkpoints in the city. He looks out with a pair of binoculars and gives the all clear.
That leads to a closing shot showing several armored vehicles — including a tank — and a massive group of soldiers following closely behind and they’re armed to the teeth. It turns out this pack of wolves is much bigger than anything Ellie or Dina could have possibly imagined and their plan to seek out Joel’s killers is going to be a lot tougher than they initially realized.
“The Last of Us” returns for a new episode next Sunday night at 9 p.m. ET on HBO
