The Final Of Us Episode 9 Recap: A Highly effective, Haunting Finale

Nicely, pals. We’ve come to the tip of the highway, no less than for now. Episode 9 of HBO’s The Final of Us is the season finale, bringing us to the tip of the story informed within the first sport. Even the episode’s title, “Search for the Mild,” neatly closes the loop opened by that of the primary episode, “When You’re Misplaced Within the Darkness.” Deeply devoted to the sport’s provocative, morally ambiguous ending and different well-known story beats in its remaining chapter, the episode nonetheless departs from the supply materials in a number of key methods, beginning with its opening. Let’s begin with the start of the tip.

Ashley Johnson as Ellie’s mom Anna

Notably, that is the primary entry since episode two that begins with a cold-open prologue quite than the title sequence. After the primary two episodes, I truly thought this was one thing the present may be dedicated to in the long run, with every episode kicking off with a unique, related glimpse of life earlier than the pandemic or another thread that might inform our understanding of what was to return. However no, the machine fell away early on, solely to make one final return for the season finale, with a flashback that doesn’t exist within the sport and that provides us a brand new perspective on two key characters: Marlene, and Anna, Ellie’s mom.

A couple of days in the past, Neil Druckmann, co-creator of the sport The Final of Us and one of many showrunners of HBO’s prediction, tweeted this:

The picture right here just isn’t a reference to an actual factor that exists in our world. Fairly, it’s a fictional comedian guide referenced in Uncharted 4, the ultimate sport in Naughty Canine’s different large franchise of the previous 15+ years. But it surely speaks to the concept Anna, Ellie’s mom, is a personality who the writers of the sport (and now the present) have thought rather a lot about, even when, till now, she’s by no means truly been seen. Gamers of the sport will know that she and Marlene had been pals, that Marlene promised Anna she’d take care of Ellie, and that Anna was alongside Marlene within the struggle for a greater world, however that is her very first look in official The Final of Us media, and the actor enjoying her is none aside from Ashley Johnson, who performs Ellie within the video games.

We see Anna operating via a forest, pursued by shrieking contaminated. As if that weren’t powerful sufficient, she’s pregnant and going into labor. She emerges into an enormous clearing dominated by a farmhouse, the Firefly insignia emblazoned on the close by grain silo.

Racing to the highest of the home, Anna barricades the door with a chair and attracts a familiar-looking switchblade. Tragically, the decided contaminated busts via, and although Anna plunges the switchblade into its neck, it’s not earlier than she’s bitten, sealing her destiny. Ellie is born, and Anna cuts the umbilical twine. It have to be one thing in regards to the timing of all this that resulted in Ellie’s immunity.

Anna takes a second to bond along with her daughter, as we watch, understanding she has a number of hours at greatest to spend with the kid. And the credit roll.

One lie comes earlier than one other

Night time falls, and three lights minimize via the darkness, a attainable visible nod to the Firefly slogan. Marlene and two males discover Anna nonetheless in that room, quietly singing to child Ellie. The music she’s singing is “The Solar At all times Shines On T.V.” by A-ha. It’s a music we all know Ellie hears later in life, as she has a cassette tape of A-ha’s biggest hits in episode seven, which makes use of the band’s “Take On Me” at one level. (Curiously, although “Take On Me” was a much bigger hit within the U.S., “The Solar At all times Shines On T.V.” outperformed it within the UK.)

Marlene instantly sees the chew on Anna’s leg, and right here’s the place one thing extraordinary occurs: Anna says she minimize Ellie’s umbilical twine earlier than she was bitten. After all it’s completely comprehensible. She did minimize it solely moments after, and no matter survival intuition she could have as soon as had for herself has seemingly now transferred onto her daughter. She needs to offer her daughter an opportunity. However as a thematic machine, it’s vital as a result of it bookends this remaining episode with lies. Ellie’s life begins with a lie, and later, it’s modified by one, each from individuals who, in their very own methods and for their very own causes, are very invested in holding her alive.

Anna, reminding Marlene that they’ve been pals for his or her entire lives, tells Marlene to kill her and to deal with Ellie, and to offer her the switchblade. Marlene protests that she will be able to’t, she will be able to’t do any of these issues, she particularly can’t kill her buddy, however then she musters the power to take action. She isn’t any stranger to gritting her enamel and doing what have to be carried out within the wrestle for a greater world. You’ll be able to inform it eats her up inside, however the world of The Final of Us presents little various for one who is actually, deeply dedicated to creating a distinction.

Exterior Salt Lake Metropolis

Now the present leaps into its approximation of the sport’s remaining chapter. In each, Joel is uncharacteristically chatty, his bond with Ellie now not doubtful in any case they’ve been via collectively and particularly after the harrowing occasions of episode eight. Ellie, in contrast, is preoccupied, distant, distracted maybe by the magnitude of what their arrival in Salt Lake Metropolis might imply. Whereas the Joel of the sport talks about what a lovely day it’s, TV Joel excitedly exhibits Ellie that he discovered a can of Chef Boyardee, calling again to their campfire meal in episode 4 when the nice chef’s awesomeness was one of many few issues they may agree on. Each Joels speak about at some point instructing Ellie guitar, and although she says she’d like that, it’s clear that proper now, she has different issues on her thoughts.

One attention-grabbing element from the sport that’s omitted from the present is a dream that Ellie tells Joel about, wherein she’s on a aircraft and it’s happening, so she busts into the cabin solely to seek out that there’s no captain. So she takes the controls however she doesn’t know what she’s doing, and simply because the aircraft is about to crash, she wakes up. It’s a fairly typical nervousness dream—I even have nightmares about aircraft crashes infrequently myself—and it is sensible that Ellie would really feel that her life is uncontrolled, however she remarks on the strangeness of getting a dream set on a flying aircraft when she’s by no means flown on a aircraft in actual life. She by no means received to expertise the pre-cordyceps world, and but the ghost of it’s in every single place round her.

The well-known giraffe scene

Joel and Ellie minimize via a constructing on their approach to the hospital, and within the present, for what I’m fairly positive is the primary and solely time, Joel does one thing he does repeatedly within the sport: he boosts Ellie up, right here so she will be able to decrease a ladder for him. Nonetheless, the normally attentive Ellie is caught off guard by one thing and as an alternative finally ends up simply dropping the ladder and operating off to have a look at one thing. Joel pursues her, maybe nervous at first that she’s in peril, and what follows is without doubt one of the sport’s most well-known moments, faithfully recreated within the present.

What he finds is Ellie, standing awestruck by the sight of a giraffe, peacefully munching on some leaves rising on the constructing. Within the sport, Joel encourages Ellie to pet the giraffe. Within the present, he encourages her to seize some leaves and feed it just a little bit, and the sight of its lengthy tongue reaching out for that inexperienced goodness is fairly nice. For Joel, although, the very best sight right here is the sight of Ellie having fun with this second. You’ll be able to inform, significantly within the present due to Pedro Pascal’s performing, that Joel is pleased to be alive to witness and share on this second along with her. So usually, it’s not the factor itself that issues, a lot as it’s the sharing of it with somebody.

Learn Extra: The Final Of Us Present Tries To Change What The Recreation Tells Us About Joel

Maybe a part of why we’re drawn to apocalypse tales is the way in which they can assist us deal with what actually issues. There’s a line in final yr’s HBO post-apocalypse status drama Station Eleven (primarily based on the novel by Emily St. Mandel) from central character Jeevan who says, “Having only one particular person, it’s a giant deal. Only one different particular person.” I’m reminded of that on this scene. Like Station Eleven, The Final of Us is deeply involved with what makes our lives imply one thing, and in my expertise, that’s at all times tied up in reference to others, in a method or one other.

Transferring to a different spot which lets them watch the entire giraffe household stroll off into the space, Joel asks Ellie a query he requested her a lot earlier within the sport, or, within the case of the present, means again in episode two, as they stood wanting towards the capitol constructing in Boston. “So, is it every little thing you hoped for?” Ellie recollects that second too and says it’s had its ups and downs earlier than repeating one thing she stated again then as properly: “You’ll be able to’t deny that view.” It’s a second that makes us really feel the journey they’ve been on, all the bottom they’ve coated, the time that’s handed, and all of the methods wherein issues between them have modified from that second a lot earlier, when all Ellie was to Joel was some human cargo he resented having to take care of. Coming to this second within the sport once more as I replayed it for this recap, understanding what was coming, I nearly needed to linger there ceaselessly, to allow them to linger there ceaselessly, and spare us all of the ache forward.

Now, he doesn’t wish to think about his life with out her once more, and so he tells her that she doesn’t must undergo with this. In each the sport and the present, her response is identical: “In any case we’ve been via, every little thing that I’ve carried out, it will probably’t be for nothing.” She tells him that after that is carried out, they will go wherever he needs, however “there’s no midway with this.” Within the sport, Joel appears to be like up simply in time to see the final giraffe disappear into the space. The second has handed. Their alternative is made.

Joel confronts the previous

Subsequent, their journey to the hospital takes them via a triage camp the military arrange within the days instantly following the outbreak. In each the sport and the present, that is the positioning for a confrontation of kinds with Joel’s previous, although that takes very totally different varieties in every model.

Within the sport, Joel mentions having been in an identical camp after the outbreak. When Ellie asks if it was after he misplaced Sarah, he says sure, and she or he tells him how sorry she is for his loss. Beforehand, Joel’s forbidden Ellie from mentioning any of his losses, from speaking about Tess or his daughter, however this time, he says “That’s okay, Ellie.” A short while later, Ellie offers Joel the identical {photograph} of himself with Sarah that he refused earlier when Tommy provided it to him. Ellie says Maria confirmed it to her again on the dam and she or he stole it. Joel, clearly moved, says, “Nicely, irrespective of how onerous you attempt, I suppose you possibly can’t escape your previous. Thanks.”

Within the present, nevertheless, we return to one thing first teased again in episode three. On the time, Joel stated that the scar on his brow was from somebody taking pictures at him and lacking. Now, he tells Ellie that the wound is what landed him in triage, and likewise that “I used to be the man that shot and missed.” After Sarah’s loss of life, he “couldn’t see the purpose anymore,” he says, however he flinched when he pulled the set off. “So time heals all wounds, I suppose?” Ellie asks. Joel says “It wasn’t time that did it” and offers her a significant look.

After this emotionally heavy second, Joel seeks to lighten issues up by truly requesting some shitty puns. It’s a fantastic little alternate, with Joel and Ellie disagreeing on the standard of a number of the jokes—one she declares “truly good” and he calls “a zero out of ten”—however my favourite bit is when Ellie says “Individuals are making apocalypse jokes like there’s no tomorrow.” Joel at first appears to be like scandalized however when Ellie asks, “Too quickly?” Joel says, “No, it’s topical.” Joke time is quickly interrupted, although, when some form of fuel grenade will get tossed their means, Ellie is dragged off, and Joel is conked on the top with a rifle.

One final dance with contaminated earlier than all is alleged and carried out

This episode and its variations from the sport’s corresponding sequence reveal some attention-grabbing variations in how the sport and the present method pacing and fight. Within the present, episode eight was the ultimate crucible, the peril and terror of that state of affairs solidifying Joel and Ellie’s bond, and it seemingly would have been anticlimactic for the 2 to have one other encounter with contaminated at this level. The dramatic objective of such encounters has already been fulfilled. There’s actually nowhere else for them to go. Within the sport, nevertheless, as a mainstream industrial product launched in 2013, it will have been unusual for there not to be one remaining encounter with contaminated. For a lot of gamers, such fight is at the start what they arrive to a sport like this for. So that you do have one remaining encounter with a complete mess of contaminated (together with a number of bloaters) within the partially flooded tunnels close to the hospital. As soon as they’re all completed off, Joel utters Ellie’s favourite catchphrase, “Endure and survive.”

They’re not out of the woods but, although. A bit later, Joel will get caught in a bus that’s quickly filling with water. Ellie (who can’t swim) makes an attempt to rescue him, however is herself swept away. The present carries Joel towards her and he sees her, framed by gentle, earlier than pulling her up out of the water and making an attempt to resuscitate her. That is the place the Fireflies discover them, and knock Joel unconscious.

Marlene and morality

Joel wakes up in a room with Marlene (Merle Dandridge in each the sport and the present), who marvels at the truth that the 2 of them got here all this manner and survived, that Joel truly managed to ship Ellie there, when the identical journey value the lives of so lots of her individuals. “It was (all) her,” Joel says. “She fought like hell to get right here.”

When Joel insists on seeing Ellie, Marlene tells him he can’t. “She’s being prepped for surgical procedure.” When Joel realizes that cordyceps grows within the mind and that the surgical procedure Marlene is describing means Ellie’s loss of life, properly, he is aware of what he has to do.

Notably, within the present, Marlene presents a extra detailed clarification of Ellie’s immunity, and the way the physician intends to make use of that to create a treatment. I think that this, together with Joel’s line again in episode six suggesting that if Marlene says they will make a treatment, they will do it, are supposed to deflect the pretty widespread response to the present’s central ethical dilemma, a response I noticed as not too long ago as this previous weekend on Twitter, that claims “They most likely wouldn’t have been capable of make a treatment anyway.”

My challenge with this response is that I view it as a reluctance or refusal to have interaction with The Final of Us by itself phrases. I believe it’s a copout, a approach to extra simply justify what Joel does by saying “the stakes weren’t that large anyway” by disregarding the inner logic of the work itself. Certain, should you view The Final of Us in “practical” phrases, you possibly can say that the chances of a vaccine being made weren’t nice, however that’s not the ethical dilemma we’re being requested to have interaction with right here. The sport and the present each work to determine this as a state of affairs wherein a vaccine is clearly attainable.

The sport does this partly via an audio diary you could find within the hospital wherein the lead surgeon rattles off a bunch of regardless of the medical equal of technobabble is, phrases and phrases that are supposed to sound professional throughout the fiction of the sport and set up that the surgeon is aware of what he’s speaking about. He then says, “We’re about to hit a milestone in human historical past equal to…the invention of penicillin. After years of wandering in circles, we’re about to return house…All our sacrifices, and the a whole bunch of women and men who’ve bled for this trigger, or worse, won’t be in useless.” We are supposed to view what Joel does as in opposition to that, as overriding all of that. That’s to not say that we are able to’t nonetheless conclude that Joel is correct to do what he does. However we should always no less than contemplate it throughout the ethical calculus that the sport and the present truly set up.

Ten years in the past, I felt that so many gamers’ response to the sport’s climax was not simply one in all agreeing with Joel however one in all cheering “Fuck yeah!” whereas he did what he does, of reveling in his undoing of every little thing the Fireflies have carried out, in his homicide of Marlene, and I ponder if a few of that isn’t simply because it’s very simple to really feel totally aligned with somebody once you’ve spent so lengthy strolling of their footwear. However I can think about a sport centered on Marlene, one which follows her for years and years, from establishing the Fireflies, working with after which tragically shedding Ellie’s mom Anna, watching over Ellie from afar whereas attempting to undermine FEDRA and in search of a treatment or some approach to unfuck the world, all of the whereas seeing her fellow passionate believers struggle and die alongside her, after which coming to the heartbreaking second the place her personal greatest buddy’s daughter is the world’s final greatest hope. I ponder if, given the possibility to expertise Marlene’s wrestle that means, to see issues from her perspective, some individuals who see the ending of The Final of Us in quite simple phrases may discover their view of it difficult.

And this was Anna’s struggle as properly. You’ll find an audio log that’s successfully Marlene talking to Anna, to the reminiscence of her buddy, and in it she says “Right here’s an opportunity to avoid wasting us…all of us. That is what we had been after…what you had been after.” I don’t suppose any of that is in any respect simple for Marlene. I believe she’s simply discovered by now how one can do even the issues she finds very, very onerous, if she believes it helps the better good.

None of that is easy. I’m conflicted about it myself, and I do generally put one life forward of many. (It’s only a sport, after all, however you’d higher consider that on the finish of Life Is Unusual, I made the selection to avoid wasting the one particular person I felt near and cared about deeply over a city stuffed with others.) And I’ve no downside with Joel doing what he does. As I’ve stated earlier than, I need artwork and media that depicts human beings doing questionable or difficult or terrible issues generally. I simply need individuals to truly interact with that complexity, quite than performing as if feeling in any respect conflicted about how all this performs out is foolish and that Joel does the one cheap factor he might have carried out.

Saving Ellie, dooming the world

Marlene, sensing that Joel is gonna be an issue, tries to have him escorted out of the constructing. Nonetheless, he kills his escort, and fights his means via the hospital to avoid wasting Ellie. Within the sport, I discover this sequence fairly difficult. The hospital offers your Firefly enemies with so many alternatives to flank you. The Joel within the TV present appears to have it significantly simpler. (And in case anybody is questioning, sure, within the sport you do get a brand new weapon, the assault rifle, right here, similar to Joel does within the present.) In any case, he kills a complete mess of dudes on his approach to Ellie.

Arriving within the working room, Joel orders the physician to unhook her. He grabs a scalpel and stands in Joel’s means. Joel kills him, too. Sure, the physician was about to take her life. By doing this, although, Joel has taken the life of somebody who was deeply cherished by any person else. And the way most of the individuals he killed on his means up right here may even go away a void within the lives of individuals after at this time? God, what an ethical mess.

Joel has one final encounter earlier than he makes his escape, this time with Marlene. In each the present and the sport, Marlene asks Joel to contemplate what Ellie herself would need. The look that performs throughout his face in each instances exhibits that he is aware of what he’s doing isn’t what she’d need.

After years and years of working tirelessly for a shot like this at a greater world, after sacrificing a lot, Marlene, too, is killed. “You’d simply come after her,” Joel says, earlier than pulling the set off.

Joel’s lie close to Jackson

Ellie wakes up at the back of a automotive, nonetheless in her hospital robe. Joel’s driving them to Jackson, and when she asks him what occurred, he feeds her a lie about there being dozens of people that share her immunity, and the medical doctors not having the ability to make any use of all of it, to the purpose that “they’ve stopped in search of a treatment.” Ellie is clearly crushed.

Considerably, within the sport’s quick remaining sequence, you play as Ellie as she and Joel stroll the final little bit of distance towards Jackson. Joel, prepared for his life with Ellie to start in earnest, begins speaking about how a lot he thinks Sarah would have appreciated him. Ellie is, after all, preoccupied, and ultimately she stops Joel, and begins speaking about how she misplaced Riley.

The purpose of the story, I believe, is that Ellie felt left behind (sorry) by Riley’s loss of life, that she would have quite died if it might have meant a treatment than being alive, and that she suspects Joel made a alternative of his personal accord to avoid wasting her quite than let that occur. Joel, maybe sensing the place that is going, tries to supply a few of his old school knowledge about how it may be powerful to return to grips with surviving however you retain discovering issues to reside for. However she calls for a straight reply, asking him to swear that every little thing he stated in regards to the Fireflies is true. “I swear,” he says.

There’s an extended pause. Is she doubting him? Deciding whether or not she will be able to belief him? Debating telling him that he’s stuffed with shit? The place would any of that go away her now, on this world the place every little thing she thought she was residing and preventing for has now evaporated into nothing?

“Okay,” she says.

Last ideas

Taking part in via the sport once more alongside watching the collection gave me rather a lot to consider. Maybe most of all, I thought of how, simply by advantage of being an interactive expertise that’s set in maybe probably the most lovingly rendered imaginative and prescient of the post-apocalypse ever created, the sport The Final of Us is far more in regards to the haunted world than the present is. Naughty Canine clearly approached designing the areas you go via very thoughtfully. They didn’t simply design some property after which toss them collectively. Fairly the alternative. For each home or condo you enter, you possibly can inform that Naughty Canine requested themselves questions like: Who lived right here? What was their cultural background? What did they do for a residing? Did they’ve any pets? Most of us most likely know the sense of vacancy an individual can go away behind once they die. Closets stuffed with garments they’ll by no means put on once more. A toothbrush within the rest room. This can be a world stuffed with that vacancy.

Alternatively, I recognize that the tv present discovered a number of alternatives, right here and there, to remind us that even in its world, love is feasible, and by extension, lives of that means are attainable. The sport, with its framing of Invoice and Frank’s relationship, with the tragedy of Henry and Sam, leans so relentlessly into loss and tragedy, with little dramatic counterpoint to remind us what love on this world—any form of love, the love between a person and his adopted daughter, for example—may even appear like. After all episode three—the Invoice and Frank episode—was probably the most radical occasion of the present departing from the sport to supply a picture of affection, but it surely wasn’t the one one. Marlon and Florence in episode six received so little display screen time, however there, too, due to the 2 fantastic actors solid in these roles, we received a way of an actual, lived-in relationship, individuals being there for one another throughout many years.

All of that is to say that I recognize that the artistic crew behind the HBO present approached this endeavor as an adaptation, not merely a retelling or recreation. Now the wait begins for the present’s subsequent season, once I anticipate finding out how they proceed to not simply re-tell the very same story we’ve already skilled, however adapt it for a brand new medium.