The launch of The Last of Us in 2013 already marked a outstanding shift in narrative tone for big-budget, so-called “AAA” video games. However, for a few of us, 2014’s DLC chapter, The Last of Us: Left Behind, proved to be much more outstanding. It took mechanics that, within the recreation correct, had been utilized in nail-biting sequences of life-or-death desperation and repurposed them because the stuff of bonding and relationship-building, main us to really feel Ellie’s reference to Riley not simply via cutscenes and pre-written dialogue however via play, within the purest sense of the phrase.
Now, the episode of HBO’s adaptation based mostly on Left Behind is right here, and it’s excellent by itself phrases. The storytelling fundamentals nonetheless work, even with the interactivity that made the sport so placing eliminated. (A variety of sequences constructed round that interactivity, together with one through which Ellie and Riley have a contest through which they throw bricks to interrupt automotive home windows, and one through which they hunt one another with water rifles, are understandably completely absent within the episode.) However, as a result of Left Behind was a very outstanding instance of what’s attainable when AAA mechanics are utilized in new and thrilling methods, I don’t really feel that there was actually any hope of this episode reaching the identical highs. The recreation was one of many perfect, most progressive and shifting AAA experiences of the last decade through which it was launched. This is—and I don’t imply this as an insult in any respect—an excellent episode of a largely excellent TV collection, and it does profit from a couple of music cues that the sport lacks. On prime of that, Bella Ramsey and Storm Reid are each distinctive, and defixfnitely make this story and its deeply felt feelings their very own. Let’s get into it.
A story of two malls
First, let me contact on the largest change between this episode and the sport on which it’s based mostly. In each, Joel’s been critically injured, and Ellie should discover some provides with which to deal with his wound. Here within the present, we expertise Ellie’s mall flashback whereas she rummages for provides in a home the place she and Joel are hiding out, and the one actual thematic throughline between the motion of the “present” and the “past” of the episode is that what Ellie goes via prior to now informs our understanding of why she’s so determined to not lose Joel within the current.
In the sport, she’s really obtained Joel locked up in an previous storefront at a Colorado mall, and the flashbacks to her night time on the mall with Riley are interspersed with motion set within the “present” through which she searches this different mall excessive and low for medical provides. Playing the DLC, you most likely spend about as a lot time within the Colorado mall as you do within the Boston one, and as Ellie, you need to combat contaminated stalkers, remedy some environmental puzzles, and survive some very difficult fight encounters with males who’re searching Joel and Ellie. The Colorado mall additionally has a variety of particulars that set off associations for us as gamers with the Boston mall. For occasion, each have a restaurant chain known as Fast Burger, and within the pocket of a physique she’s looking, Ellie finds a strip of photographs created by the identical kind of picture sales space she and Riley use on the mall in Boston.
G/O Media could get a fee
Meanwhile, all TV present Ellie has to do is look within the kitchen for a needle and thread. She doesn’t know the way simple she’s obtained it.
This hopeless scenario
In the episode’s opening scene, the injured Joel tells her to go away and she or he says “Joel shut the fuck up!” reminding us, because the final episode emphasised and this one will drive dwelling, that she has identified an excessive amount of loss already, and she or he’s not about to surrender on him.
He tells her to go to Tommy. She covers him with a jacket, offers him a fuck you look, and walks out of the room, and into the flashback that dominates the episode.
She’s operating listlessly in circles in a highschool gymnasium. On her Walkman (sure, an precise Sony Walkman, which she additionally has within the recreation) she’s listening to “All or None” by Pearl Jam. It’s from the 2002 album Riot Act, so it will exist within the present’s timeline the place the outbreak occurred in 2003. Without spoiling something for individuals who haven’t performed The Last of Us Part II, Pearl Jam does determine into the sport in a means that doubtless received’t, for timeline causes, play out the identical within the present, so this no less than lets the band’s work be heard within the TV collection.
(Incidentally, none of these things with Ellie in class is from the sport. Some of it could be based mostly on materials within the comedian guide collection The Last of Us: American Dreams, however as I haven’t learn that collection, I can’t say for positive.)
Soon, an even bigger woman begins giving Ellie shit, telling her to select up the tempo in order that the entire group doesn’t get punished. When Ellie says she doesn’t need to combat about it, the woman says tauntingly, “You don’t fight. Your friend fights. She’s not here anymore, is she?” With that, Ellie decides she does need to combat in any case.
Cut to a while later, and Ellie’s sporting a nasty shiner. A FEDRA official, Cpt. Kwong, notes that her habits has been significantly dangerous for the previous few weeks and that his bad-cop strategy in response—tossing her within the gap a number of occasions—hasn’t labored, so he tries the good-cop strategy, giving her a heartfelt speak through which he means that she’s too good to throw her life away, however that looks as if precisely what she’s decided to do. She can both hold misbehaving and find yourself a grunt, doing grunt work till she dies in a single unlucky circumstance or one other, he says, or she will be able to swallow her delight and sometime grow to be an officer. His impulse is rooted in a bleak view of humanity—”if we go down, the individuals on this zone will starve or homicide one another, that a lot I do know”—however Ellie nonetheless appears persuaded, for the second.
Ellie’s room, that includes a poster for Mortal Kombat II
Later, Ellie’s in her room because the rain falls exterior. She’s studying a problem of Savage Starlight, the importance of which I first talked about in my recap of episode 5.
Setting the comedian down, she stares on the vacant mattress throughout the room earlier than a lights out name prompts her to strive going to sleep. For a bit, the digital camera lingers on particulars within the room, like a small stack of cassettes that features A-ha’s best hits compilation and an Etta James tape, each of which function songs we’ll be listening to earlier than the night time is out. Also on Ellie’s wall are dinosaur drawings, area shuttle diagrams, and, amusingly, a poster for the 1987 sci-fi comedy Innerspace starring Martin Short, Meg Ryan, and Dennis Quaid.
We additionally see a poster for Mortal Kombat II. Yes, this displays one of many greatest adjustments to the supply materials that we’ll get to later within the episode. However, what you might not know is that, when Left Behind was remade for The Last of Us Part I, the builders additionally snuck a Mortal Kombat II poster into Ellie’s room there, confirming (through retcon) that the sport does no less than exist within the recreation’s universe as effectively, doubtless as a result of they knew by that time that MKII was going to be taking the place of The Turning within the TV adaptation.
Read More: The Last Of Us Show Made One Of The Best Game Moments Worse
A rocky reunion with Riley
Riley and Ellie’s reunion will get off to a tough begin when Riley (Storm Reid, Euphoria) sneaks into the room and places her hand over the mouth of the sleeping Ellie. Ellie panics, knocks Riley to the ground, and grabs her switchblade earlier than she realizes who her attacker is. When she sees that it’s really her greatest buddy, the exposition begins flying quick. Riley’s been gone for 3 weeks as a result of, after a very long time spent “talking about liberating the QZ,” she’s really determined to do one thing.
This triggers sophisticated emotions in Ellie, who refuses Riley’s request to return together with her and have “the best night of your life” as a result of she has to stand up in a couple of hours for drills “where we learn to kill Fireflies.” Yeah, these associates are in a troublesome spot, seemingly on reverse sides of an ideological (and actual) battle. As Riley predicted, although, Ellie shortly relents, the possibility to spend a couple of hours with the buddy she’s been lacking a lot apparently too powerful to cross up.
What’s FEDRA vs. Fireflies between associates?
After they make their escape, Ellie is shocked that Riley appears much less inclined towards battle than typical, telling her, “You can’t fight everything and everyone. You can pick and choose what’s important.” “Are they teaching you this at Firefly University?” Ellie asks, and it seems they’re. A minute later, as they’re sneaking via an previous condominium constructing, Ellie’s flashlight begins giving out. “Firefly lights are better,” Riley teases. When Ellie declares that “one point for the anarchists,” Riley says, “We prefer freedom fighters.”
In a second that’s new for the present, Ellie and Riley discover a man’s physique in a hallway, with some drugs and a bottle of arduous liquor close by, which they snag and take swigs from on the rooftop. In the sport, they as an alternative raid the camp of a person they have been on pleasant phrases with named Winston, who, remarkably for somebody of their world, died of pure causes. He has some booze in a cooler that you would be able to drink. The present’s Ellie handles the liquor a lot better than her recreation counterpart, who spits it out.
After begging Riley to let her maintain her gun, Ellie asks, “So, what happened, you started dating some Firefly dude and was like, ‘Uhhh, this is cool, I think I’ll be a terrorist’?” It’s a placing line as a result of it’s each an apparent joke and it additionally appears to be Ellie maybe attempting to really feel out Riley’s angle towards boys, as if she’s attempting to find out if there’s any likelihood Riley reciprocates her emotions. (Nothing like that is stated within the recreation.) Soon, Riley tells the reality: she encountered a girl—Marlene—who requested her what she considered FEDRA. Riley replied together with her sincere opinion, “they’re fascist dickbags,” and with that, she was in. Ellie begins to push again, regurgitating a few of the identical bullshit Cpt. Kwong instructed her earlier about FEDRA holding the whole lot collectively, however quite than let it devolve into an argument, Riley says they’re on a mission, and leads them onward, hopping throughout many a rooftop on the way in which to their vacation spot: the mall.
When they arrive, Riley arranges a reasonably cool reveal for Ellie, having her buddy stand within the darkened shrine to capitalism earlier than flipping on the ability. Ellie gazes in awe as the whole lot turns into illuminated. Riley guarantees to indicate her “the four wonders of the mall,” and their journey actually begins.
Take on me
The Last of Us turns into the most recent status TV collection to make use of the A-ha hit “Take on Me,” a track that additionally figures into the sport’s sequel, as Ellie experiences the marvel of escalators, or as she calls them at first, “electric stairs,” for the primary time. Amazed by the contraption, she races down them, races again up them, walks in place, and, maybe attempting to impress her crush and possibly feeling the consequences of that swig of alcohol she took earlier, simply usually acts like a complete goofball.
As they make their means towards Riley’s first marvel (which is now the second marvel as a result of Ellie was so wowed by the escalator), they cross a movie show with a poster out entrance for a movie within the Dawn of the Wolf collection, the Last of Us universe’s stand-in for Twilight. Briefly stopping to treat the show at a Victoria’s Secret, Riley feedback on how unusual it’s to her that individuals as soon as needed that stuff, then begins laughing whereas attempting to think about Ellie sporting the lacy lingerie. Riley strikes on, however Ellie takes a second to verify her look within the window, clearly involved in regards to the impression she may make on Riley tonight.
Just like heaven
Riley tells Ellie to shut her eyes, and as she leads her by the hand to the mall’s subsequent marvel, we’ve gotten sufficient perception into Ellie’s emotions that we will think about how thrilling it have to be for her, that top college electrical energy you may really feel on the slightest bodily contact with the individual you’ve been dreaming about.
The marvel is certainly worthy of the build-up: a surprising carousel, lit up in golden lights. This is, after all, straight out of the DLC, the supply of a few of its most iconic photographs, however new right here is the truth that the carousel performs a music-box model of The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven,” and I believe the lyrics of that track sum up how Ellie feels on this second fairly effectively. Like the sport on which it’s based mostly, this episode is filled with unstated emotion, which makes it all of the simpler. Ellie’s smile, beaming at Riley because the carousel spins, says greater than phrases ever may. Find somebody who seems at you the way in which Ellie seems at Riley right here. The two have one other drink, and Ellie continues to delight in Riley’s presence.
But such moments by no means final, and because the carousel grinds to a halt, Ellie’s thoughts is interfering with what her coronary heart feels, turning over questions once more about Riley’s allegiance to the Fireflies. “Did you really leave because you actually think you can liberate this place?” she asks, making the query sound each bit as dismissive because it reads. When Riley protests that it’s not a fantasy, that the Fireflies have set issues proper in different QZs, Ellie tells her that they might try this too, “if you come back. We’re, like, the future.”
Riley doesn’t appear hopeful about her prospects with FEDRA, telling Ellie that Kwong has her lined up for sewage element. To Kwong, Riley is doomed to the form of grunt work she instructed Ellie she may keep away from if she performs her playing cards proper. This is new for the present, and makes it that rather more clear why Riley needs a life exterior of what FEDRA has in retailer for her.
Pictures of you
Next up on Riley’s tour of wonders is the picture sales space, one other traditional second from the sport. When the DLC first launched in 2014, this second felt impactful as a result of it featured some then-novel Facebook integration, permitting you to add photographs of the particular poses you had Ellie and Riley strike to your feed. It was a means for individuals to share the expertise and join over their emotions about it. It’s a bit unusual to see a second that was initially designed not only for interactivity however for social media integration be recreated with out these parts that when made it so particular. It’s nonetheless a candy scene, after all, however that is one case the place the sport will at all times be the definitive expertise for me. At least the present’s Ellie and Riley really get a printout of their photographs, albeit pale and colorless. The recreation’s duo obtained solely their reminiscences of the expertise.
As they head to the subsequent marvel, Riley talks it up, saying “it’s pretty dang awesome and it might break you.” Ellie tells her to not oversell it, however she hasn’t. She tells Ellie to cease and hear, and within the distance is the unmistakable cacophony of a video arcade. Yeah, Ellie is stoked. Standing earlier than Raja’s Arcade in all its noisy glory, she says, “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Mortal Kombat II vs. The Turning
The arcade’s obtained Centipede and Tetris, Frogger and Daytona USA, all alive and able to be performed. But there’s one recreation they need to play most: Mortal Kombat II.
This is likely one of the episode’s greatest departures from the sport. There, the machines within the arcade stay off, and essentially the most Ellie can do is think about enjoying with them. (As I found when re-playing Left Behind for this recap, there’s a hidden trophy you will get right here, a little bit self-deprecating joke from Naughty Dog. If you strategy and work together with a Jak X Combat Racing arcade machine within the again nook, Ellie will think about enjoying it for a bit. When she’s completed, she feedback to herself, “That game is stupid,” and also you get the trophy, known as Nobody’s Perfect. Oof, was Jak X actually that dangerous?)
In the sport, it’s not Mortal Kombat II that they play, however a fictional combating recreation known as The Turning, and Ellie can solely play it together with her creativeness. As Riley narrates the motion, and as Ellie imagines it so vividly that she will be able to hear the sport’s announcer in addition to the sound results of battle, you enter a collection of onscreen inputs to tug off assaults, blocks, dodges, and, lastly, an extremely kill. Yes, The Turning was clearly impressed by Mortal Kombat, so the real article makes for a reasonably becoming substitute.
In his personal commentary piece, my colleague Kenneth makes a robust argument that one thing is misplaced by having the characters really play a recreation, quite than merely imagining one. I undoubtedly agree that the way in which it performs out within the recreation is far more poignant. It’s only one thing more that Ellie won’t ever get to actually expertise. At the identical time, I believe the interactivity of the sequence was central to its influence, that simply seeing Ellie think about the sport and enter sequences would have little of the identical impact that the scene conjures via the system of getting you do it, and in lieu of that, I believe swapping in Mortal Kombat II, a recreation so many people have our personal reminiscences of enjoying, permits us to really feel some deeper connection to the scene. For me, it’s one other occasion, just like the picture sales space, the place the TV present was by no means going to totally recapture the ability of the sport on which it’s based mostly.
Kiss me, kill me
Bella Ramsey does a terrific job of capturing the extreme pleasure and supreme cluelessness of a gamer woman who’s actually by no means performed an arcade recreation earlier than, and it’s enjoyable to look at each her and Reid react to the sport’s legendary sound results, and to Mileena’s well-known fatality. Eventually, enjoying as Baraka, Ellie will get a win on Riley, who tells her do his fatality. Baraka impales Mileena on his blades and the ladies lose it, and within the pleasure, we will inform, even when Riley can’t, that Ellie actually needs to kiss her. The second passes, although, and Ellie protests that she must be again dwelling in mattress quickly. However, Riley tells her that she obtained her a present, and that’s sufficient to get Ellie to tag alongside for a bit longer.
In the meals court docket, Riley’s obtained a little bit camp, the place she offers Ellie quantity two (really “volume too” lol) of Will Livingston’s collection of pun books, the identical one she’s been torturing Joel with all through the collection. In the sport, Riley offers it to Ellie simply after you experience the carousel, and you may spend some time studying jokes to Riley in case you like. (My favourite of the bunch: What’s a pirate’s favourite letter? ‘Tis the C.)
In the show, however, Ellie’s delight within the new treasure trove of punny goodness is short-lived, as she finds a bunch of explosives Riley has made. Riley says that she would by no means allow them to be used on or anyplace close to Ellie, however Ellie doubts that her supervisors would care what Riley has to say about that, and she or he storms off.
Riley offers chase and tells Ellie that she’s leaving, that that is her final day in Boston, which is sufficient to get Ellie to cease. “I asked if you could join so we could go together,” Riley says, “but Marlene said no.” In the sport, Riley phrases this sentiment a bit otherwise, telling Ellie that Marlene “wants you safe at that stupid school. I’m not even supposed to come see you.” The the explanation why Marlene may be searching for Ellie from afar—even earlier than realizing Ellie was resistant to cordyceps—will grow to be clear in time, in case you don’t know them already. Despite Riley’s heartfelt plea, expressing her want to spend a few of her little time left in Boston with Ellie and to say goodbye on good phrases, Ellie stays livid, and storms off once more.
Love and fact within the Halloween store
She thinks higher of it, although, and turns round earlier than she will get too far. Trudging again via the mall, she hears screams and fears the worst. Charging into the shop the screams are coming from, she’s confronted with a spooky sight certainly: some type of mechanical Halloween jumpscare system letting out the pre-recorded shrieks. Here it’s, the Halloween retailer, the ultimate marvel Riley had in retailer for her. (In the sport, you really enter the Halloween retailer first upon arriving on the mall. This scene successfully combines that one and one close to the tip of the DLC.)
Riley’s hiding out within the Halloween retailer, and tells Ellie she was saving it for final as a result of she thought she’d prefer it the most effective. “I guess it was stupid,” she says. “I’m fucking stupid.” Ellie sits down. It’s time to speak about some actual shit.
“So you leave me. I think you’re dead. All of a sudden, you’re alive. And you give me this night. This amazing fucking night. And now you’re leaving again, forever, to join some cause I don’t even think you understand. Tell me I’m wrong.” Yeah, I can see how Ellie’s obtained some emotional turmoil happening in the meanwhile.
Riley tells Ellie that she doesn’t know the whole lot. Unlike Ellie, Riley remembers what it was to have a household, for a short while no less than, and the actual sense of belonging that got here with that. Now the Fireflies have chosen her, and she or he senses an opportunity for that form of belonging and goal once more. “I matter to them.”
Ellie softens a bit, and tells Riley that she’s her greatest buddy and that she’ll miss her. Riley proposes “one last thing,” and Ellie agrees, earlier than Riley tosses her a werewolf masks and grabs a spooky clown masks for herself, masks they each additionally put on within the recreation. She places on Etta James’ “I Got You Babe,” the identical track that options so prominently within the recreation at this pivotal second, and begins dancing atop the show case.
For some time they simply benefit from the second, however what Ellie is feeling is just too sturdy to be contained, so she takes off her masks and pleads with Riley, “Don’t go.” Just as within the recreation, Riley agrees, virtually as if she’s been ready, hoping that Ellie would ask her this. Ellie kisses her, then apologizes, to which Riley responds, “For what?” It’s a phenomenal and cathartic second, and a painful one, too, since we all know their happiness ends even earlier than it has an opportunity to begin. It makes for an interesting distinction with the third episode, which charted the love story of Bill and Frank throughout a long time. Here, we get the love story of Ellie and Riley, not fairly in actual time however not too far off. This night time lasts solely a matter of hours, and but the reminiscence of it is going to be with Ellie ceaselessly.
I really feel like “don’t go” is an even bigger ask on Ellie’s half right here within the present than it’s within the recreation, since she is aware of that FEDRA has Riley pegged for grunt work, and it’s lots to ask somebody you like to resign themselves to a lifetime of such restricted chance simply to be with you. But I’m positive that in that second, she thinks that collectively, they will create one thing higher. And who is aware of, perhaps they might have.
They barely even get an opportunity to think about what that future may appear like, nonetheless, earlier than the contaminated we noticed earlier roars and runs in, placing up one hell of a combat earlier than Ellie lastly finishes it together with her switchblade. Not earlier than each of them are bitten, nonetheless, and similar to that, their dream future evaporates.
“I’m not letting you go”
And whereas future Ellie rummages desperately in the home for one thing to assist Joel with, previous Ellie, considering her destiny is sealed, smashes shit in a rage earlier than collapsing subsequent to Riley. Riley says they might simply off themselves together with her gun, however she’s not a fan of that concept. Taking Ellie’s hand, she says, “Whether it’s two minutes or two days, we don’t give that up. I don’t want to give that up.”
Rummaging within the kitchen, Ellie finds some needle and thread and returns to Joel. For a second, she takes his hand, interlocking her fingers with hers. She’s not letting him go. Then, she begins to stitch.
Discussion about this post