S01.E09: Look for the Light

[mledawn]

11 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

The way it is written now, there is no question, what Joel did was the right and rightous call from every conceivable angle.

Yet, in this thread alone there are people who disagree.

This episode did confirm that Ellie shot Reilly so at least that is resolved for me.

 

 

[conquistador]

I'm with you guys on the writing issues regarding the surgery (I personally interpret it as the surgery is supposed to be viable), just want to point out that the original video game was utterly bombarded with awards of different kinds, including awards for game of the year and best storytelling. I can certainly see why Druckmann hasn't spent a decade on ruminating how to change the ending when it was already so well received.

Edited March 13, 2023 by conquistador

[PurpleTentacle]

9 minutes ago, Uncle JUICE said:

Curious, do you think this problem (which I'm on board with) could have been solved with a two minute discussion between Joel and the doctor about what exactly was going to happen, that it was risky (so he'd be talking about less than certain death, maybe even as good as 50 50), that he wasn't sure it was going to work, that she'd recover, because the availability of medical supplies that make all surgeries safer is so scarce. That they have no imaging tech, so they can't be sure where the cordyceps is BESIDES the brain so they have to start there? This way Joel has to make a decision that a XX% chance isn't high enough for him, something like that? I just don't think adjusting the story this way is really difficult, so I don't get why they didn't bother doing it. 

I'm not a professional writer, so I can't fix it completely.

You were really nice about it, which I appreciate, but I've also heard direct "Well how would you have fixed it?! Don't criticise if you can't do it better!" which always baffles me. If an electrician wired my house incorrectly and it burned down because of it, would people also say to me "Well how would you have wired it?! Don't criticise if you can't do it better!"

That being said: I would have had Joel and Ellie stay at the hospital for a year. You can show the passage of time very well with small vigniettes of Ellie getting tested, her and Joel getting even closer as father and daughter, them getting friendly with the Fireflies, maybe playing games of soccer in a big room of the hospital and generally feeling save there. Then you pull the rug out from under them. One day out of nowhere, Marlene and two Firflies ambush Joel and lock him in a room. Through the glass window Marlene explains that the doctors have tried everything, but they just need a bigger sample to make the cure. The only way is to take out a significant part of Ellies brain. The doctors are sure that they can make the cure with a bigger sample. They already told Ellie and she understands. Now, if Joel breaks out of the room, kills the Fireflies, he had come to know over the course of a whole year and prevents the doctors from finding a cure, now it is morally ambiguous. Does a father have a right to do all these things just to save his daughter? Is Ellie old enough to consent to giving her life away like that? Has Joel the right to doom all of humanity for one person? The Fireflies aren't annonomous goons anymore. The viewer has come to know them a little. He feels for them. Which makes the viewer (even more) conflicted about Joel's decision. You know, all that good stuff.

That still isn't perfect, since in the real world you could grow the fungus from a small sample, but at least they would have made an effort, said it just wasn't possible, after trying for a year and that would probably be enough for me to suspend my disbelieve.

[cambridgeguy]

10 minutes ago, conquistador said:

I'm with you guys on the writing issues regarding the surgery (I personally interpret it as the surgery is supposed to be viable), just want to point out that the original video game was utterly bombarded with awards of different kinds, including awards for game of the year and best storytelling. I can certainly see why Druckmann hasn't spent a decade on ruminating how to change the ending when it was already so well received.

We know in real life that their method of jumping straight to carving out Ellie's brain is idiotic, but this is also a world where gas still works after 20 years, you can look healthy after walking across the country, can survive getting stabbed in the gut with minimal care, etc., so I agree that were meant to believe the surgery was supposed to yield a cure.  I also think we're supposed to believe that Ellie would choose to sacrifice herself if given the choice.

 

[PurpleTentacle]

14 minutes ago, mledawn said:

Yet, in this thread alone there are people who disagree.

Yeah, there are always people who read media how it was intended by the writer and not how it was actually presented. That's probably valid, but I can't understand it. My brain just isn't wired like that. I take media how it is actually presented.

If the author didn't get their intent across, too bad. Should have written it better and/or hired a better editor.

I take what is on the page/screen and in this case that's that Joel did the correct thing, because the Fireflies had no chance of finding a cure.

[Uncle JUICE]

6 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

I'm not a professional writer, so I can't fix it completely.

You were really nice about it, which I appreciate, but I've also heard direct "Well how would you have fixed it?! Don't criticise if you can't do it better!" which always baffles me. If an electrician wired my house incorrectly and it burned down because of it, would people also say to me "Well how would you have wired it?! Don't criticise if you can't do it better!"

 

 

Sorry if I came off this way, it's unintentional and I couldn't agree more (my go to is though I can't make a beef wellington, I can still have an opinion on my beef wellington being poorly done). That said your proposed solution would at least be a start to a draft. I am not a professional writer, I'm a hobbyist though and this show's been really incredibly well written in so many spots that this one kinda sticks out for me. Especially when you weren't pressed for screen time. 

[PurpleTentacle]

9 minutes ago, cambridgeguy said:

We know in real life that their method of jumping straight to carving out Ellie's brain is idiotic, but this is also a world where gas still works after 20 years, you can look healthy after walking across the country, can survive getting stabbed in the gut with minimal care, etc., so I agree that were meant to believe the surgery was supposed to yield a cure.  I also think we're supposed to believe that Ellie would choose to sacrifice herself if given the choice.

Well at least they paid lip service to the gas, with it working way worse. As far as I know it shouldn't work at all anymore, but it's not like that is a major plot point.

As you said yourself, they were mostly driving across the country. Why wouldn't you look healthy afterwards?

If nothing vital was hit, really all you need to survive a wound like that is somebody stitching you up and antibiotics. So what we have seen here. It's unlikely that nothing vital gets hit, but not impossible.

So far everything you mentioned was maybe unlikely, but not illogical or impossible, except maybe the gas. This business with the cure goes far beyond any of that.

[iMonrey]

Quote

Fun seeing Ashley Johnson a.k.a. Video Game Ellie here and as Ellie's mom none the less.  I actually think Anna still sounded enough like Ellie/Bella Ramsey's version that I could see them being related. 

Wow, I can't believe they aren't related. At first I was confused because I thought it was Ellie running through the woods, that's how much they look alike. Then I thought the actress had to be either Bella's real life mother or older sister. Or else they used some sort of CGI to make Bella look older. The resemblance was that uncanny.

I was struck by the reversal of personalities between Joel and Ellie, Joel being all chatty and opening up while Ellie was quiet and contemplative.

I was surprised to see Marlene. If she was planning to go there herself then why didn't she take Ellie with her? Did she really need Joel to do that? I mean they both made it there safely, overcoming whatever obstacles in their way.

Overall I thought it was good but maybe a bit anticlimactic.

[MrWhyt]

1 hour ago, PurpleTentacle said:

I guess maybe that's just me and Druckman is fine with being adulated for crappy work.

or, and I realize that this wild speculation, he doesn't share your opinion of the work and your opinion may not actually be a universal one.

[wanderingstar]

Wow, that was intense. Didn’t expect Joel to go on a rampage to save Ellie – although after last week I guess I should have.

Pedro Pascal broke my heart in this episode. When Joel was standing there, holding Ellie as Marlene pleaded with him to let Ellie be sacrificed, he looked…lost and in despair. In his mind, he just couldn’t let down another person he loved. Still, he racked up quite the body count, and watching him do it was terrifying.

Quote

That lie sounds so implausible, I wonder if Ellie actually believes it, even after Joel swore it's the truth.

I don’t think she does, but I do think part of her wants to.

I loved Joel opening up to Ellie about his suicide attempt. And when he said “It wasn’t time that did it” in response to Ellie’s “time heals all wounds” - :::sob:::

Also loved the scene where they fed the giraffe. I think that might have been the second time we saw Joel smile this season.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Gillian Rosh

[DoubleUTeeEff]

I think we are supposed to accept the video game science that cutting out Ellie's brain would equal a cure that saves all humanity for the sake of the story. Basically, like we are supposed to accept that fungi zombies and all their traits and abilities exist. So taking off from that

The imagery of a man taking away a girl's choice of what happens to her, while she is LITERALLY UNCONSCIOUS, made me sick to my stomach. That said, there are moral ambiguities here. She is only 14. But what did they think was going to happen? Wasn't the possibility that she would have to sacrifice herself always there? If so, why not say, we are staying in Wyoming until you are 18 and if you still want to sacrifice your life for the sake of humanity, then I will take you to the Fireflies? Or did they just think there would be a lot of medical testing and the Fireflies straight out lied to them? Which is it? Because if Ellie didn't know the full extent of what would happen to her, then what Joel did was justified. If she did know, there is a conversation. I think a 14 year old is old enough to decide some of what happens to her medically but maybe not sacrificing her life? Or maybe even that? It's hard to say how much of the decision we want to take away from her just because of the possible outcome. Can we take away her right to decide whether to have chemo if she might die of cancer anyway? Can we force her to have an abortion because she might die in childbirth? Of course, medical testing to help everyone else is a little different of a situation than those but there is something to be said for even a 14 year old having some say in what happens to her own body and her own life. And Joel was fine with it until the last minute when he made the decision for her. Unless of course, the Fireflies took away Ellie's choice first.

It seems like everyone was lying to Ellie. Joel had a whole whopper of a lie for when she woke up and if I'm interpreting correctly, Marlene didn't really tell her the whole truth. Like Ellie didn't know she was going to die in that exact moment before they put her under? Or did Marlene just tell her it wouldn't hurt? I'd like to see what happened from Ellie's point of view.

[CrazyDog]

Well, this was a short, intense and brutal episode. I agree with so many of thoughts already posted here.

The highlights were the beautiful scenes of nature reclaiming the land, and the giraffes. Joel literally getting to lay down his arms and breathe, even for just a few minutes. His face when Ellie told him she'd follow him anywhere. Her joy at seeing the view and the animals. The line about it wasn't time that healed his wounds.

And then the rest of the episode happened. 

Not being one who played the game, I was just pointing at the TV going "Chrissy from Growing Pains!" Obviously I missed the bigger connection lol.

I still agree with some that the season was so well done, but could have had an extra episode or two. I almost feel like we didn't get a ton of time with just Ellie and Joel. But what they did have, worked.

Marlene....I also think Marlene's fatal (literally) error was not allowing Joel and Ellie to talk, and not giving Ellie a choice. She herself said Ellie would want to try to help with a cure, so why not let her make that choice? And has she MET Joel? Marlene may have not expected the bond between Ellie and Joel to form, but it didn't even cross her mind that having lost a child, he might have had some sort of issue with them killing a child, let alone one he spent weeks / months escorting across the country?

And count me in on viewing the potential for a cure as tenuous at best. Perhaps a bit more backstory might have helped, as to why they believed killing Ellie was the only option, especially if it sounded like she's been the only immune ever.

And yes, how were they going to mass produce and distribute a cure? Was it actually possible, or were the chaotic fireflies deluding themselves because they couldn't accept the alternative? Have they tested others? Tried other cures?

Joel...the scene in the hospital was all the more effective and sad with the gunfire muted. It was like he completely left himself while he killed. One goal, one mindset.  Killing those who were trying to surrender was unconscionable, but like Marlene, they likely would kept coming after them. Still horrible to watch, even it was a decision that many could understand.

I don't think he would have survived leaving / losing Ellie, but who knows how much he emotionally survives what he did. 

I love this cast, but I think S2 may be a hard watch.

Edited March 14, 2023 by CrazyDog

[CooperTV]

Well, maybe monsters that willing to take a child apart for a "vaccine" are the friends we made along the way. 

The first ten minutes of the episode should be slotted somewhere along the episode one, where Marlene talked to Ellie. Those ten minutes that yet again were taken away from Joel/Ellie, and we'll never get it back.

I wonder why Marlene treated Joel like shit and admitted she wanted Ellie dead for the "cure". Like, what did she expect to happen to her and her makeshift Order 731, even if we set aside Joel's parental bond to Ellie? Plus, the gall of that woman who gave Ellie to orphanage and forgot about her for 14 years to lecture Joel about how she's the only one to understand.

Joel telling Ellie about his suicide attempt was probably the best scene of the entire show. So heartbreaking, and the acting of both actors was top-notch.

[Raachel2008]

33 minutes ago, DoubleUTeeEff said:

The imagery of a man taking away a girl's choice of what happens to her, while she is LITERALLY UNCONSCIOUS, made me sick to my stomach.

What choice? Ellie didn't chose to be on that operating room. Marlene told Joel that they didn't tell Ellie what was going to happen. MARLENE took away Ellie's agency when she drugged her and strapped her on a table so a doctor could open her brain. Joel was saving her life. Should he have killed a bunch of people while doing that? Up to discussion. But he wasn't the one who took away her agency.

And speaking about agency, Ellie is 14. She is a kid.Yes, a kid who has seen and lived a lot, but a kid. Can she really consent to die? If she were my kid the answer would be no, fuck the rest of the world.

AND, let's be honest, there is no way that in the few hours Joel was unconcious they did all the tests that lead to the conclusion they had to open her brain. That's bullshit. That's utter bullshit. They didn't have the time or the equipments - remenber, before Joel entered the surgical room, they were wondering if the power was going to hold up. And you want to convince me that they had the means to do real science? As if. I'm not doctor, but, I dunno,I would try a blood tranfusion first, see if someone volunteered for the cause. Because, you know, it's very easy to open a kid's brain, but let's see who is up to get her blood and see if it works after being biten by an infected.

@PurpleTentacleis absolutely right that Druckermnan had 10 years to perfect that ending; he had at least 2 to fix it for TV and he had Mazin, who is an amazing writer, to help him with the task. It's past time for them to understand that sometimes a story has be adapted to a different medium, in the better sense of the world.

[izabella]

I don't know if I have to reexamine my morals or ethics or whatever, but I wasn't the least bit conflicted about Joel freeing Ellie from the people about to murder her.  The Fireflies hit them, knocked them out, and kidnapped them.  They separated them and immediately started their prep work to harvest Ellie's brain without giving her a choice.  That makes it planned murder.  I didn't blame Joel at all for shooting his way to Ellie, and shooting his way out to save her, including Marlene. 

If he had merely objected to Ellie's murder and did nothing, they would have murdered him, too, eventually.  I believe Marlene would have decided it wasn't safe to let him leave.  I can imagine..."What if he tells others where we are?"  "He's killed so many people; he doesn't deserve to live."

Marlene's mistake was to assume Joel wouldn't care about Ellie's death, and he was just the same mercenary killer he had been.  Otherwise, she wouldn't have told him that Ellie did not know she was about to be killed without her consent.  If they thought she would have agreed, they would have told her and let her decide.  Clearly, they wanted to avoid giving her that choice.  "So she wouldn't be scared" is not a good reason to take away her choice.  That makes it murder. 

So, I'm perfectly fine with all of it, except I think Joel should have told Ellie she was about to murdered by mad scientists who don't know shit, and he did what he had to to save her.

[paigow]

4 minutes ago, izabella said:

Marlene's mistake was to assume Joel wouldn't care about Ellie's death, and he was just the same mercenary killer he had been. 

If she really wanted to test that theory, offering Joel more supplies and a car to immediately leave town would expose his true state of mind...

[saltylemon]

I just realized the sound may have been muffled through the hospital shootout to put us more in Joel’s shoes as they had referenced more than once his loss of hearing.

 

Brilliant season and finale. It was very hard to watch at times, but I think they made it worth it. I’m dreading season 2 though. 😬

[Hanahope]

13 minutes ago, Raachel2008 said:

Druckermnan had 10 years to perfect that ending; he had at least 2 to fix it for TV and he had Mazin, who is an amazing writer, to help him with the task. It's past time for them to understand that sometimes a story has be adapted to a different medium, in the better sense of the world.

 i have to agree.  its one thing to that the plot be 'shoot and kill everything' in the medium of a video game.  but adapting it for a TV show should call for some adjustments.  its one reason that makes season 2 quite problematic.

[conquistador]

16 minutes ago, izabella said:

So, I'm perfectly fine with all of it, except I think Joel should have told Ellie she was about to murdered by mad scientists who don't know shit, and he did what he had to to save her.

He failed to be honest, because she told him early in the episode that they had to give the vaccine an honest try and that the journey and their sacrifices couldn’t be for nothing. This was especially poignant since she was clearly suffering from her encounter with David. Marlene also confronts Joel with this fact, reminding him that Ellie would have wanted to save humanity if it was an option given to her.

This is again why we have to accept the medical science as correct within the context of the show, otherwise Joel could easily just say ”Sorry Ellie, they were dangerous nutjobs”.

[Hanahope]

well, as others have pointed out. its one thing to "give it an honest try" when it means giving up a year of your life to tests and such.  its another when they ask you, with no apparent prior attempts, to just die because they think it will work.  i agree that Joel should have told her at least a bit more of the truth, but its hard to condemn what he did, or really believe that Ellie was willing to, at the drop of a hat, give up her life immediately.  yes, Ellie wanted to save humanity.  was she willing to die for it when it was not a 100% sure thing?

[Dev F]

3 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

So far everything you mentioned was maybe unlikely, but not illogical or impossible, except maybe the gas. This business with the cure goes far beyond any of that.

But it's similar to the other examples in that the issues with it are matters of scientific accuracy external to the story. Within the story—which, again, is already centered around the scientifically preposterous notion of an insect pathogen evolving in a single step to create a race of human fungus zombies with echolocation abilities and interconnected self-propelling mycelia—there's nothing to suggest that the cure is anything but the real deal.

Discounting a handwavy sci-fi explanation in a handwavy sci-fi series seems like, say, insisting that all the characters in a horror movie about a haunted house must actually be suffering from delusional paranoia, because science says ghosts don't really exist.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Dev F

[Peace 47]

 

4 minutes ago, Raachel2008 said:

Ellie is 14. She is a kid.Yes, a kid who has seen and lived a lot, but a kid. Can she really consent to die?

Add to that:  she was seriously depressed, suffering from survivor’s guilt and definitely had some suicidal ideation going on (i.e., her speech at the end about being ready for her turn to die).  Lots of questions about her capacity to give any informed consent as a minor and a traumatized survivor.

There’s a lot of moral utilitarianists ready to criticize Joel, but like, how far do you extend that?  If I let someone cause my brain death today so that my organs can be used to save, say, 6 other lives, immediately, should it be done?  My one death would benefit 6 other people and their families, and say my own circle is tiny.  What is the number of people saved that makes it right to kill me, with or without my consent?  We don’t even let people make that choice at all, though.  Nerd alert:  People (like the Screen Crush YT video where he argues Joel was wrong) throw around Spock’s sacrifice in Star Trek where he said the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one, but the lesson and whole point of the immediately following movie is that sometimes the needs of the one (Spock’s) actually do outweigh the needs of many.

I saw someone post somewhere that there is only one correct answer to:  who would you sacrifice to save the world?  “Yourself.”  Marlene and all her compatriots were morally wrong under that more basic view that throws out the capacity concerns.

Joel was put in an impossible situation by the story, and the incompatibility of the choice he had to make had been there all along.  Tess said “Save who you can save” but also “Set everything right.”   If he saves the one person he can, there is no hope of setting everything right.  I saw someone else post that Bill, Joel’s mirror, imparted one lesson to Joel (find one person worth saving and do it) but not the last lesson Bill learned (Bill painfully agreeing to love Frank the way he wanted to be loved, i.e., letting him go when the end of the road was reached).  That is, Joel saved Ellie but did not respect that she wouldn’t want him to love her so much that he would keep her from her purpose (save the world).  But that type of purpose is incompatible with who Joel is:  he goes on for family only; if you sacrifice family, there is no world left to save in a holistic sense (yes, the Jackson community and any others like it, but even Tommy said the infected are not the real problem out there).  And in this TV show world where people are worse than the infected, I find myself understanding Joel all the more.

[Starchild]

I wonder what Tess would have done, if Joel died at the start and she were the one to bring Ellie here.

I wonder how Tess might have influenced Joel if they both came this far.

[izabella]

2 hours ago, Hanahope said:

well, as others have pointed out. its one thing to "give it an honest try" when it means giving up a year of your life to tests and such.  its another when they ask you, with no apparent prior attempts, to just die because they think it will work.  i agree that Joel should have told her at least a bit more of the truth, but its hard to condemn what he did, or really believe that Ellie was willing to, at the drop of a hat, give up her life immediately.  yes, Ellie wanted to save humanity.  was she willing to die for it when it was not a 100% sure thing?

I'm on the side there was no honest try, and Ellie would not have gone along with it.  There is no way Ellie would have done anything without first making sure Joel was alive and well.  I'm imagining Ellie waking up after being knocked out and not knowing where Joel was - that would be the first and only thing she'd care about in that moment.  It makes me wonder if they even woke her up and spoke to her at all.  Maybe they just put her under straight away.  Because that's such a great idea after giving someone a concussion.

Edited March 13, 2023 by izabella

[mledawn]

12 minutes ago, Peace 47 said:

That is, Joel saved Ellie but did not respect that she wouldn’t want him to love her so much that he would keep her from her purpose (save the world).

Ellie is Joel's daughter in his mind, now. He's not going to let his 14 year old daughter make the decision to kill herself. I don't think that it's a lack of respect, but she didn't have all the information and he didn't have the time/ability to explain it. 

 

38 minutes ago, conquistador said:

This is again why we have to accept the medical science as correct within the context of the show, otherwise Joel could easily just say ”Sorry Ellie, they were dangerous nutjobs”.

This is a good point. As a game player, you accept that you need to perform a series of tasks in order to get to the end of the game. That the tasks are/aren't based in reality doesn't really matter. It's an element of video games that doesn't necessarily transfer well to live action. This particular plot point in the series is pretty important, so perhaps the writers should have made it more clear. Meanwhile, we've all been through a global pandemic and learned/think we've learned about how this sort of science works and are questioning this cure/vaccine methodology.

[Chicago Redshirt]

45 minutes ago, Dev F said:

But it's similar to the other examples in that the issues with it are matters of scientific accuracy external to the story. Within the story—which, again, is already centered around the scientifically preposterous notion of an insect pathogen evolving in a single step to create a race of human fungus zombies with echolocation abilities and interconnected self-propelling mycelia—there's nothing to suggest that the cure is anything but the real deal.

Discounting a handwavy sci-fi explanation in a handwavy sci-fi series seems like, say, insisting that all the characters in a horror movie about a haunted house must actually be suffering from delusional paranoia, because science says ghosts don't really exist.

Well, slight rephrase: there is nothing to suggest that the Fireflies potentially have the resources to leverage by doing surgery on Ellie's brain to figure out how to vaccinate/cure the fungal infection. Even if it is an unrealistic prospect, it still remains a prospect.

Some may think it's not as cut and dried an ethical situation as others. 

Some might side with Joel and say even if there were a near 100 percent likelihood of developing a cure/vaccine for the fungus, it's not worth it if it costs the life of an innocent, nonconsenting/uninformed 14-year-old.

Some might side with the Fireflies and say even if there is a .001 percent likelihood of developing a cure/vaccine for the fungus, it's ABSOLUTELY worth it if it "only" costs the life of an innocent, nonconsenting/uninformed 14-year-old girl.

Some might say, "Well, then the solution is simple: inform Ellie and see if she will consent." Or "wait until she is 18/21, inform her and see if she will consent.

The thing is that my money is that at 14, Ellie would absolutely be willing to die that humanity might have a chance. Joel seems to know this too, which is why he totally lies to her about there being a plethora of possible test subjects for the Fireflies to use, how the Fireflies had ruled out being able to parlay immunity to others. He doesn't care about the rest of humanity. He has found the one he wants to save and he's saved her.

[Jack Shaftoe]

47 minutes ago, Dev F said:

Discounting a handwavy sci-fi explanation in a handwavy sci-fi series seems like, say, insisting that all the characters in a horror movie about a haunted house must actually be suffering from delusional paranoia, because science says ghosts don't really exist.

This show takes itself way too seriously for me to consider it a handwavy sci-fi series and give it a pass for the many worldbuilding inconsistencies and plot contrivances. If I were watching Legends of Tomorrow or Wynonna Earp, sure, I wouldn't mind stuff like gut wounds miraculously healing with penicillin injection and doctors immediately jumping to killing their precious immunity carrier.

I love watching shows about tough choices but I hate it when the set up is so contrived. "We aren't going to try anything else, our first step going to be to open Ellie's skull and thus kill her". Way to kill all the moral ambiguity, writers. I have never played the game, so I have no idea how true the adaptation is but the final twist struck me as a rather video game-y excuse for having the protagonist go on a murderous rampage of rightfulness. I mean, I enjoy video games in general, but even in critically acclaimed ones, the discrepancy between the plot and what the protagonists gets to do when they are controlled by the player can be massive. Some scholars call it ludonarrative dissonance. This adaptation tried to be more subdued but in the end it's all "bad guys do bad stuff for very stupid reasons, go kill those losers ASAP!".

Come to think it, the show should have explored the Fireflies point of view a lot more. Why did they send Ellie to be raised by their enemies anyway, did I miss something?

[conquistador]

51 minutes ago, Hanahope said:

yes, Ellie wanted to save humanity.  was she willing to die for it when it was not a 100% sure thing?

Like @paramitch wrote earlier, it is a variant of the Trolley problem. Or maybe it’s a variant of Sophie’s Choice. With a split second decision, Joel had to seal the fate for both humanity and Ellie and weigh their interests against eachother. Even if the odds are not 100%, even a small percentage chance of a successful vaccine becomes an enormous deal when you consider what’s at stake.

[CooperTV]

6 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Some might side with the Fireflies and say even if there is a .001 percent likelihood of developing a cure/vaccine for the fungus, it's ABSOLUTELY worth it if it "only" costs the life of an innocent, nonconsenting/uninformed 14-year-old girl.

I wonder what those people would say if the girl in question was a "proper" child, a 8-10-year-old, for example. We can argue about how Ellie did or didn't consent o a vivisection. But the point still stands that if you murder a child for "the greater good", you should go to jail, or in Marlene's case, go to hell, literally.

[Jack Shaftoe]

If the cordyceps think Ellie is also cordyceps why do zombies attack her?

[Chicago Redshirt]

18 minutes ago, CooperTV said:

I wonder what those people would say if the girl in question was a "proper" child, a 8-10-year-old, for example. We can argue about how Ellie did or didn't consent o a vivisection. But the point still stands that if you murder a child for "the greater good", you should go to jail, or in Marlene's case, go to hell, literally.

It is easy to say from our comfortable vantage point, and maybe it would be easy for some to say in the face of the fungal apocalypse.

But against the backdrop of humanity nearly being wiped out, I suspect ethical lines would be a little blurry to some. 

Just now, Jack Shaftoe said:

If the cordyceps think Ellie is also cordyceps why do zombies attack her?

Perhaps the cordyceps at the microorganism level is tricked into thinking "she's already got cordyceps, no need for further infection" while the codyceps at the macro-level cannot tell this, or is just driven by instinct to attack anything that seems human that moves in order to spread itself.

[conquistador]

17 minutes ago, Jack Shaftoe said:

This show takes itself way too seriously for me to consider it a handwavy sci-fi series and give it a pass for the many worldbuilding inconsistencies and plot contrivances.

I agree. I think that was established with the very first scene (the talk show set in the 1960’s), that the show is thinking critically about its scientific concepts and also challenging genre conventions along the way. Of course it’s still not ~realistic~, but the whole concept with the cordyceps is pretty unique.

[Uncle JUICE]

8 minutes ago, Jack Shaftoe said:

If the cordyceps think Ellie is also cordyceps why do zombies attack her?

...is a question Joel could have asked Marlene and saved like 68 lives of the people he ends up shooting. :) Well done. 

[Dev F]

7 minutes ago, Jack Shaftoe said:

If the cordyceps think Ellie is also cordyceps why do zombies attack her?

That would require a different mechanism—not a blood-borne chemical signal, which an infected person wouldn't be able to detect until it had already bitten her, but a pheromonal signal that she gave off into the air.

And we can be pretty sure that Ellie doesn't give off cordyceps-influenced pheromones, because the dog in Jackson didn't recognize her as infected.

[CooperTV]

4 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

But against the backdrop of humanity nearly being wiped out, I suspect ethical lines would be a little blurry to some. 

Marlene didn't have any ethical lines, that's the main issue. She was willing to sacrifice a child but was begging for her own life. For some reason, she refused to understand that some people would take an issue with her murdering children. As I said, she's a hypocrite.

[wanderingstar]

9 hours ago, paramitch said:

I wanted Joel to save Ellie. The show gave me that wish -- in the worst way.

Perfectly said. I felt sick watching Joel kill everyone in his path at that hospital. But at the same time, I was thinking "He's got to save Ellie!" I've been sitting with that tension since the finale ended. 

[Sakura12]

How is killing the only immune person you come across the best solution. If it doesn't work you killed your only hope. They can remove a small portion of her brain and test to see if it works first. They have never had an immune person before so they were never able to test their theory. So it was all guess work. And if Marlene was so sure Ellie would consent, why not give her that choice? 

[DoubleUTeeEff]

2 hours ago, Raachel2008 said:

AND, let's be honest, there is no way that in the few hours Joel was unconcious they did all the tests that lead to the conclusion they had to open her brain. That's bullshit. That's utter bullshit. They didn't have the time or the equipments - remenber, before Joel entered the surgical room, they were wondering if the power was going to hold up. And you want to convince me that they had the means to do real science? As if. I'm not doctor, but, I dunno,I would try a blood tranfusion first, see if someone volunteered for the cause. Because, you know, it's very easy to open a kid's brain, but let's see who is up to get her blood and see if it works after being biten by an infected.

That's ignoring what the show has told and shown us, though. Is it actually scientifically realistic? No. In the context of the show, do Joel and Ellie believe it's scientifically realistic? Yes.

If they didn't, A) they would not have gone to such great lengths to get to the Fireflies in the first place. They just would have stayed in Wyoming or started a sheep farm. Instead, up until the last moments Ellie was insisting that she needed to give her self up to them in order to save humanity. Otherwise, what was the point? She knew she was at least sacrificing her autonomy since she'd be a medical guinea pig at the very least. One can argue that she's too young to make that decision for herself, but in this context, I don't think you can argue that she doesn't at least intellectually understand what it means.

B) Joel wouldn't have lied to Ellie. He would have told her what you just said. They weren't really capable of coming up with a cure and saving the world, so of course I had to save you from murder.

[Chicago Redshirt]

11 minutes ago, CooperTV said:

Marlene didn't have any ethical lines, that's the main issue. She was willing to sacrifice a child but was begging for her own life. For some reason, she refused to understand that some people would take an issue with her murdering children. As I said, she's a hypocrite.

In fairness to Marlene, she quite probably would have been willing to sacrifice her own life and basically most others' if it meant that cordyceps could be controlled. That's a different issue from "Please don't kill me for no reason." Or even the unspoken "Don't kill me so I can have a second chance to get Ellie and save humanity." 

[cardigirl]

14 hours ago, paramitch said:

I swear to God, my first reaction to seeing MARLENE there was, "OH MY GOD, Marlene, why didn't you just take her your own damn self?!"

Apart from all of your other wonderful observations, this one is what I was thinking at the end of the show. Why didn't Marlene take Ellie instead of sending her with Joel and Tess?  Did she think she wouldn't make it herself, and Ellie had a better chance with those two? Or was she afraid of accidentally warning Ellie about what the cure would involve?

In the end, as beautifully filmed as this show was, as much as I enjoyed Pedro and Bella in their roles, I am left feeling like there is a lot missing. 

This is an apocalyptic world, where the logic isn't always the best. It's a shooter game. Even with changing some of the characters from the game, I didn't feel it gave way to a more epic world view. Maybe it's not supposed to, it's nihilistic. 

I feel like I was led down a path to nowhere. 

Edited March 14, 2023 by cardigirl

[cambridgeguy]

1 hour ago, Dev F said:

That would require a different mechanism—not a blood-borne chemical signal, which an infected person wouldn't be able to detect until it had already bitten her, but a pheromonal signal that she gave off into the air.

And we can be pretty sure that Ellie doesn't give off cordyceps-influenced pheromones, because the dog in Jackson didn't recognize her as infected.

It also minimizes the utility of the cure.  Great, you won't turn if you get a small bite, so in a one-on-one fight you have a much better chance of surviving.  Unfortunately, the infected are still happy to rip you to shreds and they vastly outnumber you.  It's not as simple as "we have guns!" because if that were the case the battle would have been over a long time ago.

[Chicago Redshirt]

10 minutes ago, cardigirl said:

Apart from all of your other wonderful observations, this one is what I was thinking at the end of the show. Why didn't Marlene take Ellie instead of sending her with Joel and Tess?  Did she think she wouldn't make it herself, and Ellie had a better chance with those two? Or was she afraid of accidentally warning Ellie about what the cure would involve?

I would say that it's most likely because Marlene did think a) Joel and Tess had mad skillz and b) the ask was relatively light. When it was just "Take her just outside of Boston" Joel and Tess would normally be a better call than her and random Fireflies.

Outsourcing to Joel and Tess because Marlene was afraid of divulging that the science would mean killing Ellie doesn't make much sense to me. Joel and Tess at the outset had no idea that Ellie was immune, and Marlene could have kept a squad of Fireflies she trusted.

[buttersister]

13 minutes ago, cardigirl said:

Why didn't Marlene take Ellie instead of sending her with Joel and Tess?  Did she think she wouldn't make it herself, and Ellie had a better chance with those two?

Yes. One of the first things she said to Joel was that no one else could have gotten Ellie through, referencing that all of the Fireflies were protecting her, Marlene, and she almost got killed.

In Joel's mind, everyone in that hospital posed an on-going threat to Ellie. I was a little surprised/relieved that he didn't kill the nurses.

[MrWhyt]

8 minutes ago, cardigirl said:

Why didn't Marlene take Ellie instead of sending her with Joel and Tess?  Did she think she wouldn't make it herself, and Ellie had a better chance with those two?

Marlene and her group had just been in a firefight with Robert and his crew. She was suffering from a gut shot and the only survivor of her cell was missing an ear. They weren't sure that they'd make it out the QZ nevermind get to the meet up spot with the other fireflys.

[conquistador]

6 minutes ago, cambridgeguy said:

It also minimizes the utility of the cure.  Great, you won't turn if you get a small bite, so in a one-on-one fight you have a much better chance of surviving.  Unfortunately, the infected are still happy to rip you to shreds and they vastly outnumber you.  It's not as simple as "we have guns!" because if that were the case the battle would have been over a long time ago.

That’s true, but it wouldn’t work for the story if Ellie could simply walk up to any infected and kill them off (as they wouldn’t fight back). Even so, it would have to be a huge win for humanity to be rid of situations like what Sam and Henry went through.

[Anela]

3 hours ago, Raachel2008 said:

What choice? Ellie didn't chose to be on that operating room. Marlene told Joel that they didn't tell Ellie what was going to happen. MARLENE took away Ellie's agency when she drugged her and strapped her on a table so a doctor could open her brain. Joel was saving her life. Should he have killed a bunch of people while doing that? Up to discussion. But he wasn't the one who took away her agency.

And speaking about agency, Ellie is 14. She is a kid.Yes, a kid who has seen and lived a lot, but a kid. Can she really consent to die? If she were my kid the answer would be no, fuck the rest of the world.

AND, let's be honest, there is no way that in the few hours Joel was unconcious they did all the tests that lead to the conclusion they had to open her brain. That's bullshit. That's utter bullshit. They didn't have the time or the equipments - remenber, before Joel entered the surgical room, they were wondering if the power was going to hold up. And you want to convince me that they had the means to do real science? As if. I'm not doctor, but, I dunno,I would try a blood tranfusion first, see if someone volunteered for the cause. Because, you know, it's very easy to open a kid's brain, but let's see who is up to get her blood and see if it works after being biten by an infected.

@PurpleTentacleis absolutely right that Druckermnan had 10 years to perfect that ending; he had at least 2 to fix it for TV and he had Mazin, who is an amazing writer, to help him with the task. It's past time for them to understand that sometimes a story has be adapted to a different medium, in the better sense of the world.

 

3 hours ago, izabella said:

I don't know if I have to reexamine my morals or ethics or whatever, but I wasn't the least bit conflicted about Joel freeing Ellie from the people about to murder her.  The Fireflies hit them, knocked them out, and kidnapped them.  They separated them and immediately started their prep work to harvest Ellie's brain without giving her a choice.  That makes it planned murder.  I didn't blame Joel at all for shooting his way to Ellie, and shooting his way out to save her, including Marlene. 

If he had merely objected to Ellie's murder and did nothing, they would have murdered him, too, eventually.  I believe Marlene would have decided it wasn't safe to let him leave.  I can imagine..."What if he tells others where we are?"  "He's killed so many people; he doesn't deserve to live."

Marlene's mistake was to assume Joel wouldn't care about Ellie's death, and he was just the same mercenary killer he had been.  Otherwise, she wouldn't have told him that Ellie did not know she was about to be killed without her consent.  If they thought she would have agreed, they would have told her and let her decide.  Clearly, they wanted to avoid giving her that choice.  "So she wouldn't be scared" is not a good reason to take away her choice.  That makes it murder. 

So, I'm perfectly fine with all of it, except I think Joel should have told Ellie she was about to murdered by mad scientists who don't know shit, and he did what he had to to save her.

Exactly. 

Marlene begging for her life, when she had just instructed men to kill him, if he tried anything. 🙄

1 hour ago, Uncle JUICE said:

...is a question Joel could have asked Marlene and saved like 68 lives of the people he ends up shooting. :) Well done. 

If she was carrying a cure in her blood, since birth, why was she attacked in the mall? Why didn't Marlene ask herself that? Wouldn't she have the cordyceps in her blood, before being attacked? 

[Danny Franks]

Ah, debating over whether Joel did the right thing or not... welcome to the world that The Last of Us players have been in for years, now. Is Joel the good guy or the bad guy?... Yes. I remember one game streamer put it succinctly, in a way that resonated with me - The world took everything Joel loved once, and he wasn't going to let it happen again.

Joel chooses to save one person over the world. The thing is, that one person is his world. Is he selfish? Yeah. But is humanity even worth saving anyway? But the follow-on question is, what would Ellie have wanted? Like she said, "it can't be for nothing."

The dissonance of seeing Joel kill all those people to save Ellie works even better in the show, because there hasn't been fifteen hours of Infected and human killing exploits leading up to it. Joel has been talked about as scary, but what we've seen him be is a bit fragile and weak. He thought he was getting old, that he was failing and would screw things up, but we got a glimpse of the violence he's capable of in the last episode, and it was in full force here.

But before that, we got some peace and tranquillity, as Ellie was coming to terms with everything she's been through and Joel was having to do more to connect with her. Bella Ramsey was great again, as a far more subdued, traumatised Ellie. She's so fucking good, man. And Pedro was heart-breaking, trying so hard to get her to open up.

The giraffe scene is one of those that sounds completely odd, but it just works so well. Ellie's carefree laughter and Joel just smiling at her. It's just lovely. And at least animals are thriving again, now humans are so reduced.

I love Ashley Johnson, recognised her voice instantly, and having her play Ellie's mother was inspired. Not only because... she kind of is Ellie's creator, but also because she really looks a lot like Bella Ramsey. This show wouldn't exist today, if not for the work that she and Troy Baker put in, bringing Ellie and Joel to life. Anna being bitten just as she was delivering Ellie was an interesting explanation for her immunity. I guess... why not?

Marlene was a coward. She could kill Ellie, but she couldn't look her in the eyes and ask her to die. That's where she went wrong, because if she'd been able to do that, then Ellie would have chosen and Joel would have had to accept it. But she didn't think that cold, dead-inside, violent Joel would have formed such an emotional connection with Ellie. But once she saw his reaction, she should have known the only option was to kill him. I guess she didn't want to be that ruthless. Unfortunately for her, Joel did want to be.

His shootout through the hospital reminded me of nothing so much as the police station shootout in Terminator. Just mercilessly killing people without anything approaching remorse. You can play this part of the game like that, if you're way better at it than I am.

I think Joel was a bit too talkative about Sarah for my liking, but I do like seeing him more as he was before all this, and being able to think of Sarah with a smile on his face. 

"Her name was Riley, and she was the first to die." Such an iconic line, I feel like it's a line I knew before I even played the game.

Now we've all got at least a year to wonder what Ellie meant by "okay." Unless we've played Part 2, of course.

[conquistador]

11 minutes ago, Danny Franks said:

The giraffe scene is one of those that sounds completely odd, but it just works so well. Ellie's carefree laughter and Joel just smiling at her. It's just lovely. And at least animals are thriving again, now humans are so reduced.I

And apparently, the giraffe was real!

[paramitch]

6 minutes ago, conquistador said:

And apparently, the giraffe was real!

Oh, bless you. This is the image I needed today after that very grim and sobering finale! Thank you for this. I especially love the fact that even giraffes are visibly helpless against the power of Pedro Pascal. (Let's face it, Pedro could probably cure real-world cordyceps with a smile or a dad joke.)

[izabella]

1 hour ago, cardigirl said:

In the end, as beautifully filmed as this show was, as much as I enjoyed Pedro and Belle in their roles, I am left feeling like there is a lot missing. 

This is an apocalyptic world, where the logic isn't always the best. It's a shooter game. Even with changing some of the characters from the game, I didn't feel it gave way to a more epic world view. Maybe it's not supposed to, it's nihilistic. 

I feel like I was led down a path to nowhere. 

The Jackson community was the only real sign of hope and renewal in this world.  I would have enjoyed more on how they are surviving and working things out among them.  With occasional visits with Florence and Marlon.