Warning: the following article contains spoilers for The Last of Us episode eight, “When We Are In Need.”
One of the most dreaded narrative threads in the entire story of The Last of Us finally arrived in this week’s episode (besides perhaps the final moments of the prologue), and as expected, it delivered on the trauma.
As usual, there were minor changes made here and there to enhance the story, or at the very least make it more digestible in a non-gameplay format, but one scene sticks out more than others – the moment at the end of the episode when Joel and Ellie reunite.
While we’re not criticizing it, in fact we thought it was done exceptionally well, and showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann took some time to unpack why Joel and Ellie reunited outside the steakhouse, rather than inside while Ellie is still slashing David’s face into ‘tiny little pieces’ with a knife.
On HBO’s The Last of Us Podcast, Druckmann and Mazin explained that in a live-action format, it didn’t make a lot of sense for Joel and Ellie to reunite inside a burning building. Furthermore, it filled in something of a logic gap from the game – seeing as the only way in or out of the burning steakhouse required David’s keys. Further to that, Mazin adds another particularly grim reason for the change:
“[We wanted] our Ellie to have completed [stabbing David] to the point where she could literally walk away on her own.”
Druckmann goes on to unpack how in both the case of the show and the game, the scene illustrates an expectation that Joel is going to swoop in and save Ellie, but she ends up saving herself. Instead, Joel ends up saving her emotionally, and truly becomes her father figure in that moment.
We’ll have to see how Joel and Ellie’s pretty much official father and daughter dynamic comes into play when the season one finale of The Last of Us lands on HBO Max next Sunday. Hopefully the big conclusion doesn’t add to the growing list of editing errors on the show.