Warning: Spoilers for The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II to follow.
We all knew that the season finale of The Last of Us, which just aired on HBO Max last night, was going to bring its diabolical blend of heartache, hope, devastation, and a dose of bloodshed to the table, but no episode has left us with such a distinct discomfort quite like the ninth and final one did.
Marked by an earlier sequence of Joel being the most emotionally open he’s been thus far, the season finale grabbed morality by the horns and sent Joel on an absolute massacre throughout the Fireflies’ hospital, killing countless members as he sought to retrieve Ellie from the surgeon’s table. A destination that they spent the whole season getting to in the first place, and one that would have been the scene of Ellie’s death otherwise.
Given that Ellie was the only one capable of saving the world with the key to immunity inside of her brain, audiences may have felt conflicted about Joel’s blood-soaked, spontaneous decision to ensure that the surgery didn’t happen, which came about by way of Joel accepting Ellie as a daughter by that point and being unwilling to let her die. Coupled with the near certainty that Ellie would have chosen to die if it meant saving the world, it only further complicates how one might feel about what transpired.
According to co-showrunners Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, there’s no one correct way to feel about the events of the season finale, admitting that going back and forth on it in a moral sense remains a common practice for them themselves.
When you love something unconditionally, logic goes out the window and you will do really horrible things to protect the ones you love. And there’s a lot of examples worldwide of this happening all the time. So for us it was just like, ‘Here are all the different pieces that we have, the tools we have within this story. How can we, with each episode, thematically, touch on that in some way?’ I’m confused about it morally. I think it’s a difficult choice. I go back and forth. I think a lot of people will go back and forth on it
Of course, with the second season in the pipeline and the show’s tendency to remain faithful to the original games, karma just might find its way to Joel in the blink of an eye, and whether you’re on team Joel Was Right or Joel Was Wrong, that’s one death that will be impossible to prepare for if it comes true.
The first season of The Last of Us is available to stream in full on HBO Max.