The final episode of The Last of Us answers one of the series’ biggest questions. How and why is Ellie immune to Cordyceps? Warning, spoilers.
Warning, spoilers. It is advisable to have seen the final episode of The Last of Us before continuing to read this article.
The first season of The Last of Us ended with its ninth episode, “Look for the Light”, which marks the end of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) journey through an America ravaged by an epidemic. caused by the Cordyceps fungus.
The duo sought to track down the Fireflies, an organization of rebel survivors against the martial law being put in place. This popular militia thinks they can find a cure or a vaccine against the infection thanks to Ellie, who is miraculously immune.
And the final episode of The Last of Us answers a big question that all fans are asking: how did Ellie become immune to Cordyceps. The answer lies in the first sequence of the episode.
Ellie’s immunity explained!
The final episode of The Last of Us starts with an important flashback: it is about the birth of Ellie. We discover her mother Anna, played by Ashley Johnson, the interpreter and the voice of Ellie in the video game, running in the forest. Pregnant up to the neck, she is fleeing an infected.
She eventually finds refuge in an abandoned house and locks herself in an upstairs room. But the infected arrives and attacks him savagely. Anna manages to kill him with her knife and discovers that she gave birth to Ellie during the assault. But above all, she realizes that she has been bitten in the thigh by the infected.
HBO
Anna cuts the umbilical cord with the same knife that was used to kill the infected and comforts her baby whom she names Ellie. Later in the episode, Anna and Ellie are found by Marlene (Merle Dandridge) and Fireflies. Marlene retrieves Ellie and kills Anna, at her request.
It is this intense and tragic childbirth which allows Ellie to be immunized since her mother was bitten at this precise moment and she cut the umbilical cord with the knife which pierced the head of the infected.
Later in the episode, Marlene explains to Joel that “the cordyceps present in Ellie’s body has grown in her since birth”. And it makes the “normal cordyceps” think that she is also a cordyceps being. So that’s why she’s immune and why the Fireflies want to operate on her to find a cure. But people who have seen the episode know that Joel isn’t going to let things go that way.
The Last of Us series is available in full on Prime Video.