The heartbreaking seventh episode of The Last of Us, centering on Ellie’s past and her relationship with Riley, is important for the series adaptation of the video game. Here’s why. Warning, spoilers.
Warning, spoilers. It is advisable to have seen episode 7 of The Last of Us before continuing to read this article.
A true phenomenon, The Last of Us can boast of being already considered the best video game adaptation. Huge success in the United States on HBO and in France on Prime Video, the series, created by Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin), moves a large audience week after week and convinces fans of the video game franchise as much as neophytes.
And as the first season slowly but surely approaches its epic ending, The Last of Us is once again transcended by a special episode of great importance, which further contributes to elevating the series to a major work status. and unavoidable.
Available since Monday, February 27 on Prime Video, the penultimate chapter, entitled “Left Behind”, is a direct transposition of the famous DLC (additional downloadable content) of the same name from the first video game. The Last of Us: Part I.
The latter resulting from a desire to extend the story of Ellie and Riley, whose meeting is told in the comic The Last of Us: American Dreams written by Neil Druckmann and illustrated by artist Faith Erin Hicks.
Return to the past necessary
In this seventh episode, The Last of Us gives itself another return to the past, and more precisely that of Ellie (Bella Ramsey). The young girl is in total panic after the injury of Joel (Pedro Pascal), which occurred after an attack by looters in a hospital in Utah. She may be losing the only person she has left, who protects her and takes care of her.
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This anguish caused by the loss of a loved one brings her back to a painful and traumatic memory: the death of Riley (Storm Reid), her best friend and roommate in the training center/boarding school. FEDRA (Federal Disaster Management Agency).
In the DLC, released one year after the video game The Last of Us: Part I, the player is brought back to when Joel is injured by falling from several floors (and not stabbed as in the series) and Ellie is looking for something to heal him. The mission is simple for the player: you have to go through a shopping center to find a first aid kit, all without getting killed by Infected. The quest is interspersed with cutscenes chronicling Ellie and Riley’s last night in Boston.
And it is precisely on this night that the episode focuses, given that the mission itself serves the player’s pleasure and the game’s gameplay more than the narrative. Episode 7 accurately picks up the highlights of the night in a disused mall between the two young girls before Riley leaves Boston.
Indeed, the latter has joined the Fireflies (the military revolutionary group of which Marlene is a part) and a mission in another city has been assigned to her. Before leaving, she wants to spend one last surprise evening with Ellie, who has never known outside of the FEDRA center. This nostalgic break in the main plot of The Last of Us once again enriches the development of the relationship between Joel and Ellie.
While in the previous episode, Joel told Ellie that she didn’t know what mourning was, this episode proves to us that the young girl knows exactly what it is. This night in the mall will be the last in Riley’s life, since after some rejoicing, the two teenagers are attacked by an Infected (several in the DLC). Even if they manage to neutralize it, they have unfortunately been bitten.
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And it is thanks to this flashback that we know how Ellie understood that she was immune to Cordyceps, since she will be the only one to spend the night and not transform, unlike Riley. As in the game, we don’t know if Ellie had to kill her or if the Fireflies intervened before, but Ellie had to accept Riley’s doom.
And losing Riley was a real trauma for Ellie, who now couldn’t handle losing Joel. This seventh episode reveals much more to us about Ellie’s past and her personality – even with an interesting preamble within the center of the FEDRA showing us the rage and the ambivalent feeling towards the violence of Ellie – which had been a little neglected at the expense of exploring the character of Joel, especially in his relationships with Tess, Bill, Frank and Tommy.
A refreshing teenage break
With this seventh episode, The Last of Us very faithfully transcribes the cinematics of Ellie and Riley from the video game, down to the smallest detail, between the famous joke book No Pun Intended (a gift from Riley to Ellie), the passage in the arcade games room, the carousel ride and the session at the photo booth, even if some structural modifications have been made for the sake of scriptwriting fluidity.
More than a necessary return to the past, “Left Behind” is also a refreshing parenthesis in the oppressive plot of The Last of Us. Since the beginning of the series, Ellie has had to undergo many upheavals and dangerous situations that pushed to grow and mature faster than others.
However, it is good to remember that she is only fourteen years old and that her childhood was, so to speak, stolen from her. By allowing herself this final night with Riley, Ellie gives herself a moment of lightness that allows her to breathe and be herself without taking refuge in the anger and violence that serve as shields in her daily life. Riley and she have fun with masks, disguises, take a ride on the carousel or even play an arcane game.
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This episode includes all the codes of the works coming of age with two teenagers who are looking for each other, who are in the throes of uncertainty, who rebel and who discover their first emotions. They hide, drink alcohol for the first time, bicker, question each other, flirt, want to please each other and even exchange their first kiss.
Until the tragic outcome, “Left Behind” tells the power of a friendship and the beginnings of a romance – killed in full bloom – without however sexualizing it or minimizing its share of innocence and brings a breath of fresh air in the season, that we almost forget the post-apocalyptic context.
This is precisely what Storm Reid liked, the interpreter of Riley, who praised the work of the entire team of The Last of Us to transcribe the very beautiful relationship of Ellie and Riley on the screen, as she told AlloCiné during a round table:
“I think it’s an ode to young people with feelings and on the cusp of adolescence. I love that the team, Craig [Mazin, ndlr] and our brilliant director [Liza Johnson, ndlr] and everyone involved in creating the episode didn’t want to feel like they were romanticizing the relationship of these young people too much.
It’s an organic friendship through which you then explore other things. And I think they did a great job, even on the set, following these bonds of friendship and love, with moments of flirtation for these teenagers who also become children again. And I think it’s beautiful.”
HBO
This very intimate “Left Behind” episode is also carried by the exceptional performances of their performers. Bella Ramsey continues to deploy all her talent in the skin of Ellie and she shares a beautiful complicity and alchemy with her playing partner Storm Reid.
The episode gives pride of place to the performance of the actress, known in particular for her role of Gia, Rue’s sister (Zendaya) in Euphoria, who embodies with sensitivity the character of Riley, the one who is finally “left behind” .
Then returning to the present, we see that Ellie knows she won’t leave Joel behind. Not this time. She realizes how important this man is to her and she will do everything to ensure that he survives and is by her side no matter what. She is finally master of her destiny and it is she who must take matters into her own hands to hope to survive.
Mirror effect with episode 3 on Bill and Frank
Watching “Left Behind”, one cannot help but think of another sublime episode of The Last of Us, namely “Long, Long Time”, the third chapter of the series centered on the love story between Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett). Their places within the season does not seem to be a trivial choice since “Long, Long Time” is the 3rd episode from the beginning and “Left Behind” is the 3rd episode from the end.
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As in a mirror effect, these two chapters respond to each other by telling two love stories, homosexual moreover, as beautiful as they are tragic. On the one hand, we are witnessing the death of a long and complete romance, on the other, we are facing the death of a brief and burgeoning romance.
There are similarities in these love stories depicted right down to their ending: Bill and Frank kill each other in their old age because Frank is dying and Bill can’t bear to live without him while Ellie and Riley consider to kill themselves after being bitten by an Infected but finally decide to live “their last moments” together.
Asked about the question by AlloCiné, Bella Ramsey believes that there is “parallels between the two stories” and that the two episodes are moving because they are also very cruel:
“It shows the harsh reality of the world these characters live in. There are stories that sometimes in a lonely place can come to an end, and other times there are stories that are brutally and cruelly cut short. And Ellie and the other characters understand that in pain living in this post-apocalyptic environment.”
For her part, Storm Reid hopes that the seventh episode centered on Ellie and Riley will have an impact similar to that caused by the chapter dedicated to Bill and Frank, the actress having been upset by “Long, Long Time”:
“I remember watching Episode 3 and being completely blown away and moved. I think I’ll feel the same [devant l’épisode 7] because it is so beautiful and so poetic. And I admire everything that happens in the series obviously. We’re deepening our characters’ perspectives, their arcs, and their stories, and I think that’s really helpful, especially for people who haven’t played the game.”
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Both episodes are brilliantly written, with great emotion and delicacy in portraying feelings, whether filled with recklessness in the case of Riley and Ellie and experience in the case of Bill and Frank.
No offense to the few critics of the DLC – yet praised by critics and multi-awarded – this episode is a formidable tableau of play, narration, representation (especially in the video game world) and constitutes a coherent and important element in the development of the character of Ellie and in her relationship with Joel.
During the round table in which AlloCiné participated, Bella Ramsey recalled what was the very essence of The Last of Us. More than a “series of post-apocalyptic zombies”, this work, and the game of which it is adapted, is a story full of love – paternal, fraternal or romantic – and humanity, which the seventh episode echoes, like episode 3:
“The Last of Us is basically a love story in all its forms, between Ellie and Joel, between Joel and Tess and then Bill and Frank and Ellie and Riley. The series simply explores all the ranges of feelings and strange emotions and elusive that love provides and represents.
In the same way, I think it’s important that all of these types of love are represented, whether it’s between two straight characters or two gay characters, it’s the same love. So I think it’s important that people are seen and represented because just because we’re living in the apocalypse doesn’t mean those people don’t exist.”
The Last of Us series is available on Prime Video.