‘The Last Of Us’ Episode 7 Recap And Review: Left Behind

The Last Of Us interrupts the main story once again for a flashback. As with episode 3’s glimpse back in time, the episode works in many ways, giving us a clearer portrait of Ellie’s past and exactly what happened to her just weeks before she meets Joel.

I am of two minds on how well this works in the bigger picture. Allow me to explain.

On the one hand, I really liked this episode as a self-contained story. It’s based on the Left Behind DLC and follows that very closely (I haven’t played it in years so I can’t remember it well enough to discuss any deviations; close enough, basically). I enjoyed seeing a bit of Ellie’s life before her escape with Joel. I liked that the FEDRA commander who disciplines her for fighting seemed . . . like one of the nicest people in the whole show. It’s good to remind viewers that this isn’t a struggle between clearly good and clearly bad people. Just people doing what they think is best.

This is the conflict established between Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Riley (Storm Reid). They’re best friends and bunk-mates and then Riley disappears. We learn later that she’s joined the Fireflies, while Ellie is still in FEDRA school, training to be the exact people Riley is now building bombs to kill. That’s an interesting conflict between two people who care deeply for one another. (Deeply enough that it spills over into a kiss and the potential for romance, though this is a fairly minor point in the episode, and I think it would have worked just as well with them just being good friends).

I loved the music in this episode as well. Eddie Vedder on the Sony Walkman. The carousel music was The Cure. Some Aha in there for good measure. Then Etta James singing I Got You Babe—just before the infected shows up and ruins everything, biting both girls just moments after they kiss and Riley decides not to go away. It’s tragic, and adds a lot of necessary information to our understanding of Ellie and why she’s so pissed off when she meets Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Tess (Anna Torv).

A stray observation: Ellie is much angrier and more defiant in general in the show than she is in The Last Of Us video game (ha, my colleague Paul Tassi just wrote about this today). She’s a bit more morbid as well, fascinated with dead things and guns and eager to be part of the violence. She’s also just a little bit less pleasant all around and I think this has turned some people off to the character, and especially some fans of the game. I get it, I like game Ellie better also, but . . . .

1) Game Ellie shouldn’t have been so easy going if she just lost Riley. It makes a lot more sense for her to be angry, sad, heartbroken, defiant. She just lost her BFF, someone she loved as a friend and as a potential romantic partner.

2) This helps set up Ellie of The Last Of Us Part II a lot better. The Ellie of Seasons 2 and 3 of HBO’s adaptation. An Ellie that, without spoiling too much, is fairly horrible in a lot of ways.

The problem I keep thinking about—on top of the rest of the setup of Part II in general and how that translates to TV—is that even with all of these efforts to make Ellie more violent and angry, I’m still not sure I see Ramsey pulling it off. I think she’s great, don’t get me wrong, but Ellie of Part II is a tour de force and I’m just not sure.

Anyways . . .

I suppose my problem with this episode, even though it’s plucked from the game and at the same juncture as the game, with Joel wounded, is that it interrupts the story again to give us yet more flashbacks. And I don’t hate flashbacks, but at this point one thing that never bothered me in the games is starting to bother me here: Everyone outside of Joel and Ellie is starting to feel disposable. We meet them, get to know them, probably get to like them, and then BAM they’re dead. Bill and Frank, Sam and Henry, Tess and Riley. Sure, we have Tommy still and the people of Jackson, but they’re back in Wyoming, not in the story anymore in any meaningful way.

So I guess the flashbacks just add to this sense that every new episode introduces and then axes some new character, good or bad, and then we move on. And that works to a degree. At least we’re not stuck in Georgia with the same slowly ballooning cast like we were in The Walking Dead. At least this show kills people off and moves on. But maybe the impact would be greater if they were around longer than one or two episodes. If Tess had been with us for most of the first season before dying, for instance. If Bill had lived and joined Joel and Ellie for a bit. I know that would be a departure from the game—but who cares? We need more time with these characters. At least in the game, you spend several hours with Tess before she’s gone.

I have more to say about the game vs the show but I’m going to save it for a separate post. Overall, I did like this episode a lot, but it’s another depressing entry in the show in the end, for all its lighter moments. I loved those moments in the mall, but damn this story sure does bum me out. What did you think?

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If you’re interested in further thoughts about how to televise Part II you can watch my video below:

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P.S.

When the wonderful third episode of The Last Of Us aired a lot of people were angry because it was a gay love story that, while drawn from the game, was not included in it. I got in some arguments with people saying things like ‘I’m not homophobic but why do they have to shove this stuff down our throats!?’

Well all I can say is welcome to The Last Of Us. This video game series is politically progressive, with a diverse cast of characters some of whom are LGBTQ, including Ellie. Others, like Joel, are straight white cis-males. Overall, I think the games handle this very well, though the writing in Part II suffers from a heavy hand at times (in other ways beyond sexuality, including the cartoonish bad guys).

I do think this episode would have worked just as well if Ellie and Riley were just friends, but the kiss adds more layers to Ellie and a bit more heartbreak to the story, and I believe makes it an overall better episode and better game. It also sets up Ellie’s future story arc.

Previous Last Of Us recap/reviews from yours truly: