‘The Last Of Us’ Seems Like It’s Changing Ellie In A Significant Way

Tonight, we will get some of Ellie’s backstory in Left Behind, a Neil Druckmann-directed episode of The Last of Us based on DLC from the first game. We learn not just about one of Ellie’s early romances, but also how she got bit, and I believe they may be interjecting a bit about her mother into this version as well.

The previews echo something that it feels like the show has done purposefully over the course of this season, that Bella Ramsey’s show Ellie feels quite a bit more…aggressive than game Ellie. I was talking about this with my colleague Erik Kain who pointed out that he thinks this is something they’re putting in place for Part 2, which will be season 2 of the show, and requires Ellie to go full movie horror villain as she carves out a path of vengeance.

I would agree. Yes, it’s true that of course as you play the game, you will have Ellie hopping on people’s backs and stabbing them to death with shivs, but here, it does seem like a conscious choice to have Ellie be a character a lot more likely to not just turn to violence, but often actively run toward it.

We see this in her fascination with being able to acquire and wield a gun, which took up most of the first half of season 1 here. She gives Joel no real pushback about either his past or current murders, and actively defends him when given the chance to people like Maria who question his character. She seems to embrace her role as a pseudo-enforcer. “Who’s this little psycho?” is how she’s greeted as she reveals herself to the old man her and Joel confront in the cabin in the woods. It seems…apt.

None of this is to say this is a bad change from the games. Bella Ramsey was famously told not to play the games at all so she could do her own take on Ellie, rather than just doing an impression of Ashley Johnson, who plays her in the game. Not only is she doing that, I think, but I do think there has been some level of direction here to give Ellie more of a noticeable edge than she had in the games, and not just through constant cursing. Every post-show podcast I listen to with Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann they’re always talking about how Ellie wants that power, wants that ability to wield violence as a means to that power to feel in control. She idolizes Joel not just because he’s protecting her, but because she very much wants to be like him.

Again, elements of this are certainly present in the game, but I do think it is a hugely jarring switch between the Ellie of the first game and the Ellie in Part 2. Here, I think the transition between this current version of Ramsey’s Ellie to the next will be a lot smoother because of the seeds that have been planted now.

Spoilers for Part 2 follow.

I think the show may really struggle with its audience when they brutally kill off Joel, which is the impetus for Ellie’s rage. I’ve said before I’m reminded of the “Negan beats Glenn to death” scene in The Walking Dead where many people simply walked away after that, and I’m wondering if audiences will tolerate this like a Game of Thrones-style death, or more like Glenn’s, which came off just sort of…revolting, even if it was directly pulled from the source material, like Joel’s would be.

There have been some saying that maybe the show will write around this death and not kill Joel after all. I mean, they killed Bill here when they didn’t in the game, so character fates can change. But no, there’s just no way that will happen as it’s the entire plot of the second game. And what they’re doing with Ellie here, attaching her to Joel and feeding her violent instincts, they are very much setting up what’s coming.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.