The Last of Us is full of dark moments. In Season 1 alone, Tess dies a gruesome death to save Joel and Ellie, Henry kills himself after his brother, Sam, turns, and Joel kills an entire hospital full of Fireflies to stop them from killing Ellie to use her brain to make a cure. At first, Season 2 appears to be turning over a new leaf, allowing Joel and Ellie to live peacefully in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. However, by Episode 2, the show is harder to watch than ever when Abby kills Joel with a golf club in front of Ellie.
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Watching her father figure die awakens something inside of Ellie, sending her on a quest for revenge in Seattle, Washington. She taps into her dark side on numerous occasions, such as when she tortures Nora for information in the hospital. Another moment surpasses that one on the darkness scale, though, making the scene in The Last of Us Part II feel like a trip to Disneyland.
Ellie Chooses the Path of Most Resistance in The Last of Us Season 2
It takes Ellie a few episodes to hunt down a member of Abby’s crew. She learns that Nora works at a hospital and makes her way there after Jesse arrives and gets Dina to safety. After a brief chase, they end up on a level of the building that’s full of spores, which immediately affect Nora. Ellie watches her struggle to breathe and proceeds to beat her with a pipe, hoping she’ll reveal Abby’s location. She only gets a couple of words out of her, and when she gets back to Jesse and Dina, she’s ready to meet up with Tommy and head back home.
When she heads out with Jesse, they climb to the top level of a building to get a better view of the city. It doesn’t take long to figure out Tommy’s location because he’s in a firefight with members of the Washington Liberation Front, but Ellie turns her attention elsewhere. She spots a Ferris wheel and an aquarium that seem to be in the area Nora described. After a brief argument, she leaves Jesse and heads toward her destination. She makes her way into the aquarium, looks around, and eventually hears two people talking.
After busting in the room, Ellie realizes she’s face to face with Owen and Mel, members of Abby’s crew. She tells them she doesn’t want to hurt them and just wants to know where Abby is, but Owen doesn’t believe her. He reaches for his gun, forcing Ellie to shoot and kill him. Her gun is no joke, though, as the bullet it fires goes through him and finds a second tyarget, Mel, who falls to the floor and reveals to Ellie that she’s pregnant. The whole sequence up to that point is pretty similar to The Last of Us Part II video game, but the show forges its own path by having Mel give Ellie an impossible task.
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The Last of Us Season 2’s Ellie Fails Worse Than Her Video Game Counterpart
Mel has more of a heart than her fellow former Fireflies. She shows compassion during the attack on Joel, even reassuring Dina that the sedative they give her won’t kill her. Mel’s attitude doesn’t change during the season because, when Ellie crosses paths with her again, she’s pleading with Owen to be smart about involving himself in the WLF’s attack on the Seraphite island. She also tries to extend an olive branch to Ellie by trusting that the grieving girl won’t shoot them. However, Owen just can’t let cooler heads prevail, which forces Mel to use her dying breath to ask her killer to save her baby.
In The Last of Us Part II, Mel goes after Ellie after she shoots Owen, and during the scuffle, Ellie stabs Mel in the neck. Mel dies pretty quickly, giving Ellie the chance to open her coat and see that she’s pregnant without fear of another attack. Show Mel, on the other hand, isn’t trying to hurt anyone, and once she realizes her time is limited, she tries to coach Ellie through delivering the baby. Ellie tries at first to understand what Mel is saying, but as the Wolf begins to slur her words, it becomes a losing battle. Ellie just pulls Mel’s shirt back down and sobs until Tommy and Jesse arrive at the aquarium. Ellie shows the same emotion in the game, but she doesn’t have to deal with the fact that she’s unable to give Mel’s baby a fighting chance.
The Last of Us Season 2 is streaming on HBO Max.
Do you think Mel’s death in The Last of Us Season 2 is darker than in the game? How do you think the show handled the moment in the aquarium in general? Let us know in the comments below!
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