'The Last of Us' ending explained: Did Joel make the right choice?
Don't let the shorter runtime of The Last of Us's Season 1 finale fool you. Like the eight episodes before it, "Look for the Light" delivers thrills, tears, and horror in varied amounts — much of these coming as a result of Joel's (Pedro Pascal) cataclysmic final choice.
"Look for the Light" sees Joel and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) finally reach Salt Lake City. There, they find Marlene (Merle Dandridge) and the Fireflies, who plan to use Ellie's immunity to develop a cure for the infectious Cordyceps fungus. However, Marlene reveals to Joel that to access the raw material needed to synthesize this cure, Ellie will have to die. When given a choice between saving the world and saving the person dearest to him, Joel chooses to save Ellie, killing everyone in the hospital in the process.
It's a devastating sequence. After all, Joel is destroying the only shot the world may have at a cure. But at the same time, it's a choice that The Last of Us has been building to for the entire season, and especially this episode. Let's break down the events of "Look for the Light" — and what they tell us about Joel's decision.
The Last of Us reveals Ellie's origin story.
The Last of Us gave us a peek into Ellie's past with its "Left Behind" episode, but "Look for the Light" shows us the very moment she came into the world — and the reason why she's immune in the first place.
Ellie's mother Anna (played by original Ellie actor Ashley Johnson) gives birth to Ellie right after being bitten by one of the Infected. Since baby Ellie was still linked to Anna through her umbilical cord, the infection traveled to her. Her immunity is due to the fact that the Cordyceps has grown with her, in her brain, since birth.
The worst part of this sequence comes later, when Anna begs Marlene to kill her before she can turn. Marlene refuses at first, but eventually she relents and shoots Anna. As heartbreaking as this moment is, it's also incredibly telling: Marlene is no stranger to making hard decisions, even when it comes to hurting those close to her. If a painful death can provide mercy, she'll grant that to someone. And if the death of a child she was chosen to watch over can bring hope to the world, Marlene will make that call as well.
The Last of Us cements Joel and Ellie's father-daughter bond in "Look for the Light."
After Joel referred to Ellie as "baby girl" — his nickname for late daughter Sarah (Nico Parker) — in episode 8, it's abundantly clear that he thinks of her as more than just his charge. He views her as a daughter. A discussion between the two once they reach Salt Lake City cements this change in their relationship.
Joel opens up to Ellie about the scar on his temple, the one he claimed was left by a man who shot and missed. Turns out, he was the man who shot and missed, having attempted to die by suicide after losing Sarah. It's a reveal that carries an enormous amount of emotional weight: There's no way the Joel who knocked Ellie to the ground in episode 1 would have trusted her with a truth of this magnitude.
Ellie receives this news with the proper amount of solemnity and respect, listening to Joel as he speaks. "So, time heals all wounds, I guess," she remarks.
"It wasn't time that did it," Joel responds. The true meaning of that statement — that Ellie healed him — remains unspoken, but the two appear aware of it just the same. As the pair of them forge onwards with the help of some horrendous puns courtesy of Will Livingston, it's easy to see that their relationship has never been stronger.
The Fireflies threaten to take away the person Joel loves most — but would Ellie have wanted to go through with it?
The Fireflies ambush and separate Ellie and Joel, leaving Joel to speak with Marlene. She reveals why Ellie is immune, and she explains that the Fireflies' surgeon will need to cut into the Cordyceps within Ellie's brain to produce a cure. Joel refuses to lose another daughter and goes on a deadly rampage through the hospital to get to Ellie in time. If you thought the interrogation scene in episode 8 was brutal, this sequence shows a whole new level of what Joel is capable of.
Joel saves an unconscious Ellie before her surgery can begin — note how he carries her in the same way he carried an injured Sarah in episode 1. Before he can leave, though, Marlene confronts him.
"You can't keep her safe forever. No matter how hard you try, no matter how many people you kill, she's gonna grow up, Joel," she says. "And then you'll die, she'll leave. Then what? How long before she's torn apart by Infected or murdered by raiders because she lives in a broken world that you could have saved?"
"Maybe," Joel responds. "But it isn't for you to decide."
"Or you," Marlene says. "So, what would she decide? Because I think she'd wanna do what's right."
Marlene's words raise an interesting point, one that lingers long after Joel has killed her and drives Ellie back to Wyoming. Earlier in the episode, Joel tells Ellie that they could very well turn around and head back to Jackson, but she refuses.
"After all we've been through. Everything I've done. It can't be for nothing," she tells him. Throughout the opening of the episode, we see a more subdued Ellie, one who has been traumatized by her cross-country journey and especially by her encounter with David (Scott Shepherd). These events have made her more determined than ever to see this through. As she reminds Joel, "There's no halfway with this. We finish what we started."
So, when Joel lies to Ellie about the Fireflies being unable to find a cure, and about raiders attacking the hospital, this is a devastating blow to her. Every trauma she's experienced, every death she's witnessed — in her mind, they were all for naught. She opens up about her survivor's guilt to Joel, telling him about Riley (Storm Reid) and reminding him of Tess (Anna Torv), Henry (Lamar Johnson), and Sam (Keivonn Woodard). Her immunity could have given their deaths meaning, and based on her insistence that she and Joel finish their mission, it's highly likely that she would have been willing to sacrifice herself in order to do that.
Joel recognizes this and swears that he's telling the truth, and Ellie, who has previously stated that she'd follow Joel anywhere post-Fireflies, simply says, "OK," seeming to believe him.
Joel's choice has been foreshadowed by almost every character we've met this season.
As controversial as it is, Joel's choice should come as no surprise. Throughout the season, The Last of Us has been exploring how love impacts our actions towards others, even pushing us to extremes.
In the case of Bill (Nick Offerman), we saw how his love for Frank (Murray Bartlett) gave him something other than survival to fight for in the apocalypse. And while his love may have softened his defenses towards outsiders like Joel and Tess, it also hardened his resolve to keep Frank alive. "There was one person worth saving," Bill writes in his suicide letter to Joel. "That's what I did: I saved him. And I protected him. That's why men like you and me are here: We have a job to do. And God help any motherfuckers who stand in our way."
Throughout the season, Joel's "one person" becomes Ellie, and the finale sees him follow in Bill's footsteps and fight like hell to keep protecting her. And God help the Fireflies who stand in his way.
While Bill and Frank's love is presented as hopeful and nurturing against the bleak backdrop of the apocalypse, The Last of Us presents us with some examples of love that have disastrous consequences despite the loving intentions behind them.
The first is Henry's love for Sam. When Sam got sick, Henry gave up the leader of the Kansas City resistance movement to FEDRA in exchange for medicine. Yet despite saving Sam's life, Henry also feels some guilt over his actions. "Am I the bad guy?" he asks Joel. "The answer's easy. I am the bad guy because I did a bad guy thing." However, given Henry's deep love for Sam, you know that he would do it all over again in a heartbeat in order to save him. The same goes for Joel, whose actions at the hospital are definitely awful. But again, just as Henry would do anything to save Sam, so would Joel do anything to save Ellie.
Then there's Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey), whose brother was the resistance leader turned in by Henry. Her love for him festers into an intense and destructive quest for vengeance, one that leads to countless brutal deaths of both FEDRA soldiers and their collaborators. Her refusal to forgive or compromise is borderline sinister — still, you know she's coming from a place of love and grief. So, too, is Joel as he goes on his killing spree throughout the hospital. He's committing a monstrous act in the name of love.
The Last of Us constantly presents us with examples of love in the time of Cordyceps, each with an unasked question lurking behind it. What form will Joel's love for Ellie take? What about her love for him? And in the finale, we get the answer to the first question. Joel's love is an amalgamation of Bill's, Henry's, and Kathleen's: He has a fierce desire to protect, one that pushes him to commit horrific acts that he will have to live with forever. Yet you know, as he tells Ellie about Sarah on the hike to Jackson, that he wouldn't change his actions.
So, did Joel make the right choice?
Obviously, this is a loaded question. From a utilitarian perspective, Joel is absolutely in the wrong. Think of the finale of The Last of Us like a fungus-encrusted trolley problem: Joel chose to sacrifice the world for the life of one person. He then lied about it to Ellie, robbing her of any say she might have in the matter.
To be fair, the Fireflies did the same thing. They stripped away Ellie's agency by failing to tell her about the true nature of the procedure she was about to undergo. Marlene assumes that Ellie would have wanted to go through with the sacrifice, and based on Ellie's actions earlier in the episode, it's likely she would have wanted to as well. But the Fireflies never give her the choice, an action that is in itself alarming.
If you want to make the case for Joel, you can cite that he was acting out of love — although you'd then have to reckon with whether Henry's and Kathleen's actions are "right" as well. The matter remains that Joel wiped out a big chunk of the Fireflies and deprived the world of a potential cure in one fell swoop.
But does the world even need a cure? Throughout this first season, The Last of Us has shown that it is entirely possible to live a fulfilling life in this new, post-apocalyptic world. Think of Bill and Frank's cozy settlement, or the isolated couple in Wyoming, or the commune out in Jackson. These people are able to thrive without a cure.
Still, just because something is good doesn't mean it can't be better, and the cure for Cordyceps would undoubtedly better the world. It could help people in the QZs get out from under the fascistic thumb of FEDRA and stop them from living in so much fear of the virus. It could be the key to a more hopeful future. Joel destroyed that future, and he destroyed any role Ellie may have had in creating it.
There is no easy answer here. The Last of Us makes it so you know where Joel is coming from, but it also acknowledges that he has committed an atrocity. It also puts us in an uncomfortable spot. We may condemn Joel, but what if it was one of our loved ones on that operating table? What then? Would we be able to live with the consequences of either decision? And as we head into Season 2, the question remains: Will Joel?