Very economic final episode but it didn't feel rushed to me, which I must admit I was kind of expecting. Nice touch using Ashley Johnson, voice of Ellie in the game, as Ellie's mother. Really enjoyed it and the entire season. My hopes were sky high and it delivered.
Thoughts? I'm particularly interested in the opinions of folks who were not familiar with the story.
In the video game Joel makes the decision to save Ellie because in conversation with Marlene, she makes it known that it is not a guarantee that can produce a cure from removing Ellie’s brain. The doctors would remove Ellie’s brain, which would kill her, but they can’t possibly replicate the cordiceps bond with her brain. Joel can’t risk Ellie’s life on a hope, and then he decides to save her.
In the show, they don’t explain that all. It basically makes Joel seem selfish that he isn’t risking his daughter to save humanity. This was really disappointing to me personally. The episode itself was fine, but this really did let me down.
I played the game recently, when the first episode started 9 weeks back. My interpretation was that it was not guaranteed that they were going to get a cure from Ellie’s brain. It was a risk Joel wasn’t willing to take and that’s why he acted as he did. Yes he did act selfishly to save his “daughter,” but the fireflies didn’t give Ellie a choice either.
How do you leave out the tunnel? How do you leave out Marlene’s recording that explains so much…
This show started out good but nosed dived. Extremely disappointed, the game tells the story so much better.
How do you leave out the tunnel? How do you leave out Marlene’s recording that explains so much…
This show started out good but nosed dived. Extremely disappointed, the game tells the story so much better.
The show is not the video game. Why is the tunnel battle so important? And yes, I’ve played the game
There was no chance i'd serve Ellie up to people who knocked me out and told me that before I could get up to take a piss, they were going to remove her brain.
"How about giving it a week or six to take full advantage of the medical facilities we humped across the country to get to? No? Really?"
Fuck that. Joel could have just told her what he saw and heard (assholes and bullshit).
Joel telling the truth to Ellie about what he did was definitely an option. He could have explained that the procedure would kill her and she might understand. But again, Joel is not thinking rationally here - he's only thinking about holding on to Ellie. And he does not know for sure whether Ellie would have made a different choice and chose to sacrifice herself (her comments to him after they watched the giraffes seem to indicate that she would). Joel lying to her was just yet another selfish act out of fear that her knowing the truth might estrange her from him.
It's definitely a controversial ending, and one that a lot of people simply aren't going to like very much. But it is very accurate to the video game ending - very little was changed.
He should have killed the nurses and everyone else so there were no witnesses left.
He should have killed the nurses and everyone else so there were no witnesses left.
Not exactly
? His motivation is just as clear here as it is in the game. And instead of the hunters we got the KC resistance movement led by Kathleen whose only motivation is to kill Henry.
There was no chance i'd serve Ellie up to people who knocked me out and told me that before I could get up to take a piss, they were going to remove her brain.
"How about giving it a week or six to take full advantage of the medical facilities we humped across the country to get to? No? Really?"
Fuck that. Joel could have just told her what he saw and heard (assholes and bullshit).
I look at it a bit differently. Episode 3 showed us what love can do - make the survival worth it. And that’s really the only thing Joel has left going for him right now with Ellie. And for the viewers we got to see what happens when Frank died - Bill no longer felt living was worth it.
Those are the stakes for the characters and the viewers IMO.
In the video game Joel makes the decision to save Ellie because in conversation with Marlene, she makes it known that it is not a guarantee that can produce a cure from removing Ellie’s brain. The doctors would remove Ellie’s brain, which would kill her, but they can’t possibly replicate the cordiceps bond with her brain. Joel can’t risk Ellie’s life on a hope, and then he decides to save her.
In the show, they don’t explain that all. It basically makes Joel seem selfish that he isn’t risking his daughter to save humanity. This was really disappointing to me personally. The episode itself was fine, but this really did let me down.
Enjoyed the episode but that disappointed me as well. You know how medicine works and the chance of a cure was small. Why not have her alive to try again. They were foolish. Not Joel. But the show made it seem like he sacrificed humanity for her. He actually stopped them from making a big mistake. Haven't played the game. Enjoyed the show.
I'm surprised some of you think there's any upside to telling her the truth. He made a decision. His call. You don't ruin what's left of Ellie's life by telling her she might have been the key to save humanity, but I chose to kill 20 people to stop them.
Probably sometime in 2025. Going to be split into two seasons.
I'm surprised some of you think there's any upside to telling her the truth. He made a decision. His call. You don't ruin what's left of Ellie's life by telling her she might have been the key to save humanity, but I chose to kill 20 people to stop them.
This was my issue with the finale yesterday. They made it seem as if Joel acted on his own selfish desires, not on his understanding of the facts on hand.
I think the exact opposite. He has to live with the things he has done and seen. He made the decision to save her, even if there was a slight chance she could save humanity. I think carrying that burden himself is heroic and saves her from holding it.
This was my issue with the finale yesterday. They made it seem as if Joel acted on his own selfish desires, not on his understanding of the facts on hand.
I don’t agree. It was very clear to me this was the case. You can’t compare every detail to the game - as someone who didn’t play this seemed obvious to me when Joel was talking to Marlena.
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Does a much better job explaining that a cure was very unlikely and that why Joel decided to save Ellie. When you go through the college, you find recording of doctors repeated failing in their attempts to find a cure on their attempts on monkeys. In the hospital, Joel finds a recording of Marlene pleading with her decision to take care of Ellie as she had promised her mother, or go through with the decision to kill her off for the sake humanity. It was very very unlikely that doctors that had very limited resources and very little understanding of the cordiceps latches on to the brain.
This was my issue with the finale yesterday. They made it seem as if Joel acted on his own selfish desires, not on his understanding of the facts on hand.
I don’t agree. It was very clear to me this was the case. You can’t compare every detail to the game - as someone who didn’t play this seemed obvious to me when Joel was talking to Marlena.
Judging by the reactions online and some of the posters on here, I don’t think it was obvious. Maybe you caught on, but I’m 100% certain the grand majority of the non gamers, didn’t catch on.
I'll never forget shooting him in the foot, and watching him crumple to the ground, dead.
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In comment 16061522 JoeyBigBlue said:
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Does a much better job explaining that a cure was very unlikely and that why Joel decided to save Ellie. When you go through the college, you find recording of doctors repeated failing in their attempts to find a cure on their attempts on monkeys. In the hospital, Joel finds a recording of Marlene pleading with her decision to take care of Ellie as she had promised her mother, or go through with the decision to kill her off for the sake humanity. It was very very unlikely that doctors that had very limited resources and very little understanding of the cordiceps latches on to the brain.
This was my issue with the finale yesterday. They made it seem as if Joel acted on his own selfish desires, not on his understanding of the facts on hand.
I don’t agree. It was very clear to me this was the case. You can’t compare every detail to the game - as someone who didn’t play this seemed obvious to me when Joel was talking to Marlena.
Judging by the reactions online and some of the posters on here, I don’t think it was obvious. Maybe you caught on, but I’m 100% certain the grand majority of the non gamers, didn’t catch on.
I didn’t play the game and is was not obvious to me. I felt the conversation between Joel and Marlene was very vague, and have a totally different opinion of Joel after reading this thread. Although I am going to rewatch it tonight.
This was my issue with the finale yesterday. They made it seem as if Joel acted on his own selfish desires, not on his understanding of the facts on hand.
So I revisited the game while watching the show. I would replay each part of the game after the matching episode. So I played the hospital last night.
The game goes incredibly vague in its reasoning for Ellie's immunity. They merely state that the cordyceps has mutated, and little more. What that vagueness, it's easy to believe that while they is hope for a cure, it's certainly not a guarantee.
Thr show is much more specific, explaining about how the cordyxeps has mutated and how it sending different messages. It also demonstrates that these doctors have studied the normal cordyceps infection. They understand it, as they are easily able to differentiate between a normal infection and Ellie's case. While they are no guarantees here, there is a very real possibility this will work.
But here's the thing. Neil Druckmann is one of the two showrunners here. He was in charge of the game, and it seems he's been working hand in hand with Craig Mazin. So this isn't a case of a studio licensing someone else's work and making creative differences left and right. Whatever changes happened were intentional. Which to me means that Druckmann's vision was more in line with a real possibility of hope.
Joel never weighed the risks vs the rewards and decided that it wasn't worth it. Marlene could have said a cure was a guarantee, but it didn't matter. All he knew was they were going to kill Ellie, and that wasn't worth it to him. This is a man who was utterly destroyed 20 years ago, and it was this girl who has brought him back. And there was no way he was going to sit back and ideally allow her to be killed, humanity be damned. This is what the show has been about. Love. If you've watched the behind the scenes features, you've heard them talk about the dark side of love. Well, here it is. Joel just doomed humanity because of love.
Any other explanation is just people trying to rationalize Joel's decision, maybe to make themselves feel better with supporting his decision. Me, I don't need that. If one of my kids could save humanity, but would need to die to do so, you can bet I won't give them up without a fight.
I don’t care what the reason is, that’s why I watch and we will see it fleshed out more next season. People being mad at Joel is actually a “job well done” for the writers IMO.
This was my issue with the finale yesterday. They made it seem as if Joel acted on his own selfish desires, not on his understanding of the facts on hand.
The show didn't add this portion in as explicitly, but I think it's contextually evident when you consider the state of the Fireflies throughout the show. I can see where the criticism comes from though.
Overall, I loved the show and think it was amazing. I think they could have used more infected and a couple more action sequences, and I am absolutely NOT someone who is pining for all action and no character development. I know TLOU isn't about the infected, but about the characters -- but the infected receded into the background a bit too much for my tastes. In the game, the threat of infected is at least always there. I think going away from the infected for multiple episodes at a time, and cutting away scenes from the game where the infected do show up (e.g. David and Ellie fighting of the infected together) minimizes the danger they pose, thereby somewhat lowering the stakes and gravity of Joel's decision at the end.
I'm wondering if they'll ramp up the visceral violence in Season 2, as Pt 2 was a *much* more violent game than Pt 1.
Joel never weighed the risks vs the rewards and decided that it wasn't worth it. Marlene could have said a cure was a guarantee, but it didn't matter. All he knew was they were going to kill Ellie, and that wasn't worth it to him. This is a man who was utterly destroyed 20 years ago, and it was this girl who has brought him back. And there was no way he was going to sit back and ideally allow her to be killed, humanity be damned. This is what the show has been about. Love. If you've watched the behind the scenes features, you've heard them talk about the dark side of love. Well, here it is. Joel just doomed humanity because of love.
Any other explanation is just people trying to rationalize Joel's decision, maybe to make themselves feel better with supporting his decision. Me, I don't need that. If one of my kids could save humanity, but would need to die to do so, you can bet I won't give them up without a fight.
I agree, I never thought Joel really weighed the question of would a cure work or not. It was about keeping her from being killed.
I'm not sure the show really tackled this particular issue, but is humanity worth saving if this is the cost?
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Joel never weighed the risks vs the rewards and decided that it wasn't worth it. Marlene could have said a cure was a guarantee, but it didn't matter. All he knew was they were going to kill Ellie, and that wasn't worth it to him. This is a man who was utterly destroyed 20 years ago, and it was this girl who has brought him back. And there was no way he was going to sit back and ideally allow her to be killed, humanity be damned. This is what the show has been about. Love. If you've watched the behind the scenes features, you've heard them talk about the dark side of love. Well, here it is. Joel just doomed humanity because of love.
Any other explanation is just people trying to rationalize Joel's decision, maybe to make themselves feel better with supporting his decision. Me, I don't need that. If one of my kids could save humanity, but would need to die to do so, you can bet I won't give them up without a fight.
I agree, I never thought Joel really weighed the question of would a cure work or not. It was about keeping her from being killed.
I'm not sure the show really tackled this particular issue, but is humanity worth saving if this is the cost?
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In comment 16061624 Bramton1 said:
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Joel never weighed the risks vs the rewards and decided that it wasn't worth it. Marlene could have said a cure was a guarantee, but it didn't matter. All he knew was they were going to kill Ellie, and that wasn't worth it to him. This is a man who was utterly destroyed 20 years ago, and it was this girl who has brought him back. And there was no way he was going to sit back and ideally allow her to be killed, humanity be damned. This is what the show has been about. Love. If you've watched the behind the scenes features, you've heard them talk about the dark side of love. Well, here it is. Joel just doomed humanity because of love.
Any other explanation is just people trying to rationalize Joel's decision, maybe to make themselves feel better with supporting his decision. Me, I don't need that. If one of my kids could save humanity, but would need to die to do so, you can bet I won't give them up without a fight.
I agree, I never thought Joel really weighed the question of would a cure work or not. It was about keeping her from being killed.
I'm not sure the show really tackled this particular issue, but is humanity worth saving if this is the cost?
Agreed - Joel is blind at that moment. All he cares about is that Ellie doesn't die. The questions as to whether the vaccine will work, or if humanity is worth saving, is important for the audience, but definitely not for Joel. He doesn't even get that far in his thought process.
I think it would have had to be in his thought process all along. An internal conflict raging once they started bonding and she was no longer just cargo. That’s the way I saw it at least. The idea that it was guaranteed to work was just the push he needed to act.
So I revisited the game while watching the show. I would replay each part of the game after the matching episode. So I played the hospital last night.
The game goes incredibly vague in its reasoning for Ellie's immunity. They merely state that the cordyceps has mutated, and little more. What that vagueness, it's easy to believe that while they is hope for a cure, it's certainly not a guarantee.
I don’t agree with that at all. In the game you get glimpses of the constant failures of the Fireflies, first when they are overtaken at the Museum, where Joel and Tess are supposed to drop off Ellie. Then in the college, Joel finds records of doctors experimenting on live subjects and consistently failing. Then at the hospital, Joel finds a tape of Marlene discussing her decision of having Ellie go through with the surgery.
Im not sure if Druckmann purposely left out the tapes and clues as to the success of the surgery, to get more people talking about the ending of the show. This would also give people more reason to watch season 2. All I know is that I stand by my interpretation just having finished the game a month or so ago.
I do think a key theme of TLOU2 is that actions have consequences. People who are familiar with the game know what that means.
Not even a choice, I save my son and fuck humanity.
I think any parent would understand Joel's decision.
Not even a choice, I save my son and fuck humanity.
I think any parent would understand Joel's decision.
What if he found out? Could you imagine the guilt? It’s a much harder decision when the world hasn’t gone to shit imo. (Even that is debatable I guess)
Unless there was some major exposition that I completely missed in the game, that is.
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She asked me would I save our son or humanity.
Not even a choice, I save my son and fuck humanity.
I think any parent would understand Joel's decision.
What if he found out? Could you imagine the guilt? It’s a much harder decision when the world hasn’t gone to shit imo. (Even that is debatable I guess)
I can imagine him being angry at his father for making the decision for him, but not guilty.
Unless there was some major exposition that I completely missed in the game, that is.
No the game doesn’t guve any rationale other than lab work and medical jargon. There are some clever YouTube videos that try to decipher those clues.
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In comment 16061834 penkap75 said:
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She asked me would I save our son or humanity.
Not even a choice, I save my son and fuck humanity.
I think any parent would understand Joel's decision.
What if he found out? Could you imagine the guilt? It’s a much harder decision when the world hasn’t gone to shit imo. (Even that is debatable I guess)
I can imagine him being angry at his father for making the decision for him, but not guilty.
I can see anger too. But I’d bet there’d be some survivor guilt.
The previous episode with Ellie being kidnapped and going through that traumatic experience was highly emotional, and I think the show could have benefitted from letting that episode breathe a little before jumping into an even more emotional conclusion.
At least Joel wasting a bunch of guys in this episode resembled the game play. You gotta kill about a hundred men to get to the OR in the game.. lol
B/c he’s going to want to see her afterwards.
As Neil but it in an interview in 2020:
"But for me, it came down to the fact that we’re trying to say this very specific thing, showing what lengths someone would go to to save his daughter. And the sacrifice keeps getting bigger and bigger. And by the end, he decides, I’m going to sacrifice all of mankind."
Link - ( New Window )
Marlene never expected Joel to become attached to Ellie. He's a smuggler and she's just cargo. It wasn't until she saw his reaction that she realized that he was going to have an issue with it.
...I'm sure Marlene also didn't expect Joel to go full Rambo and be able to take out a dozen heavily armed men in the hospital.
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Other than it being to move the plot along is, why on earth would they tell Joel. I would have just said they’ve taken her to a routine procedure to take blood and plasma to create vaccines with her blood. You don’t tell thee guy you’re gonna kill her.
B/c he’s going to want to see her afterwards.
Yea but my point is, if the goal is to save the human race, show him her dead body after they’ve done what they needed and THEN deal his reaction.
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In comment 16062426 bradshaw44 said:
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Other than it being to move the plot along is, why on earth would they tell Joel. I would have just said they’ve taken her to a routine procedure to take blood and plasma to create vaccines with her blood. You don’t tell thee guy you’re gonna kill her.
B/c he’s going to want to see her afterwards.
Yea but my point is, if the goal is to save the human race, show him her dead body after they’ve done what they needed and THEN deal his reaction.
They would have been better off killing him off the bat, once they realized how much he cared for her.
"actions have consequences" was stated earlier and I think that will be the theme of the next story line.
Joel will be facing his actions and consequences of that action when people he also cares about are facing the need for a cure.
Loved every episode, really fun show to watch. Reminds me alot of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"