♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
The thought experiment for the whole story
is the unconditional love a parent feels for their child.
And how far can you take this story
to demonstrate what that means?
It is not just about the beautiful parts of love,
it's also about the dark side.
It's about how everything wonderful
and everything bad ultimately can start with love.
♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
ALI ABBASI: Set and action!
(GRUNTS)
(PANTING)
It's me!
CRAIG MAZIN:
and we go all the way
to the very, very beginning of Ellie.
Which is her mother, Anna, played by Ashley Johnson,
who is the true beginning of Ellie,
because Ashley played Ellie in the game.
And Ashley is spectacular.
-(CLICKER GROWLING) -(ANNA SCREAMING)
(GRUNTING)
ASHLEY JOHNSON:
to meeting Ellie for the first time,
and how she was first brought into this world.
And there was a special level of it
for me to play the mother of this character
that I care so deeply about.
(GROANS, SCREAMS)
JOHNSON:
a giving birth scene.
And it was an incredible day.
We were dealing with real babies,
which, that is usually hard, but they connected so well.
And it shows how strong Ellie is,
of where she came from, and what she had to go through.
And that even her mother had such a fight to live.
MAZIN:
if you've played the game,
you have a new Ellie in your mind.
And I need to understand why she is immune,
but I also need to understand how much she was loved.
And there's this genetic connecting
between the two Ellies that we know.
And this moment connects them together.
JOHNSON:
this whole journey of this pandemic together.
And finally realize that connection
when Marlene walks into the room,
and sees Anna in the state that she's in.
MERLE DANDRIDGE:
They're fictional characters, but I--
I do think that a wonderful gift of the series
is seeing these two best friends'
final words to each other
in those last moments of Anna's last breaths.
(BABY COOING)
Her name is Ellie.
DANDRIDGE:
when we cannot save the people that we love.
To feel powerless.
And Marlene certainly does in that moment
because Ellie is the child
of her best friend since childhood...
who she had to execute.
(BABY CRYING)
MAZIN:
and it made my jaw drop, and I said, "You must do that."
And that's how we begin our final episode.
There is this moment,
and we really just follow the game here very closely,
because it's so beautiful,
where they encounter a giraffe.
BELLA RAMSEY:
and for Joel, seeing Ellie finally be
a glimmer of who she used to be
after the trauma that she faced in 109.
Everything that she experienced hasn't just gone away.
It's just this moment of beauty.
So precious, it's almost sad.
But then, through speaking to Craig,
I realized it was just living the truth of it.
Which was, it was bittersweet, but still so, so beautiful.
ELLIE WILLIAMS:
MAZIN:
And the beauty of it is such that we understand
why the ice melts between them.
He's still trying to keep her with him.
And saying, "We don't have to keep going.
Let me just take you back with me."
And she's saying, "No, we have to go out and finish it.
We finish what we started.
I get emotional just thinking about it,
because it's their closest moment
where Joel finally tells her the true story
about how he got his scar.
And it was not 'cause some guy shot at him.
It's because he tried to kill himself.
And he missed.
But he's glad he did.
And she thinks she understands the lesson here, which is,
"You'll get over this."
He lost a daughter. He was crushed.
He wanted to end his own life. He didn't.
So, time heals all wounds, I guess.
It wasn't time that did it.
DANDRIDGE:
this is not the Joel she knew,
because he has an emotional connection to Ellie.
You take me to her right now!
(GRUNTS)
It's about the way we treasure the people
that we love more than everyone else.
How love leads to emotions that can rage out of control.
NEIL DRUCKMANN:
We've seen him lose loved ones.
So, how do you take that any further?
What if it's between saving all of humanity,
or this one girl.
The easiest choice he's ever made in his life.
(GRUNTS)
-(GUNSHOT) -(GROANS)
What would make one choose one thing
over the survival of humanity, essentially.
Which is something that he does,
because he finds himself incapable of losing again.
(GUNSHOT)
SURGEON: I won't let you take her.
-(GUNSHOT) -(NURSES SCREAMING)
Unhook her.
Move!
Turn around.
MARLENE: You can't keep her safe forever.
No matter how hard you try,
no matter how many people you kill.
DANDRIDGE:
It's the last opportunity
to save what Ellie can gift the world.
Joel, he is wrestling with his grief,
and he can't see past it.
(GUNSHOT)
PEDRO PASCAL:
how much we could defend it, or judge it.
And it's this beautiful shadow
that one can explore and question,
find the horror and the humanity of.
DRUCKMANN:
this trust that is forming between these two characters,
and how honest they are with each other,
and how much they learn to rely on each other.
And then, Joel puts all of that on the line.
Like a parent, you feel like you need to lie
to your children to protect them.
And that's what Joel does at the very end.
RAMSEY:
But she can't let herself believe it,
because it's too painful, and it's too scary,
the idea that her only purpose in life hasn't been fulfilled.
That that had been taken away from her
by the person that she loves and trusts the most
is too overwhelming.
So she forces herself to believe Joel.
Swear to me that everything you said
about the Fireflies is true.
I swear.
Time doesn't really heal anything.
It just makes it fade.
But people heal things.
And in that moment, you understand the depth
of what she means to him.
And the horror of it all
is that that's why the ending has to be the way it is.
The ending is something that people have been arguing about
for over a decade.
Should Joel have done what he did?
And a lot of people will say no,
and a lot of people will say yes.
In the end, the only thing we can be sure of
is that we understand why he did it,
and we understand that Ellie
would not have wanted him to do it.
That complexity is why
as a narrative, is so gorgeous.
It's why it's the most beautiful story told
in the entire genre of video games.
It's why Neil is a genius,
and it's why I wanted to make this show in the first place.
♪ ("THE LAST OF US" THEME PLAYS) ♪