The episode ‘Busca la luz’ (1×09) with which the series closed its first season was destined to divide the public and it has been.
The Last of Us has just dismissed its first season on HBO and has done so with an episode that It has not needed to use any ‘cliffhanger’ or any unexpected surprise (or death) to become the end that everyone is talking about. The lucky ones who had already played Naughty Dog’s masterful game already knew what they were coming for, while Bella Ramsey herself, Ellie in the series, had warned us: “The ending is going to divide people a lot,” said the young man in an interview Vogue.
So it has been. And, if not, raise your hand who, after the outcome of ‘Seek the light’ (1×09)He has not considered what decision he would have made if he had been in Joel’s (Pedro Pascal) shoes at that time. The Last of Us has shown once again that it is not an apocalyptic story starring unbeatable heroes for whom doing the right thing is above all things, but The debate that has generated the outcome of the episode goes far beyond a Manichean dilemma of judging what is right and what is wrong or the famous train dilemma.
The debate that has generated The Last of Us has several aspects and The Internet is a real hotbed of emotions. and interesting reflections. The end of the first season leave questionsbut, unlike with most stories, it is not the series itself that has to answer them, but it is the viewers who have to answer them ourselves and, in some cases, under the pressure that this defines the person what are we.
another reason why The Last of Usas a series and as a story -since the video game-, is absolutely masterful.
Throughout its first eight episodes, The Last of Us has built the relationship of Ellie (Ramsey) and Joel (Pedro Pascal) little by little, in an absolutely earthly but also very emotional way, to the point that, in the last chapter, there is no longer any doubt about what she means to he. In the initial moments, with a more dejected Ellie and the most optimistic and affectionate Joel that we have seen in the entire series, it can be read between the lines that what has healed the pain of the loss of her daughter has not been time, but rather entry of the young woman into his life and, as he shows, the initial objective of his mission has completely evaporated.
The end of ‘The Last of Us’, explained: Everything happens for a reason
So, when Joel and Ellie manage to get to the Firefly hospital and Joel learns that in order to develop the cure Ellie has to die, His pulse does not tremble when it comes to murdering everyone and getting her out of there. Then the little girl is unconscious but, when she wakes up, the story she tells her is full of lies: there are other people who are immune and they have realized that they could never have carried out the cure. A desperate attempt to protect her, to prevent her from deciding to sacrifice herself for the future of humanity and, just like him missing the shot, from one day finding a reason to want to live even in a world that has gone to hell. shit.
A controversial decision in its day it already generated factions among video game lovers and it has not taken long to divide the viewers of the HBO series: While some viewers empathize and defend Joel’s decision in ‘Seek the light’ (1×09), others have quickly put on the table whether to save oneself or someone they love at the expense of a huge group of people -and, in In this case, humanity can be defended on an ethical level.
Within the first discussion, several aspects that revolve a bit around the same thing full of questions for which no one has the answer: Could the Fireflies really have found the cure? Did he save her from her to protect her or because he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her? Is it so worth saving a world that has already gone to hell while life makes its way for species other than humans?
However, for others, the question goes far beyond moral ambiguity, but Ellie’s decision-making capacity, which Joel nullifies with his lie trying to protect her. The Fireflies didn’t ask anything when they put her to sleep and were willing for her to die to continue their experiment, so Joel saved her from that. But why take the truth from her and allow her to decide for herself if she had wanted to sacrifice her life?
There is no correct answer. They are only individual debates that give rise to infinite possible positions to which we ourselves find leaks everywhere. “Okay,” Ellie replies when Joel swears that he told her the truth. She knows that she lies. We know that he knows that he is lying. And that only makes us yearn all the more for a season 2 premiere that promises to be filled with the fallout of what we’ve just seen, as much as Ellie is willing to follow it to the end of the world.
