The significance of Joel calling Ellie ‘baby girl’ in HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’

Warning: the following article contains spoilers for The Last of Us episode eight, “When We Are in Need.”

The eighth episode of The Last of Us was perhaps one of its most bone-chilling. Ellie was exposed to the danger that is David and his group while Joel was incapacitated for the majority of the installment. 

In an intense and chaotic conclusion to the episode, Ellie kills both David and James, but barely gets away with her life, and almost certainly suffers from some emotional scarring after the whole ordeal. She finally reunites with Joel, and the pair share a loving hug as the episode winds down to its conclusion. 

Up until this point in the series, Joel has slowly but surely been warming up to his traveling companion and self-declared “cargo,” but for the most part, he has been keeping a wide emotional berth from Ellie, for fear of attaching himself to yet another child he could lose at any moment, whether he’s conscious of this or not. He even went so far as to palm off his task of delivering her to the Fireflies to Tommy out of sheer fear of failure. 

However, as the pair embrace at the end of the episode, Joel offers fatherly words of reassurance that Ellie is now safe, even going so far as to call her “baby girl.” The use of these words is quite deliberate and is a blaring siren in regards to how Joel is beginning to feel about Ellie. Let’s break it down for you. 

The significance of “baby girl”

Assuming you haven’t compartmentalized this memory, cast your mind back to the devastating conclusion to the outbreak prologue in The Last of Us episode one, “When You’re Lost in the Darkness.” 

As Sarah lays dying from a gunshot wound, Joel offers her hollow words of reassurance, even though he is powerless to change anything. “C’mon, baby girl. I gotta get you up,” he tells her. “I know, baby. I know,” he desperately repeats. His daughter shortly passes away in his arms, and we cut to 20 years later.

Now, Joel is holding Ellie. While she’s certainly shaken to her core, she is alive and well. He offers her words of reassurance which aren’t futile because she’s going to live through this ordeal. Whether he cares to admit it or not, Ellie is now his surrogate daughter, and he isn’t going to let any harm come to her because he is not about to repeat past mistakes. 

Brace yourselves for The Last of Us season finale next Sunday on HBO Max.