Warning: The following article contains spoilers for The Last of Us season one finale, “Look for the Light.”
Nine heart-breaking episodes later, the first run of episodes of HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation has finally aired. For the most part, the show was entirely faithful to the game from which it drew inspiration, with any changes only serving to elevate the narrative originally presented in Naughty Dog’s 2013 video game.
The season finale, “Look for The Light,” was no different. While the inclusion of Ellie’s mom in the opening of the episode was a welcome addition, there was one change to a narrative thread in the game that completely reshapes Joel as a character.
Following the iconic giraffe scene, Joel and Ellie are strolling through the streets of Salt Lake City on their way to the Firefly hospital, and Pascal’s character reveals the truth behind the scar on his face and drops the following nuke – in the wake of Sarah’s death, he tried to kill himself but flinched at the last second.
This revelation takes the place of Ellie handing Joel a photograph of himself and Sarah (which she stole from Maria back in Jackson) and sparking a conversation about her. The moment serves the same purpose of Joel and Ellie subtextually expressing their love for each other, via showrunner Craig Mazin in HBO’s The Last of Us Podcast:
“I think we wrote this in the script, like literally, this is how they say ‘I love you.’ They don’t say ‘I love you.’ How they say ‘I love you,’ is, they talk around it. So, without saying, ‘I tried to commit suicide,’ he says, ‘I tried to commit suicide.’ And without saying ‘I love you,’ she says, ‘Well, I’m glad that didn’t work out.’
What it also does, is once again go above and beyond in humanizing Joel beyond the ruthless merc whose videogame counterpart mowed down scores more infected and raiders than his TV equivalent. This admission, and Ellie’s response, is them more or less cemented their father-daughter dynamic, mere moments before they are ambushed, and be ripped apart from one another yet again.
Of course, we all know how the rest of the episode plays out – but if you were wondering why Ellie had to die in order to make a cure, or why Joel chose to do what he did, we’ve broken it all down for you.
All nine episodes of The Last of Us season one is now available to stream on HBO Max.