The opening to ‘The Last of Us’ season one finale is more symbolic than you could ever imagine

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for The Last of Us season one finale, “Look for the Light.”

Time flies when you’re experiencing deep emotional trauma on a weekly basis, because after nine episodes – the season one finale of The Last of Us has finally landed, and scarred us one last time before it dips back behind the curtain for the production of its second season. 

The episode titled “Look for the Light” gave the audience one last cold opening and followed a heavily pregnant woman named Anna, who quickly turns out to be Ellie’s mother. While this little backstory explains to us how exactly Ellie came to be infected, there was also a significant degree of symbolism on display, at least in a meta sense.

The actress that plays Anna is none other than Ashley Johnson, who played Ellie in the original The Last of Us video game over ten years ago, and had a huge hand in shaping the character, and consequently, Bella Ramsey’s performance. 

Folks who played the source game would have had a profound appreciation for Johnson’s performance, who delivers her dialogue and efforts identically to how she performed Ellie in the video game. For that subset of the audience, there were very much two Ellies on the screen in front of them. 

Of course, Johnson wasn’t the only star from The Last of Us video game to make the jump to live-action, with the original Joel actor Troy Baker making an appearance last week.

You can now catch all nine episodes of The Last of Us season one on HBO Max.