The Last of Us S01 E02 – A kiss goodbye

Previously: Joel loses a daughter and gains a snarky travel bud.
cw: violence, gore, body horror, blood, gun violence
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Infected

Catherine: We begin this episode in Jakarta, Indonesia on September 24th, 2003. People are eating in a restaurant when some uniformed officials walk in, and everyone suddenly goes quiet. The officials go up to a woman eating by herself and before anything is said, we cut to her in the back of a car, being driven away by them.

One of them apologizes for disturbing her meal, and she says that she was almost finished anyway. Nervously, she asks if she is being arrested. They assure her that she isn’t. Her name is Ibu Ratna, and she is a professor of mycology at the University of Indonesia. I’m not a big science guy, but even I know that mycology means fungus. (M: Friend, you had one up on me because I went “huh?”) (C: I can’t believe I actually knew a thing. So proud of me.) Considering the brief mention of the unrest beginning in Indonesia in the last episode, I think we can all assume where this is headed.

Marines: If Katy is going to be pointing out all the cool video game stuff, allow me to just gush about how well this show is doing so far at creating tension. There is this moment where Ibu is having to almost run to keep up with the soldiers, and it’s just so simple and good? So many details to show us how uncomfortable the characters are and also throw us off as well.

Catherine: The military guys bring Ibu to a lab where she is asked to look at a sample on a microscope. She looks for a moment and then tells him that it is a sample of ophiocordyceps and asks why they used chlorazol to prepare the slide. Military Guy says they have to do that because it’s a sample from a human. Ibu tells him that cordyceps can’t survive on a human. Unfortunately, we remember from last week’s episode that cordyceps can survive in humans now because we done over hotted up the only planet with disco.

Speaking of disco. Ibu is then taken to the opposite of a disco: the morgue. She is wearing a hazmat suit and goes in alone to view a body laid out on a slab. The body has a gunshot wound in its forehead. Military Guy is in a viewing room, talking to her over a speaker. He tells her to look at the corpse’s left leg. Ibu does and sees a bite wound. She slices across it with a scalpel and sees something white behind it. She asks if this is a bite from a human, but Military Guy doesn’t answer. Ibu uses tweezers to investigate the corpse’s mouth. Damn, I thought this was The Last Of Us, not The Mortuary Assistant. Haha. This is very gross.

Mari: Between Ibu’s slow approach and the music and all, I was preparing for the corpse to just bite down on her fingers.

Dani: Me too! I’ve watched multiple ‘let’s plays’ of The Last of Us (and Mortuary Assistant – great ref!) but I was really unprepared for how uncomfortable and tense this show would make me. It’s so well done. It would have been so easy for the corpse to reanimate into zombie form here and bite her fingers off, and the fact that they didn’t go for the easy scare just ramped up the tension even more. Neil Druckmann is such a masterful storyteller – and obviously a great director, too.

Catherine: Ibu pulls out just the nastiest clump of white hair-like tendrils from inside the corpse’s throat. Ew, girl. Put that shit back. She freaks out a little and drops the tweezers. We see more tendrils coming out of the corpse’s mouth as Ibu runs from the room.

Elsewhere, Ibu is dressed normally again and sat on a couch. Military Guy brings her a cup of tea. She asks him how long ago the woman died. He says about 30 hours. She asks where, and he says it happened in a flour and grain factory on the west side of the city. She comments that flour is a perfect substrate. I’m never eating cookies again. (M: Definitely not while watching an episode.)

Basically, girlfriend was working in the factory and went crazy. She attacked her co-workers and bit three of them before they managed to lock her in the bathroom. When the police came, she attacked them, too, and they shot her. Ibu asks what happened to the people that she bit. Military Guy says that they were taken for observation and a few hours later they had to be killed, too. Ibu asks who bit the woman, and Military Guy says that they don’t know, which obviously means that that person is still out there somewhere. Ibu asks if any other workers are missing and Military Guy says there are fourteen missing. Ibu’s hand starts shaking so badly that she has to put her tea down.

Military Guy says that they brought her there to help them. They need a vaccine or a medicine of some kind. Ibu tells him that she spent her life studying cordyceps and there is no medicine or vaccine. Military Guy looks quite scared and asks her what they should do. Ibu goes quiet for a moment and then answers: “Bomb. Start bombing. Bomb this city and everyone in it.” Then she tears up and asks if someone can drive her home so that she can be with her family.

Big props to the writers for adding in these flashbacks and backstory on the outbreak. None of this was present in the game and while it isn’t exactly missed, (I legit never noticed it wasn’t there until now) it is definitely very cool to have this explanation here. Tumblr has informed me that there were lots of instances in the first episode where Joel and Sarah were offered food with flour in it, but did not take it: the biscuits that made Joel lie about being on Atkins, the disgusting raisin cookies that Sarah didn’t want, Joel forgetting the birthday cake (M: and the pancake mix!), etc.

Mari: God, that’s good.

Catherine: Credits. We see the United States of Fungus and two figures standing together at the end.

Cut to present day. Ellie is curled up on a grassy patch, asleep. (M: Fetal position and little butterfly in the shot. Many symbolism.) She wakes to see sunlight slanting through a broken window so we can tell that, despite the fauna, she’s actually indoors in what looks to be an office building of some kind. The theme of nature taking back over all of the human-made cities after 20 years unoccupied is so, so important in the game and this is a really cool way of introducing that.

Ellie hears a creak behind her and turns to see Joel and Tess literally sitting like three feet away, staring at her. Not creepy at all. She starts to get up, but Joel levels his gun at her. Ellie rolls her eyes and asks if she looks infected. Joel tells her to show them her arm. She does and it hasn’t changed. Ellie asks why they aren’t getting swarmed by infected if they’re out in the open city, and Joel tells her not to worry about it. Tess asks her what Marlene wants with her, and Ellie tells her that she found her after she was infected, locked her up and tested her every day to make sure that she wasn’t getting sick. Tess asks how they tested her and Ellie tells her that they made her count to ten and hold out her hand and keep it steady, but what really impressed them was that she “didn’t turn into a fucking monster.” (D: Man, I love this kid.) Ellie says that she has to pee and stands. Tess points her to the room behind her and tells her to find a spot, giving her an old magazine to wipe with. I’m thinking you do not want to rub an old magazine on your cooter but to each their own. (M: This is indeed high on my list of reasons not to live through an apocalypse. Toilet paper shortages during COVID were enough for me, thanks.)

With Ellie gone, Joel and Tess can have grown up talk. She notices that his hand is shaking and swollen from beating the shit out of that FEDRA soldier the night before. He says it’s just a hairline fracture, and it’ll heal on its own. Tess points out that Ellie made it through the night without turning into a zombie. Joel still thinks it’s gonna happen and wants to sneak Ellie back into the QZ and find another way to get a battery so they can get to Tommy. Tess says if they do that, someone will notice Ellie’s arm, scan her for infection and kill her. Joel’s like, “RIP to her but how is that our problem?” He doesn’t think Tess should talk about Ellie like she still has a life in front of her. (D: Oof. After his gut-wrenching loss in the first episode, his understandably jaded outlook just makes my heart hurt.) Ellie comes back in and sits by her backpack. Tess asks if she’s hungry and tells her that she can share some of their food, but Ellie says that Marlene gave her some. She pulls out a sandwich and starts eating while Joel and Tess eat what appears to be old beef jerky. Joel struggles to pull bits of it off. It looks about as appetizing as a sheet of drywall.

Tess looks at Ellie’s sandwich in envy and asks if it’s chicken. Ellie says that it is, and Marlene told her they get it from smugglers but, “guess not you guys.” (M: Our stating the obvious queen.) Tess stands up and brushes Joel off when he tries to stop her from going closer to Ellie. She asks why Ellie is so important to Marlene. She tells her not to lie to her or they’ll take her back. Ellie says if they take her back, they won’t get their battery. Tess realizes that she overheard their conversation while she was peeing, and says that she must have heard that Joel wants to shoot her. Ellie looks at Joel but he doesn’t make eye contact. The relationship is off to a rocky start.

Tess kneels down in front of her and tells her that she’s gonna talk to her like she’s an adult. She says she and Joel aren’t good people. They’re doing this job for them because apparently Ellie is worth something, but they need to know what she is worth.

Mari: It’s a little wild to me that Tess and Joel haven’t connect the dots here, considering that Ellie hasn’t turned into a zombie. They are like “what could possibly be special about her?!?” Like, besties, I believe in your ability to figure it out.

Dani: I found that weird, too. Like … haven’t we covered this? Worst. Criminals. Ever.

Catherine: Well, we know they lack the ability to obtain chicken…

Tess asks Ellie again what Marlene wanted with her. Poor Ellie puts her hand over her face and mutters to herself. She reluctantly admits that Marlene plans to get her to a Firefly camp out west where there are doctors working on a cure. Joel is immediately skeptical. He’s heard this whole “cure” thing before. He tells Tess this isn’t gonna end well and they need to go back. Tess points out that it doesn’t matter if Ellie actually is the key to the cure or whatever, as long as the Firefly’s think that she is. If they deliver her, they get the battery and they can skedoodle over to Tommy. She doesn’t say it in quite those words but you get it.

Joel thinks for a moment and relents, but he says that if Ellie so much as twitches….and of course, Ellie can’t resist the opportunity to lighten the mood by putting on her best zombie impression. (M: Does she WANT to get shot or…?) Tess tells her to cut it out, and Ellie awkwardly agrees.

They pick up their stuff to head out, and Ellie asks if she can have a gun. Joel tells her no, and she mumbles that she’s gonna have to throw a sandwich at the Infected. That un-refrigerated chicken sandwich might actually do some damage.

Mari: Flour brought you into this world, and maybe E. coli will take you out.

Catherine: Worth a shot.

Heading outside, it’s a beautiful sunny day in a totally obliterated city. Boston looks like the Sox just won the World Series. There are skyscrapers leaning against each other, rubble everywhere. Ellie approaches a huge crater in the street and asks if that was where a bomb was dropped. Tess tells her that it was, they bombed most of the big cities to slow the spread of the virus. It mostly didn’t work. They encounter a destroyed building blocking the street and Tess says that the State House, where they are taking Ellie, is straight ahead but they can’t go that way on account of the rubble.

Joel says they have to check the long way from The Hotel. They continue walking down a street with a bunch of old rusted cars.

Mari: Earlier, when Ibu was inspecting the corpse, I almost reminded everyone of HBO’s Boobie Budget, but 1- the scene was very clinical and 2- it is CLEAR that the budget is actually like 89% creating these amazing shots of an apocalyptic Boston.

Dani: Money well spent. This is gorgeous (in a terrible way, but gorgeous nonetheless).

Catherine: Ellie and Tess walk ahead while Joel keeps distance that is both physical and emotional. (M: It’s funny because it’s true.) Ellie wonders where all the Infected are. Tess says she’ll know when they’re close and she’s like, “I didn’t know last time.” Tess asks her how she got bit. Ellie tells her that she snuck out and went into a boarded up Mall in the QZ. This is consistent with the game, BTW, and makes for a really great DLC. Tess asks her if she was alone and Ellie hesitantly says that she was.

Tess asks her how old she is. Ellie tells her that she’s 14. Tess tells her that she has balls, and Ellie looks kinda flattered.

Mari: I would be flattered by most anything Anna Torv said to me, tbh. But also, most adults would’ve said something about Ellie being stupid. I bet it felt extra cool for Tess to acknowledge her balls.

Catherine: Also, keeping in mind that Ellie has probably never really had praise from a mother-type figure before. (M:😭)

On that note, they climb over a car and Tess wants to make sure that no one, like parents or a boyfriend, is going to be coming after Ellie. Ellie tells her that she’s an orphan and….uh….there’s no boyfriend. (D: So despite population decimation and literal zombies, we’re still clinging to our tired heteronormative assumptions in 20 years? Good to know.) But Ellie is confused, she’s always heard that the open city is totally crazy with swarms of Infected everywhere. Joel tells her that it’s not exactly like that and Tess says that people like to make up stories. Ellie asks if there are really super Infected that explode fungus spores on you. Tess smiles and says she hopes not. Ellie asks her if there are Infected with split open heads that see in the dark like bats. No answer this time. As if he heard someone talking shit, somewhere in the distance they hear what sounds like a sort of clicking scream.

Everyone stops. Ellie asks WTF that was. Joel says they need to keep moving.

Dani: These are tough-ass people, so seeing them look scared by this distant sound is creepy af.

Catherine: For REAL.

They get to the hotel which is completely flooded on the first floor. It’s still a five star joint, but its main clientele seems to be ducks and frogs now. Ellie is impressed and asks Tess and Joel if they ever stayed in a place like this before the outbreak. Tess says it was out of their league. Joel asks Ellie how she even knows what a hotel is, and she sarcastically asks if he’s heard of books. Joel starts into the water and Ellie informs them that she doesn’t know how to swim. When Joel snarks at her about it, she reminds him that there aren’t exactly pools in the QZ. Joel jumps off the stairs and shows that the water is only about waist high. (D: LOL)

After stepping into the water herself, Ellie is amazed and gratified that it is so gross. She goes over to the concierge desk and pretends to be checking someone in. Joel calls her a weird kid. (M: She is, but is also just very much a kid.) Ellie snarks back but jumps and falls back against the piano when a skeleton falls out from behind a luggage rack. Everything is fine though, because it’s just a skeleton. Joel comes over to help her up and then snatches his hand back right away on account of his emotional damage.

Mari: It’s kind of like the weathered reluctant dad equivalent of the Mr. Darcy hand flex, you know? I did briefly wonder if this was his injured hand though.

Catherine: Upstairs, Tess leans against the wall for a moment, panting and Ellie says it wasn’t that bad. She tells Ellie to try climbing ten fucking floors with their knees and see how she feels. I add this only because I remember the creator of the show saying something about how he wanted to make it more evident that Tess and Joel are middle-aged and, therefore, all of this climbing over shit and running around is harder on them then it appears in the game. And because, in the game, whenever I make Joel jump down off of something I always apologize for the knee pain. He doesn’t seem to notice, though. (D: You’re so nice. I always just shout, “Parkour, bitch!”)

The hallway they wanted to go through is now blocked by rubble. None of the doors around the rubble will open. Tess offers to climb up through the rubble and work her way around to open one of the doors. Ellie offers to do it because she’s smaller, but Tess points out that if she dies, they get nothing, so no.

Left alone, Joel and Ellie sit on opposite sides of the hallway for a moment in silence. Ellie brings out her switchblade and flips it around, boredly. Joel asks her where she learned to do that. “The circus,” she jokes. He sighs. She looks like she feels compelled to make small talk and asks him where he’s from. I fully expect him to brush her off, but he actually answers. “Texas,” he says. She asks where Tess is from. He tells her Detroit, which is in Michigan. Ellie reminds him that she goes to school so she knows where Detroit is. She starts to ask if he and Tess are a couple and he says, “Pass.” She asks how he ended up in Boston and he says pass to that, too. He tells her not to ask any more questions about him.

Switching subjects, Ellie asks how long Infected live. Joel is like, “oh I thought you were miss smarty pants school pants.” She says it’s a really shitty school. He tells her that some Infected only last a month or two, but some have been walking around for 20 years. She asks if he’s ever killed one and he says he’s killed a lot. She asks if it’s hard, knowing that they were people once. (D: That’s such a mature question and a great peek into Ellie’s character.) Joel looks pensive and says it is sometimes. Ellie asks if it was hard to kill the FEDRA solider, and Joel is saved from answering by a noise in the next room. It’s Tess. She tells him to put his gun down before she can even see him, which I thought was a really cute moment. Tess pulls one of the stuck doors open, and Joel asks her what now.

They go up to the roof where they’re able to look out over the street beyond. There are dozens of Infected just sort of… lying in the street. They’re not dead, or not all the way dead, as they are still making noises and twitching, but they seem to maybe be dormant. Tess says that they were still deep inside the buildings the last time they came through, but enough people must have come through the city looking for the QZ that it drew them out. That’s how the Infected keep claiming more and more of the city, year after year. Ellie watches as a shaft of sunlight moves across the group of Infected, and they all react in a wave. She says that they’re connected, and Tess tells her that the fungus also grows underground, stretching for miles and miles. If you step on a patch of cordyceps in one place, you can wake up a dozen Infected somewhere else. It tells them where you are, and they come for you. Tess reminds Ellie that she’s not immune to being ripped apart by Infected, and she wants to keep her safe.

This story device was not present in the games. The Infected weren’t connected like this, nor was there a vast network of cordyceps that could tell them where you were. I’m aware that fungus does operate like that in real life sometimes. If I’m not mistaken (and if I am, let me know) there’s a giant underground network of fungus in a forest in Oregon that is believed to be the largest living organism on earth. Obviously, that’s the idea that the writers are going for here. I’m interested to see how that is going to play out.

Dani: You are correct: the fungus is the species armillaria ostoyae; it covers 3.5 square miles of Malheur National Forest in Oregon and has survived for nearly 10,000 years.

Catherine: You’re telling me I knew TWO things? I’m tearing up right now, for real.

Dani: I actually like this change for the show. IIRC the infection spread via spores in the game (and bites obvs), but that just seems to leave a lot of room for plot holes. This is better, and like you said it draws on real science.

Catherine: Anyway, since they can’t go the long way, they’re gonna have to go the “we’re fuckin’ dead way.” Joel says it’s the museum.

Cut to a building, it’s front double doors ajar, fungus is growing over them in oddly beautiful patterns. It looks cool, but that’s the shit that eats your brain. Joel touches some of the fungus on the ground and then hits it with the butt of his rifle. I honestly couldn’t believe he’d touch it. Not because it’s dangerous to touch, but because it’s just so so gross. It has the consistency of dried up cat poop.

Dani: Also, from the lore they just established, wouldn’t that act wake up dozens of connected Infected?

Mari: I think the additional thing that this establishes is that they can completely dry out. Like this is the unalive, unconnected sort. The tricky part should be knowing what’s dead dead and what’s unalive dead.

Catherine: Joel reports that it is dry, which could mean “they’re all finally dead in there.” Joel and Tess pull out flashlights and Joel asks if Ellie has one. She does. She also sees their guns and points out that she has a spare hand. Joel sarcastically congratulates her.

They go inside, and it’s pretty much pitch black. The wall says, “The Bostonian Museum.” This is a level in the game and, to my knowledge, it isn’t based off any one real life museum, but in the game and the show, the vibes are Revolutionary War/old guns/ powdered wigs. Joel finds an old, dried up Infected body in the gift shop and this is good news, because it means that the Infected in the building are probably all capital D Dead. Ellie rounds a corner and finds a much fresher body, though. It’s all torn up. Ellie wonders what could even do that to a body. Tess whispers that he may have been attacked outside and crawled into the building to die. She says that she doesn’t hear anything.

Ellie asks again in a whisper if an Infected tore the body apart. She reminds them that she’s been attacked by one and it wasn’t like that. Joel says from this point forward they are silent. Not quiet. Silent.

They head up the stairs, and so much is the immersion in this adaptation, that when they got to the stairs and saw that they were covered in cordyceps/dead dried out Infected bodies I initially thought,” oh, that’s not gonna be passable, they’re gonna have to find another way up.” But I forgot they’re real people and they can step over things. (D: Gamer logic. I see you.)

They very quietly start up the stairs. Ellie accidentally steps on something that snaps and is a little creeped out to realize that it is a hand. Everyone freezes. Nothing moves, so they continue up. They reach a room with no cordyceps, but just as they’re going through the door, the building shakes and the ceiling collapses behind them, blocking them into the room. Tess grabs Ellie and dives out of the way just in time to avoid being hurt. As they’re getting back on their feet, they hear the worst sound that you can hear in this world. The same clicking scream from before. That’s right gang, it’s a Clicker.

Dani: YES!

Mari: I hate it already!

Catherine: Oh, you should.

Joel and Tess look terrified. Ellie also looks terrified but with an edge of confusion, because she doesn’t exactly know what’s coming for them. They begin backing up into the next room as something comes through the door. We don’t exactly get a good look at it, but it seems to move in a very unnatural, stilted, jittery way. There’s a second screech and the trio realizes there’s another Clicker behind them. They hide against a display case. Joel mouths to Ellie, pointing at his mouth and ear and my closed captions helpfully tell me that he’s saying: “They can’t see, but they can hear.”

This is a Clicker. A level 3 Infected. Clickers are what happens to the human body after cordyceps infection has had many, many years to grow unimpeded. Basically, the cordyceps grow completely over their face and body, creating a hard shell that makes them more difficult to kill and stronger. However, it also takes away their ability to see. They have to use echolocation, making screeching and “clicking” noises to help them move around in their environment. If they catch you, they one-shot you with a bite to the neck. They can be killed with a shiv to the neck or a Molotov cocktail.

The trio stays still until one of the Clickers comes around the display case and, seeing it, Ellie gasps lightly. The Clicker spins and we get our first real look at it as it screeches at her. It looks like it literally walked out of the game. Props to the makeup department.

Dani: Fans of the game will definitely NOT be disappointed.

Mari: Yeah, amazing job, I hate it even more.

Catherine: Joel opens fire and tells the girls to run. The other Clicker runs into the room, and Tess fires at it before grabbing Ellie’s hand and making a run for it. Unfortunately she trips over a stanchion, bringing them both down. Tess runs one direction and Ellie crawls another. Over to Joel, who has managed to get away from his Clicker and pushes over a statue, breaking the glass behind it and confusing the Clicker. He hides behind a door to check how many bullets he has left and it’s not a lot. The camera focuses in on him until the music goes quiet and we hear a click right next to him. Joel shines his flashlight on the Clicker who is inches away, but he’s quiet enough that it walks in another direction.

Joel sneaks into the next room, where he finds Ellie crouched down, hiding behind another display case. One of the Clickers approaches the other side. Joel knows what he needs to do. He needs to press R2 to sneak around the other side of the case and then press square to shiv once he gets close enough to the Clicker.

Dani: He also needs to craft a shiv asap.

Catherine: Joel is such a noob. SMH.

No. Just kidding. He needs to sneak away. Obviously. He nods to Ellie and they begin sneaking around the other side of the case, but he accidentally steps on broken glass, alerting the Clicker again. This is an element in the game, so it was cool to see it used here.

The Clicker vaults the case and slams into them both. Joel and Ellie do their best to hold its snapping jaws away from their neck parts. Joel shoots it twice, and it falls back enough that he and Ellie are able to get up. As the Clicker regroups and comes for them again, Joel fires more bullets into it until his gun is the only thing clicking.

The other Clicker rushes them and Joel shoves Ellie behind him, but Tess comes in at just the right moment and hits it with an axe. The Clicker, axe in head, is still fighting and clawing at them. This is, again, because of its nigh impenetrable cordyceps shell and not, as you may be wondering, just because that’s what Bostonians are like.

Joel is able to get to his rifle and fires 2 shots into the Clicker, finally taking it down. In the aftermath, he asks Tess if she’s alright. She tells him she has a twisted ankle, but she’s otherwise fine.

Tess asks if Ellie is alright, and she’s just glad she didn’t shit her pants. She pulls up her sleeve to look at her arm and sees that she has been bitten again. Classic Ellie. She’s always getting bitten by zombies, dude. Such an Ellie move. (M: Get you a new hobby, girl.) She’s just glad that it happened to her and not either of them. Tess says they need to get the fuck out of there.

Another roof. This one has a plank that they’re going to have to walk across to get to the next one. Another gameplay element that has been implemented. Tess stops for a moment to tend to her ankle, and Joel offers Tess a bandage for her wound. Ellie asks if they have to cross the plank. Joel says they do, and he knows that it looks scary. She says, “That was scary. This is wood.” Fair, under the circumstances.

Joel tells her to wait on the connecting roof while he puts what looks like electricians tape around Tess’ ankle and foot. I’m not sure how this would help a sprained ankle, but I’ve also never done anything for a sprained ankle besides cry and elevate it for several days, so what do I know. (D: Have you tried the magical healing powers of eating ice cream?</span)(M: Especially now that cookies are banned.)

Joel worries that this second bite might turn Ellie. Tess snaps at him to look at the bright side, basically, and asks if he can accept that they might actually win for once. He looks confused and hurt. She tells him to go watch Ellie, and he walks across the plank while Tess stays behind with her head on her knees for a minute.

Catching up with Ellie, she and Joel look out over what is left of the Boston skyline. The golden dome of the State House gleams in the distance. Fun fact! This building in the game is based off of the real Massachusetts State House in Boston. I actually went there for the first time this past fall and when I rounded the corner in Boston Common and saw it I said, “Like the Last Of Us!” out loud, startling several locals. Sorry, locals. But it really does look like that!

Here’s a handy gif demonstration of Joel and Ellie’s dialogue, which was taken straight from the game:

Thanks, Tumblr!

Dani: THIS is how you do it, video game adaptation people! Don’t fix shit that isn’t broken.

Catherine: Amen!

Tess comes up behind them and tells them to hustle because it’s getting dark. Ellie moves off, and Joel looks down at the watch that Sarah fixed for him.

Cut to them on another street. Tess is walking far ahead of the other two, this time and looking back to make sure they’re keeping up. Joel looks pointedly at Ellie’s bandage, obviously still wondering if she’s gonna go all Night Of The Living Dead on them.

Outside the Capitol building, the trio crouch behind a rusted taxi, examining the scene before them. There’s no evidence of any activity in the building dead or alive. Tess wonders where the Fireflies are. Starting out first, Joel crosses to a rusted military truck and opens the door. It’s empty, but there seems to be blood stains inside. He circles the truck, hearing flies buzzing and seeing a fresh corpse underneath it. Opening the back of the truck, he finds it empty there, too. Tess asks him WTF is going on, and Ellie notices a blood trail leading inside. Environmental storytelling, baby.

Tess grabs Ellie’s arm and drags her inside while Joel shouts after her, obviously worried she’s gonna barge into an ambush. But what they find instead is a tomb. Dead Fireflies litter the floor of the Capitol building. There are still crates full of supplies around them and Tess starts searching for a radio, frantically. Ellie wonders if FEDRA killed them. Joel notices signs of infection on one of the bodies, and says that one of them must’ve gotten bit and they all fought, killing each other. He asks Tess what she’s doing. Tess demands to know where Marlene said that she was taking Ellie. Ellie doesn’t know, just somewhere out west. Tess starts frantically searching the bodies for a map and demands that Joel help her.

Joel tells her that it’s over, and they’re going home. Raising her voice, Tess tells him that the QZ isn’t her fucking home. Calming a little, she tells him that she’s staying and that their luck had to run out sooner or later. Joel looks confused until Ellie guesses that Tess is Infected. Tess doesn’t deny it, which is confirmation enough. Joel tells her to show him. She pulls aside her jacket and shirt, showing a bite mark on her neck. It’s obvious that she was bitten by one of the Clickers when they lost track of her in the museum, and, if it’s not obvious, I’m telling you that’s what happened.

Mari: I had pretty much guessed that Tess wasn’t forever for this world based solely on the fact that all the promotional material is just Ellie and Joel, but damn, I didn’t expect EPISODE 2.

Dani: Far too early to lose Anna Torv. I really liked the show’s version of Tess, too.

Catherine: Tess tells Ellie to show them her fresh bite mark. She does, and it hasn’t changed except to stop bleeding. Tess grabs Ellie’s arm and insists that she is real and that she really is immune. She tells Joel to take her to “Bill and Frank’s” but Joel is in denial and insists that they won’t take her. Tess says that he has to convince them. She tells him that she’s never asked him for anything and never asked him to “feel the way I felt,” which I guess is a little hint that she was once in love with him and he was too emotionally checked out to reciprocate. I’m not sure, because there wasn’t really anything romantic between them in the game, but there also wasn’t *not* anything romantic, if you get what I mean.

Tess tells him that he needs to keep Ellie safe and set everything right. It seems that she is looking for some kind of Karmic vindication for being Bad People. Before he can answer, the Infected Firefly starts twitching and shrieking. Joel shoots it, but cordyceps on the floor start growing around it’s fingers. Back at the hotel, the Infected that were lying in the street suddenly start getting up and running.

Joel runs to the door and looks out, seeing the Infected headed for them. They’ve got about a minute to make a decision. Tess picks up a rifle and uses the butt to knock the cap off a barrel of…..flammable liquid of some kind? Oil? Gas?  I’m not sure. But she knocks it over so that it pours out onto the floor. Ellie asks her what she’s doing and she says that she’s “making sure that they don’t follow you.” Tess chucks a box of grenades onto the flammable liquid like she’s making a the world’s most explodey salad. The whole time, Joel looks pained.

Joel and Ellie are gone in seconds, leaving Tess alone as the screams of the Infected come nearer and they begin pounding on the door. Shakily, Tess pulls a lighter out of her pocket and starts trying to light it, but it sputters and won’t ignite properly. (D: It’s Sam Drake’s lighter from Uncharted 4! Oh, Naughty Dog, please don’t make me imagine those beloved characters existing in this hellscape.) The Infected crash through the door, not seeing her at first and running straight past her. She backs away, still trying to get the lighter to catch. One of the Infected stops, and turns toward her. She can’t take her eyes off of it as it approaches her and then…..listen….I have no explanation for what happens next.

As I said last week, the whole ‘tendrils coming out of the mouth’ thing was not in the game. In the game, the zombies simply bit you or ripped you limb from limb, like God intended. What happens next is that the Infected approaches Tess and literally puts his mouth on her mouth in some absolutely horrific parody of a kiss. It is truly *awful* in every conceivable way. Whoever wrote this part needs Jesus.

Mari: As a big romance reader and lover, if two attractive people are standing next to each other, chances are I’ll ship it. So during the whole pained goodbye between Joel and Tess, I kept thinking about how he didn’t even say anything back to her, that there wasn’t a kiss where the story beat usually says there should be one. And then we get to this moment, Tess’s for real goodbye, and she got a kiss after all and it was horrifying and heartbreaking and a truly terrible juxtaposition.

Dani: It’s actually pretty spot-on for how the fungus works IRL. Cordyceps hijacks the muscles of the ants it infects, forcing them to bite into a leaf stem and then paralyzing them as it feeds off their bodies. Eventually tendrils start sprouting from the host body, like literally piercing out the head and body. It’s really gross.

Catherine: Science is fun! But also disgusting.

Tess finally gets the lighter to catch and drops it.

We’re taken outside where Joel is still dragging Ellie away from the building as it explodes. Luckily they are far enough away that it doesn’t affect them but they turn around and see an Infected running out, all on fire. Joel and Ellie look on in sorrow for a moment, obviously mourning Tess, before Joel turns away and starts walking. Ellie takes another moment and we get a shot of her with the burning Capitol building in the background before the credits roll.

For me, this was a great episode that wasn’t diminished at all by a rewatch. The Clickers were absolutely so well done, that despite having seen stills of them from the promo pictures, I was still really impressed. The game elements that they brought in were really cool, and the new stuff they added fit right in. I have no complaints, except for that weird kiss at the end which I’m only complaining about because I wish I could unsee it.

 

Next time on The Last of Us: We meet Bill and Frank in S01 E03 – Long Long Time.