The Last of Us left off with Joel wounded and Ellie hopeless which brings us back to her past! “Kin” Re:cap - Joel has found his brother, Tommy, in Jackson, Wyoming. He has had panic attacks and turns Ellie over to Tommy to find the Firefly base. In the morning, Joel is there ready to take Ellie on horseback to the University of Eastern Colorado. It is abandoned, Joel admits to Ellie that he wanted to be a singer, and then they see monkeys running wild on the campus. Joel says they must be from the labs. The Firefly symbol is on the Biomedical Sciences building sign. Ellie notices piles of sandbags and Joel says they are guard stations. They enter the building and go to a room where they hear sounds, but it is the monkeys. Joel finds a map with pins leading to Salt Lake City! They see men wandering with weapons and they try to slip out back. Ellie warns Joel and he fights with a man snapping his neck. Ellie that Joel has been stabbed and gets him on the horse to escape. She shoots at the others. By train tracks, Joel falls off the horse, Ellie pleads for him as we hear a soft rendition of Depeche Mode’s “Never Let Me Down Again.”
The title of this episode refers to the downloadable game expansion from 2014. We open at a snowy neighborhood, bloody tracks lead to a house, inside a horse shakes off the snow on him. In the garage, Ellie is working to bind the wound on Joel’s stomach, he gasps. Joel grabs Ellie to tell her to go to Tommy. Silently, she puts his jacket over him and walks up the stairs. Ellie opens a door and we fade to black. It returns with Ellie listening to a Walkman jogging in sweaters. Walkman, big 80's must-have, probably very rare for this time period. There are other FEDRA students running with her around an indoor basketball court. I was wondering about Ellie’s backstory after the last episode. Her headphones are torn off by a bully, Bethany (Ruby Lybbert). Ellie is told by Bethany that her friend fights and she isn’t there anymore. Ellie lashes out. Later, she is in the office of Captain Kwong (Terry Chen) with a black eye. He says Bethany is in the infirmary. She was put in the hole three times so tries to tell her the truth. Ellie can be a grunt following orders from Bethany he set aside a cup or he places keys on his desk, she can be an officer following the rules. Ellie chooses keys and asks for her Walkman.
In her room, Ellie is reading a Savage Starlight comic, as it rains outside. The artwork as she looks through the pages looks exactly like Michael Avon Oeming’s work. She stares at the empty bed. A woman calls for Ellie to turn off her desk light. Ellie is sleeping as we see someone slip from the orange light outside. Her mouth is covered, but Ellie knocks down the girl and takes out her switchblade. She realizes it is her friend Riley Abel (Storm Reid)! The actress recently starred in the thriller, Missing. The character of Riley was developed by Neil Druckmann and artist Faith Erin Hicks in the Dark Horse limited series, The Last of Us: American Dreams (2013). It is collected in a trade paperback and also available on Comixology. Ellie says she was gone for three weeks. She wants to know where her best friend had gone. Riley admits she joined the Fireflies. She wants Ellie to go with her to have the “best night” of her life! I get that the sense of the two as friends, but Riley isn’t instantly endearing like Henry and Sam or Bill and Frank. Ellie refuses saying it is 2 a.m., but Riley throws her some clothes to get dressed and smiles. She wants Riley to turn around while she changes and her best friend sees her Walkman and a-ha cassette. Ellie has her red jacket on. They slide down a ladder and have to hide while a FEDRA truck passes.
The conversation goes to Riley telling Ellie not to mess with Bethany. Ellie counters that Riley’s fight with Carol had her recover for a week. Riley was them go up steps to what she says is a few floors. At the seventh floor, they find the body of a man whom Riley says wasn’t there the previous day! They look at him closeup with their flashlights. His bearded face looks frozen with open eyes. Ellie takes a bottle from him, the floor suddenly creaks so the girls leap back, as the corpse falls! They laugh and Riley takes a drink, she makes the sour face, and then Ellie tries a drink. She brings up if that was the first dead body Riley has seen. Riley says she saw her parents. They joke about Riley joining the Fireflies. She tells her that she was sneaking around and found by an old woman, by old they mean 40 or 50! Riley said the hate about FEDRA and there is still differences between them since Ellie still repeats Kwong’s line about “holding everything together.” Riley has them leaping across rooftops. She still buys into FEDRA’s take on Fireflies. Riley shows her the view from a building, the mall, Ellie says it is filled with Infected.
Riley explains that when they turned on power, they didn’t realize the power was on for the mall, the two friends drop down from a broken roof. She points out directions for Ellie to follow. Ellie is suspicious, but does so when her flashlight goes out. Riley asks if she reached the point. Then, the power starts to turn on section by section of the deserted, but colorful mall. A usual sight, but somehow, the shot is like walking into Las Vegas for the first time. Ellie is stunned as Riley walks up and explains that no one can see the lights outside of the mall. Riley promises to show Ellie the “Four Wonders of the Mall”! We start to hear a-ha’s classic “Take on me”, as Riley takes Ellie to the escalator which she calls “electric stairs.” Ellie is impressed walking up and down the escalator. There is no Infected. She wants to look at some of the stores, Riley tells Ellie that her mother said people looted the stores until stopped by the military, one of the remaining stores is Victoria’s Secret. Riley has Ellie close her eyes and takes her hand to lead her to the first wonder. It is a merry-go-round from the video game. Riley throws the switch to activate the ride, they find horses, and share a drink.
There is a soft, chiming rendition of The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven.” This is another refuge from the apocalyptic outside world. It of course can’t last and we know we didn’t see Riley when Ellie was captured by the Fireflies. The merry-go-round stops. Ellie wants Riley to go back so they can “run things.” Riley says it will be Ellie and that she will be 17 the next month when FEDRA hands out assignments. She admits that Kwong assigned her sewage detail, standing guard over shovelers. Riley went back for of course Ellie and then takes her to the next wonder. They go to a photo booth, Riley has the five dollars to get the pictures, they pose, and the roll comes out mostly overexposed. The next wonder has electronic sounds, they rush to see Raja’s Arcade, beautiful neons of pink, blue, and dark arcade consoles. It is a paradise of 80’s video games. Riley also pulls open a change machine of coins! They go to the Mortal Kombat II game! We saw the cabinet at the gas station in episode 3, “Long Long Time.” Ellie chooses Raiden and Riley selects Mileena. We pull back, across the darkened mall to a toy store with the Cordyceps roots! The Last Of Us episode focusing on Ellie, we understand her not just trying to survive, but what she has lost and who she is as a person!
Four Fungi out of Five!
#TheLastOfUs, #LeftBehind, #PedroPascal, #BellaRamsey, #StormReid, #TerryChen, #RubyLybbert
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