A bleak, blood-splattered episode pits Ellie against a walking, talking God complex.
He’ll be buried in the spring.
This community isn’t nearly so large or developed asTommy’s new home in Jackson.
David (Scott Shepher) leads his flock in ‘The Last of Us’.Liane Hentscher/HBO
They’re struggling, with only enough rations to last them two weeks at most.
Desperate, they set off to go hunting.
Elsewhere, the wound Joel (Pedro Pascal) sustained at the college is only getting worse.
Troy Baker’s James arrives in ‘The Last of Us’ episode 8.Liane Hentscher/HBO
For now, though, food is her main concern.
Taking his rifle, she ventures into the woods in search of game.
It limps off into the woods and she chases after it, following a trail of blood.
Unfortunately, David and James reach it before she can.
They’re planning to abscond with it before Ellie sneaks up on them, rifle pointed.
David plays it cool: “You’re quite a hunter!
We didn’t even hear you coming,” he says with a grin.
David tells her he’s with a larger group with women and children and that they’re very hungry.
Ellie lies and says she’s also with a large group.
“Also very hungry,” she says through gritted teeth.
David tells James to return to the camp and bring back two bottles of penicillin and a syringe.
David assures him “it’s not code” and to do as he says.
With James gone, Ellie stays vigilant.
She unloads their rifles, all while keeping her own on David.
He persuades her to hole up in a nearby cabin with the deer until James returns.
He tries to make conversation but, understandably suspicious, she remains stone-faced.
Their previous settlements were captured by raiders, but he’s optimistic about their current situation.
When Ellie calls him lucky, he shakes his head with a smile.
“No such thing as luck,” he says.
“I believe everything happens for a reason.”
He can prove it, too.
His rifle is trained on Ellie and he’s ready to pull the trigger.
Revenge for his dead friend.
David stops him, though, and encourages James to give Ellie the medicine he retrieved.
David feels like obsessed with the idea that peopleneedhim.
Back at the house, Ellie injects Joel with the penicillin, then lays with him.
Breathing weakly, he leans his head gently against hers.
It’s venison, says her cohort, but not without an ominous pause.
David and James return with the deer as everyone eats.
“You should kill him,” says the daughter of the dead man.
“Kill both of them.”
David responds to her with a vicious slap that knocks her out of her chair.
The next morning, Ellie gives Joel more medicine.
Is he getting better?
It’s unclear, but he’s still breathing, so that’s good.
She goes outside to feed Shimmer, then notices David and his men through the trees.
Knowing the men want Joel dead, she tells him to kill anyone who finds him.
David wants Ellie alive, much to James' displeasure.
David stops them with a shot into the sky.
It doesn’t take long for one man to find the house where Joel’s holed up.
He steps down into the basement, but Joel is waiting for him.
Even after they give him the info he wants, he slaughters them in cold blood.
Ellie, meanwhile, wakes to find herself in a cell.
She’s in a kitchen, it seems, and a butcher table sits nearby.
David appears fascinated by her.
He wants to offer her a “new beginning.”
She glimpses something disturbing on the butcher table: a human ear.
Only a small handful of them know the truth, he asserts.
It was a last resort.
“Should I let them starve?”
Besides, he doesn’t want to kill her, let alone eat her.
She reminds him of himself: a natural leader, smart, loyal, and violent.
“You have a violent heart, and I should know,” he says.
“I’ve always had a violent heart, and I struggled with it for a long time.
But then the world ended and I was shown the truth.”
The truth, he posits, is thatcordycepsisn’t evil, but rather something to be emulated.
“It loves.”
His people can’t understand that.
“They need God and heaven and a father,” he says.
Not Ellie, though, she’s “beyond that.”
“What about my friend?”
David says his men will spare Joel if he asks them to.
But he’s more interested in her.
“We could make this place perfect.”
Ellie places her hand on the bars beside his and he wraps his hand over hers.
“Imagine the life we could build,” he says, his tone dripping with sexual undertones.
Furious and deeply humiliated, he retreats.
Outside, Joel stumbles through the blowing snow onto the resort.
Will these bodies also be buried in the spring?
Back inside, a spurned David returns with James.
She escapes into the steakhouse, quickly pursued by David.
Ellie grabs a flaming log from the hearth and chucks it at him.
Ellie is able to duck out of sight and grab a steak knife.
David continues to stalk her, his own butcher knife in hand.
“Don’t be afraid,” he says.
“There’s no fear in love.”
Before he can overwhelm her, Ellie is able to grab the butcher knife he dropped.
Blood splatters her face and the flames continue to crawl across the walls.
Ellie, crazed and exhausted, emerges into the cold air in a cloud of smoke.
Joel finds her and she shrieks in terror before realizing it’s him.
“It’s okay, babygirl,” he soothes.
