An abandoned row of desolate ranch homes.
A blood-stained path in the snow.
Shimmer the horse stands in a garage with broken windows.
Bella Ramsey on ‘The Last of Us’.Liane Hentscher/HBO
Joel (Pedro Pascal) lies on a dirty mattress in a basement, bleeding out.
Ellie (Bella Ramsey) knowshe’s going to die if he doesn’t get help.
In his weakened state, he begs her to leave him.
Bella Ramsey and Storm Reid in ‘The Last of Us’.Liane Hentscher/HBO
She considers this, then climbs the stairs to the house above.
Faced with the decision to leave or to try and save him, the screen goes black.
After an older girl, Bethany, knocks off her headphones, Ellie makes like she wants to fight.
Bella Ramsey and Storm Reid on ‘The Last of Us’.Liane Hentscher/HBO
“You don’t fight.
Your friend fights,” Bethany taunts.
“She’s not here anymore, is she?”
“Put me in the hole,” says Ellie, who’s now got a black eye.
(Bethany, meanwhile, is in the infirmary with 15 stitches.)
“We’re the only thing holding all this together,” Kwong says of FEDRA.
That night, she reads comics in her room beneath faded posters forMortal Kombat IIand the 1987 comedyInnerspace.
Later, as Ellie sleeps, her window slides open and a girl climbs in.
Riley’s been gone roughly three weeks, we learn, having abandoned the orphanage to join the Fireflies.
They swipe the booze and trade sips, giggling the whole time.
When Ellie sees that Riley has a gun, she asks if she can hold it.
Riley lets her, despite being told not to by the Fireflies.
At their age, friendship and curiosity always override discipline.
None of it is real to them yet.
Ellie challenges her, parroting Kwong’s line about FEDRA being the ones holding things together.
Riley not only knows a way inside, but also how to turn on its lights.
Ellie marvels at the illuminated storefronts, each dressed in varying shades of neon.
Ellie is particularly interested in the lingerie (and photography) on display in Victoria’s Secret.
Riley takes her to one of the several “wonders” of the mall: a working carousel.
“That’s what they think of me,” she says.
Riley keeps her around by promising a gift.
Ellie feels betrayed by Riley’s complicity in Firefly violence.
She’s not entirely wrong.
Confused and overwhelmed, Ellie storms off, but quickly gets lost navigating the mall.
This is her last wonder of the mall.
“So you leave me.
I think you’re dead.
All of a sudden you’re alive,” Ellie says.
They dance on the counter until they’re breathless, then Ellie takes off her mask.
“Don’t go,” she says.
Riley takes off her mask and says she won’t.
It’s dead and she’s exhilarated… until she sees the bite on her arm.
Riley’s got one, too, smaller and on her hand.
Ellie is furious, shattering glass displays and shouting.
She says they have two options: kill themselves or keep going.
“It’s this way for everyone sooner or later,” she says.
“Some of us just get there faster than others.
But we don’t quit, whether it’s two minutes or two days.”
She’d rather “get all poetic and s— and lose our minds together.”
And, for now, that’s all we know about how their story ends.
Looking at Joel’s wound, she squeezes his hand and then works to stitch it up.
Riley refused to give up, even in the face of sure death.
Ellie’s doing the same for Joel.
