Meaning of the movie “The Last of Us” and ending explained

Meaning of the movie “The Last of Us” and ending explained Films

From its tense prologue to its startling and thought-provoking ending, The Last of Us has a strong and distinct streak of telling both the personal and the epic story in a way that feels consistently organic and compelling.

Inspired by the idea to expand the emotional content of the events taking place from the points of view of different characters in all time periods, producers Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann adapt this story for streaming TV with great skill, especially considering that several new characters will be added to it. While adapting a video game into a TV series has historically been a daunting task for some writers, there’s no doubt that in this case, the showrunners have some brilliant source material to work with.

Based on the plot of one of the most successful computer games, this post-apocalyptic series focuses on the tragic aspects of survival in a world devastated by an epidemic that has become uncivilized and barbaric.

A significant part of the US population has been consumed by a fungus that infects the brain and turns the infected into predatory and disgusting mutant zombies. The survivors either left the ruined cities to live alone away from the crazed crowds or joined communities controlled by fanatical and brutal dictators.

What is The Last of Us about?

The protagonist, Joel, is no longer a young man, still living through his personal catastrophic drama, which began two decades ago with the death of his daughter, who was killed during a ruthless martial law.

It’s no wonder that after being assigned to protect a teenage girl named Ellie, he becomes frustrated and emotionally stressed when this irreverent, nasty and wild teenager constantly tries to evade his careful tutelage. He does not yet know that it is she who is the chosen child, who, with the help of her DNA, can save the human race from final extinction.

Meaning of the movie “The Last of Us”

The first episode itself begins with the viewer seeing a young girl named Sarah giving a birthday present to her father, Joel. Soon enough, the outbreak of Cordyceps – that strange and deadly virus – is in full force, and people are fighting for their lives, while the infected, who have gone mad from the infection, rage more and more mercilessly.

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The military arrives to “deal” with the situation. In a time of widespread chaos and mayhem, Sarah is mortally wounded by a soldier and dies in Joel’s arms. This traumatic experience will affect some important decisions he will make much later.

After that, Joel’s memorable memories flash by and the plot is moved forward twenty years from the starting point of the story. Now the United States is a collection of military zones, which are in a literally dictatorial position.

The rest of the country, and probably the whole world, is covered in “Clickers”, which are the most dangerous version of the infected, or small groups of survivors who take care of themselves.

Meanwhile, Joel lives the hard life of a smuggler doing dirty work with a woman named Tess. They are proposed to by another woman named Marlene, who is the leader of a group of anti-war freedom fighters known as the Fireflies, who are looking for a cure for the still-unstoppable cordyceps. She wants them to sneak a teenage girl out of the quarantine zone, and that’s Ellie.

Next, there is a time jump again in the narrative, which tells about how Ellie became infected. The fact is that she and her best friend Riley were spending time together trying to survive, and were about to join the Fireflies, but the two of them were attacked by the Clickers. Both were bitten, and Riley died soon after.

However, Ellie somehow did not become infected. Even though the bite happened three weeks earlier, she’s still fine except for the rash around the bite. This makes her a valuable asset to the Fireflies, as they want to research her so they can develop a vaccine.

After meeting up with Ellie, Tess and Joel quickly learn of Ellie’s bite and immunity to infection. Tess is killed shortly after trying to smuggle Ellie out of town, leaving Joel alone to escort her to the Fireflies. Here the two of them begin to travel around the country, making their way through hordes of not only “clickers”, but also bloodthirsty bandits, before reaching a small town led by Joel’s brother Tommy. He used to be a member of the Fireflies and points Joel and Ellie to Eastern Colorado University, where they have a lab set up to study the cordyceps pandemic.

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But, as the two never have it easy, they arrive to find the base deserted and are soon attacked by more thugs. While trying to break out of the trap, Joel is severely injured in the fall, and he and Ellie barely escape.

Joel’s serious injury leaves him bedridden for a long time. Ellie is forced to take care of both him and herself during a cold and harsh winter. During a deer hunt, she is approached by two men named David and James, and she agrees to trade the shot deer for the antibiotics Joel desperately needs. Since Ellie may well have been more unlucky than one might imagine, it turns out that David is the ringleader of the gangsters who attacked her and Joel at the university. However, he stays true to his word and gives her antibiotics, which she then injects into Joel.

However, the cunning David tracks down and captures Ellie, but luckily Joel recovers from his wounds and is able to find out where she is by torturing one of David’s men. Ellie fights off the bandits and is able to kill David by hacking him to death several times with his own machete. Joel arrives in time to console a distraught Ellie.

Explanation of the ending of The Last of Us

As spring arrives, Joel and Ellie fight their way through more Clickers, and after Ellie nearly drowns in the encounter, the Fireflies find them and knock Joel out. He wakes up and finds himself in a secret base. There he meets another old friend, and now the leader of the resistance, the militant Marlene. She arrives at Joel’s room to reassure him of the girl’s safety. Marlene reveals that she is preparing for an operation that will help them find a cure for the fungus.

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However, since the necessary biomaterial can only be extracted from brain matter, Joel soon realizes that Ellie will have to die to create a vaccine. But for all the time spent with her, the main character began to treat Ellie as the daughter he lost when she was at the same age. After that, he’s not going to let the Fireflies kill her.

In the final battle, Joel destroys many of the Fireflies, including doctors who could help create a vaccine, and takes an unconscious Ellie out of the operating room. He runs off with her to the underground parking lot, but Marlene is there to stop her.

She tries to reason with him, even going so far as to lower his gun, but he shoots her in cold blood to stop her or any of the Fireflies from chasing them. By doing so, he effectively negates any chance that a cure will be found in the near future.

When Ellie comes to, she asks Joel what happened. He lies to her and tells her that the Fireflies have given up on finding a cure and that there are many other people with the same immunity as her. However, despite Joel’s explanation, Ellie appears to be skeptical of his version of events.

After expressing her remorse for not being able to cure the pandemic and outliving so many other characters, Ellie asks Joel to swear that he is telling the truth. Joel agrees, and despite lingering doubts, she believes him. The two of them end up returning to settle down with Tommy and his group of survivors.

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