LAST OF US Episode 9 Breakdown - Ending Explained and Every Easter Egg

people are making apocalypse jokes like there's no tomorrow too soon no it's topical hey welcome to screen Crush I'm Ryan Erie and this is all the Easter eggs references and little things that you might have missed in the season one finale of The Last of Us well look guys if you've never played the games welcome to the ending we've all been coping with the scenting for 10 years now so I'm going to get into the similarities to the game how this ending has been foreshadowed since the first episode and as always we're going to talk about all the themes of this episode and the show as a whole and later we're going to break down that gut-wrenching ending so let's break this bad boy down we open with Anna Ellie's mother running through the woods now this is by far my favorite Easter egg in the entire show Anna is played by Ashley Johnson 80s babies might know her as Chrissy on Growing Pains Marvel fans recognize her as the waitress in The Avengers but a lot of you also might know her from critical role where she plays DND with a group of other prominent voice actors on a weekly twitch live stream hey hey hey this is a crime scene yes a crime scene that I made but last of his fans know her as the actor who plays Ellie in the game so Ashley Johnson has given birth to Ellie in the game and in the show that's so cool I know right she even kind of looks like Bella Ramsey and by the way one of the nurses at the end is also on critical role she is played by Laura Bailey who in the last of his two plays the character of Abby now that character has a connection to this episode but because of spoilers that's all I'm going to say shout out to heavy spoilers for that really cool Easter egg now all of this is a new sequence that does not appear in the game although the backstory the relationship between Marlene and Nana was implied in the game and in the American Dreams comic book now showing Anna struggling to reach this house how she falls how she outruns the infected and then her water breaks all of this is showing that Anna is the first of many people who fight to keep Ellie alive when Anna is attacked by an infected she fights back with her knife the same knife that Ellie has used all through the series drawing one of many parallels to her and Sarah remember Sarah was briefly fascinated by Joel's knife in the first episode episode and this episode is the first time we've seen exactly why Ellie is immune like blade she's a day Walker recipe day Walker well like blade Blade's a vampire hunter who can walk in the daylight because his mom was attacked by a vampire while he was still in the womb in the same way Ellie's mom was attacked at the moment she was giving birth so Ellie's stem cells maybe found a way to control the fungus science and stuff that's right science and stuff so the episode begins with the mother giving her life to save Ellie and it ends with a father taking life to save Ellie in a lot of ways The Last of Us is a pretty simple show it's about Joel overcoming his own personal trauma Ellie becomes a symbol of all the good in the world so for Joel the world without her is not worth living in this is because Ellie allowed Joel to finally regain his Humanity by overcoming his trauma anxiety and panic attacks and this makes Joel such a relatable hero all of us have had trauma or anxiety or depression like I lost someone very close to me a few years ago I was super depressed I hated life and therapy helped me get through that and maybe there's something in your life it's interfering with your own happiness you might want therapy but you're not sure where to get started and that is where better health comes in they're the sponsor of this video better help listens to your needs and helps match you with your own licensed therapist this is not a crisis line or self-help this is Professional Therapy see I'm from a rural area where it's very hard to find therapists so better help is perfect with a network of more than 25 000 therapists the largest therapy service in the world to get started you just answer a few questions about your needs and therapy preferences that way better help can match you with a custom picked therapist from their Network it's very accessible you can log into your account at any time and send messages to your therapist plus you can schedule weekly phone or video sessions so you don't have to sit in uncomfortable waiting rooms but if your therapist isn't right for you better help makes it easy to switch better help wants you to start living a happier life today it's more affordable than traditional offline therapy and financial aid is available and we have a special offer for screen Crush fans click the link in the description to get 10 off your first month that betterhelp that's help.com screen crush or you can click this QR code now back to the Easter eggs after Anna gives birth one of the first words that Ellie ever hears is the f word that really explains her potty mouth right foreign finger then Marlene shows up to the house and she's played by Merle Dandridge the only actor in the show who's playing the same character that she played in the game Marlene finds her best friend and her new daughter and it's hard to not find a parallel here with other Chosen One babies Moses was discovered floating in a basket Kal-El was in a rocket ship so this is an ancient storytelling Trope of babies with a special purpose being left alone and vulnerable and then being taken in this is all building up to the idea that Ellie exists for a reason again the show has been building up this idea in our heads for a long time I believe everything happens for a reason it does I can prove it to you or like when Ellie talked about her greater purpose we find the fireflies it all works they draw my blood and put it through some of their fancy machines and make a cure now a lot of you would argue that Ellie ends up existing for a noble reason to redeem Joel but we can talk about that later in the episode so as Marlene arrives in the house we hear Anna singing no no that is the sun always shines on TV by Aha and there is a lot of hidden meaning packed into this song first you'll remember that Ellie has an aha cassette tape and she and Riley had their Adventure set to their song Take On Me be careful now knowing that Anna was an aha fan this makes me wonder if Marlene found a way to give this cassette to Ellie because she knew that her mom would have wanted that for her so the lyrics that she sings are touch me how can it be believe me the sun always shines on TV hold me close to your heart touch me and give all your love to me now there's a very literal meaning here a mother is singing to her daughter to hold her clothes to get all of her love while she still can but on a more meta level the song is a deeply ironic statement about how television prepares us for Happy Endings that never come in the real world the music video begins with a man singing to a woman as the man slowly becomes a drawing and it's a very slow somber part of the song and then comes a the end card the same way that this prologue is showing the end of Anna's story but the beginning of Ellie's so this show within a show depicts a man who is transforming into something else so he can't be with the woman he loved in the same way Anna is transforming into an infected so she can never be with Ellie and then the band performs the song in a cathedral in front of mannequins well the song is about the Deep loneliness in the singer's heart and he's wondering how he can feel so terrible about life but the TV always shows such a nice sunny reality it paints a disconnection between the performer and the audience like a mannequin audience and a human singer and in the same way we're watching this show and up to now we're expecting a happy ending Ellie saves the human race hooray we want that Hollywood ending instead we got something that's a lot more human assets so Anna has a knife to her own throat ready to kill herself when she starts to turn now there's a parallel here with the death of Riley which Ellie explains at the end of the episode feel poetic and just lose our minds together and then she did and I had to now in that same monologue Ellie says that Riley was the first person to die for her but actually Riley wasn't the first her mother was or she wanted to hold her daughter's daughter she could that's so sad yes it is so Marlene says we would delay getting out of his own and I'm guessing she's talking about the federal quarantine Zone in Baltimore Frank said that it fell apart about four years after outbreak day Baltimore qz it's gone which would Place Ellie at about 15 or 16 years old Frank could have even been part of Marlene's group we started with 10. but yeah I'm alone initially Marlene refuses to kill her best friend I can't kill you but she ends up finding the resolve to do it this is foreshadowing how she does not hesitate to let Ellie die at the end of the episode I'm the only one who'll understand I have no other choice and this is what's really messed up Marlene is so Keen to let Ellie die because she wants her friend's death to be for a reason she wants to have killed her friend for a greater purpose so you could argue that like Joel she has a selfish motivation but we're going to get into whether Joel was right or wrong later in the video but now we go to the present day in the game this chapter of the story is called Spring and here we can see that the snow has melted and the plants are growing again spring is a time of renewal and rebirth so naturally it's a time when we expect good things to happen like Ellie giving birth to a new world where the human race can be reborn Ellie is still coping with the trauma of being sexually assaulted by a cannibal so the world is very muffled and distant really and this is how she opens this chapter in the game and just like in the game Joel is trying to cheer her up Beefaroni Chef Boyardee oh cool and you remember they ate that in episode four what am I even eating that is 20 year old Chef Boyardee ravioli and then he tries to cheer her up with Boggle who does he think she is Peggy Hill oh yeah now just like in the game the scene takes place in an overground traffic jam and Joe is like overwhelmingly optimistic ready to begin a new life with Ellie as his surrogate daughter in the game he says and once we're done with this whole thing I'm gonna teach you how to play guitar and here he's just as excited to begin playing music again maybe I should find one I haven't played in Forever and more importantly he wants to teach Ellie how to play in fact I was thinking maybe I could teach you so all through the show we've talked about how the writers have created a story that's about how people express love the channel film wise did a brilliant breakdown about this which I highly recommend you check out Joel shows his love through protection he protects Sarah he protects Tommy and ultimately he comes to love Ellie through protecting her but he also expresses his love by teaching Ellie how to protect herself however in Joel and Sarah's house we also see their love for music sticker from Austin City Limits band posters Sarah's t-shirt a guitar so for Joel sharing his love of music with someone else is deeply personal because it reminds him of his daughter so it's a big step that he wants to teach Ellie how to make music which he considers to be a personal expression of love so they lay out their plan and cut through that building to get around that stuff find the skyscraper go up and look around and this is funny because like they're talking like they've done this a hundred times before and in the game you do this like at every single City you ever get to where there's Rebel which is why they sound so bored from this routine a lot of moments from this episode are taken directly from the game like looking for a ladder giving a boost and then Ellie running off to see the giraffes now the giraffe sequence is beautiful and also taken straight from the game now the giraffes are one of the game's most iconic moments after fighting hours and hours of zombies and death you're giving this a little Haven of life life um bro finds a way that's right and you know what the way they pet and feed these giraffes is even very reminiscent of how Alan and the kids feed the brachiosaurus and Jurassic Park the cordyceps shows us the ugliness of nature that the natural world is filled with death and animals trying to kill each other but this scene shows us the beauty of the natural world it's also showing Ellie how the world can flourish when there are no cordyceps there's a family of giraffes and seeing this gives her hope and breaks her loose from her trauma and man the way Joel Smiles at her and then she says you can't deny that for you also from the game you can't deny the view though but remember this is also a callback to the first scene when Jill when Ellie started to click and they had a chance to bond but man you can't deny that view so Joel has finally reached a point of fulfillment in his life but as a protector he is still a pessimist and afraid that it's all going to fall apart maybe there's nothing bad out there but so far there's always been something bad out there and then just like in the game he tries to talk her out of going forward we don't have to do this after all we've been through it can't be for nothing and that is the key line of this episode when people live in a post-apocalyptic hellscape they search for meaning for purpose for Bill it was Frank and you were my purpose for Marlene it's the cause you restore democracy and freedom for Henry it was Sam for Kathleen it was revenge and Pastor Dave was ready to provide purpose to his flock this is where Joel and Ellie have irreconcilable differences in Ellie's mind it's not enough to survive there has to be reason for your existence well for Joel for the past 20 years he has been focused on mere survival not really living his life in fact in this episode we found out that he tried to end his life I was the guy who shot and missed but he was unable to kill himself so instead he put himself in dangerous situations for the next 20 years hoping somebody else would do it for him now this puts Joel in a state between being dead and alive his body was still going but he was dead inside just like one of the infected so as we've been talking about for weeks now the cordyceps are a metaphor for Joel's internal Darkness but actually this episode's twist made me think of that metaphor in a new light which I'm going to talk about later in the video see for Joel he does need all of these deaths to have a higher purpose but for him Ellie is that purpose without her there is no world but as we've seen in past episodes Ellie has a romantic vision of herself being a savior to all mankind I would his medicine then they ask about the future and when we're done we'll go wherever you want Thomas sheep Ranch the Moon which is a call back to episode six dream of sheep Ranch is on the moon and when you know the end of this episode the slide from Ellie hits a lot harder but there's no halfway with this is what we started the two of them walk through an Army Medical Center just like in the game I ended up in a treehouse just like this but unlike in the game Joel talks about Sarah unless who's gone already and notice how he's finally able to like speak about her casually tenderly it's really moving and it shows how he's managed to cope with his trauma because Ellie has taken her place in his heart now he confesses his suicide attempt saying that it was on the second day of the outbreak so the broken watch reminds him of Sarah and so does the scar on his face the scar that he's had to look at every day in the mirror for 20 years now notice there's also a contrast here with Bill and Frank they said this isn't the tragic suicide at the end of the play I'm satisfied while Joel says I couldn't have been more already went to pull the trigger a flinched now if you're going to take like a mystical romantic view of this and you could say that some higher power was saving Joel for a purpose to save Ellie now that's the sun shining on TV version of events the version that we expect to see on a show but isn't actually that realistic or true to the characters that we've come to know afterwards they have this lovely exchange so Time Heals all wounds I guess it wasn't entirely negative what a great sink these are two emotionally closed off people who have found ways to say I love you with just a look and then she breaks out the best pun of the series people are making apocalypse jokes like there's no tomorrow too soon no it's topical and I love that 20 years after the apocalypse too soon is still a thing and then the stun grenade comes in and notice if you play this at 0.25 speed you can see Joe blocking to Shield Ellie from The blast and then just like in the game Joel wakes up in a hospital with Marlene at his side then the scene plays out just like it does when you play the game you came all this way how'd you do it this is all her you can fly like hell to get here take me to her I can't she's being prepped for surgery the hell you mean surgery again Joe immediately works out the implications quarter steps grows inside the brain and this is where we get into the real meat of the episode The philosophical argument about whether or not Joe or Marlene was right the surgery will save Humanity but kill Ellie and this was lightly foreshadowed a couple of episodes ago I tried with Sam tried what I rubbed some of my blood into his bite I reckon it's a lot more complicated than that she says we didn't tell her we can cause her any fear there won't be any pain and then she passes on Anna's knife to Joel now think about this gesture this knife belonged to her best friend she could have kept this in remembrance Savannah but instead she did what Anna did and passed the knife on to a loved one Marlene probably saw this as bringing things full circle but for Joel it's like Marlene just handed him Ellie's corpse a sign that she is dead and cold Marlene is willing to sacrifice Ellie even though she promised Anna she would look after her this is because her obligation to Ellie is out of Duty and not out of love whereas Joel's obligation is purely out of love so the soldier leads him away just like in the game which way so now once again Joe is faced with a soldier who is threatening to take his baby girl away from him and in episode one we already saw how that trauma triggered him to act now here there is a key difference between the show and in the game the game makes you play as Joel you may morally disagree with what he's doing but you are forced to go along with his decision so you can see how the game ends now we actually posted a video about how the last of us too is hated but great where I went into far more detail about this but this is something that is unique to this medium the story cannot be told without our cooperation so it's a long action sequence in the game where you're actively trying to kill all these soldiers but in the show The Sound is more muted like Ellie's thoughts at the beginning of the episode foreign there is no purpose in the world except to save Ellie so nothing else matters that's why the sound is muffled and the score takes over and the score expresses the emotions in his heart all of these lives are worthless next to Ellie's some of these people have families they have their own alleys and it just doesn't matter Joel is no longer a human being he is a single-minded murder machine with a singular purpose Joel has become cordyceps and it's heartbreaking to watch and in the game they make you kill this unarmed doctor like you could just stand there forever until you finally work out the guts to pull the trigger and just like in the game Joel carries Ellie to an elevator and into a garage where he encounters Marlene and you'll notice an immediate parallel here with Sarah Joel carries both of them to safety and this is the moment that Joel was terrified of the reason he was having panic attacks it's all I've ever done it's failure and now we get to the core of this philosophical argument now I'm not going to get like too far into this conversation because we're probably going to make another video about it but I want to know what all of you think down in the comments so on the one hand Marlene gives a very strong argument then you'll die she'll leave than what how long until she's torn apart by infected or murdered by Raiders and we've already talked about how Ellie has this romanticized idea for her saving the world my blood is medicine and all that and young people always believe that they can go out and save the world change a broken system all that stuff Marlene sums up this argument with one sentence because she lives in a broken world that you could have saved and by the way all of this taken straight from the game it ain't for you did you know now for Joel the world will always be broken he's just trying to save the pieces that he can this was foreshadowed all the way back in episode four his hope for the world why bother going going for family so this is really an argument about individualism versus collectivism Joel is an individualist he's self-sustaining doesn't like to take help from others or make friends he keeps a close circle around himself and it took almost a year for him to widen that Circle to include Ellie while Marlene is a collectivist as leader of the Firefly she's trying to be a light in the darkness to restore a world that has been destroyed a world that Joel thinks wasn't that great to begin with it shoved into a middle C paid 12 bucks for a sandwich dude you got to go up in the sky we also see Joel's disdain for collectivism when he talks about Tommy's idealism Tommy's what we used to call a joiner dreams of becoming a hero but at this moment Joe is being a bit hypocritical and selfish like this exchange but it isn't for you to decide for you Marlene also did not give Ellie the choice we didn't tell her we didn't cause her any fear and that's the crime they're both committing they're both so afraid of Ellie's answer that they've robbed her of her ability to choose so Joel looks down at La the same way that he looked down at Sarah's corpse and in a weird way Ellie is kind of like Joel at this moment she's both alive and dead at the same time now the cuts of the car and the subsequent flashbacks are lifted straight from the game so we get this very slow reveal of what happened and the lie that Joel tells is also lifted from the game turns out there's a whole lot more like you they've stopped looking for a cure and when he tells her the hospital was hit by Raiders she asks her and then the camera just lingers on Joel and you can see this in his eyes all those deaths including an unarmed woman begging for her life and Marlene's death plays out just like in the game but all of it was worth it so he could have Ellie the show's ending was also foreshadowed by Kathleen's monologue all the way back in episode five maybe he was supposed to die well kids die Henry they die all the time and this line really connects the stories of Henry and Joel whole world revolves around him that he's worth everything so after Joel says Ellie turns away from him possibly foreshadowing an emotional divide between them and the last of us too but I will say this originally Joe and Marlene had a deal for a car battery so Joel could get to his brother in Wyoming we'll get it to your crew at the state house but before we hand her over they give us everything that we want if not we kill her there and then deal and you know what she ended up delivering on that deal of course the original deal was also for him to deliver a child and walk away but then he had a guilty conscience and saved her life soldering a whole compound of soldiers and oh my God the last of us is completely the Mandalorian Pedro fascal's child protector Shares are even more similar than we thought that's right high five so we start to wind down into the last of us is final haunting Saint just like in the game the card dies and they have to hike and in both stories Joel has Sarah on his mind don't think I ever told you but uh Sarah and I used to take hikes like this well Sarah and I used to hug like this all the time but in the show Joel talks about Sarah a lot and can't help but compare her to Ellie she's taller she had a killer smile again I'm not saying that you don't while Joel is excited about his new life sheep and a guitar with Ellie he even imagines this idyllic Universe where the two of them could have met she would have liked you I mean it is striking how different Joel is in this scene garyless obsequious trying to please Ellie but if you just keep going you find something new to fight for it's like he's got a guilty conscience and he's terrified that his last actions will drive her away she has this far away look in her eyes as she comes to believe that their Journey was for nothing from the moment she was born people have died to protect her from her mother to Riley Tess all the way to the soldiers in the hospital see it was easy for Ellie to accept the deaths of others if it meant that they died for something a cause that would fix the world this is real real but now she has to live with the knowledge that they just died for her that puts an immense amount of pressure on her to live a life with meaning so just like in the game she tells Joel the full truth about herself she just lose our minds together and then she did and I had to just like Joel overcame his trauma by sharing his story with Ellie she's trying to create meaning out of her own loss for Joel all of the deaths have led to Ellie now earlier I mentioned that Ellie is a kind of Moses figure a chosen one who was taken in as a baby and has supernatural abilities to lead her people into a new world so this shot of her and Joel looking over Jackson reminded me of something Moses LED his people to the promised land but he never actually got to enter it or see it he died shortly before now in the same way Joel and Ellie have this perfect little relationship that is probably doomed to fail as they look down on Jackson we see the seeds of doubt in her mind a crack that can grow into a rift between them before she can recommit to a new life she asks for his oath swear to me that everything you said about the fireflies is true I swear okay now personally I'm one team Joel was wrong but feel free to tell me your opinions in our robust and healthy debate Down Below in the comments no no it's no use Joe Joe we've got to have it out I will say that now the show is done I don't feel like it was a 100 perfect adaptation on the one one hand it added a lot of richness and layers to the story from the game the pilot for example expanded on Sarah's story and showed us the details of outbreak day we also got some pretty cool layered symbolism of the clocks the biscuits all that great stuff fantastic and episode 3 showed the Heights and the adaptation can climb to they took a one-off story from the game that actually kind of plays like a gag and it became a tender love story that encapsulated everything the show is about except Bill actually had the courage to end his life with Frank and Joel did not went to pull the trigger a flinched but the main story of The Last of Us is Ellie trying to get Wes so her blood can save Humanity from the cordyceps fungus whatever happened to me is the key to finding a vaccine so in the game the fungus is a real existential Threat all through the game you fight zombies including the big mean bloater that we saw a glimpse of in episode 5. some of the best sequences in the game some of the most cinematic sequences are related to fighting zombies like when you fight them in sewers it is scary as hell and awesome but after Kansas City we've only seen two infected one in the Riley flashback and the one that attacks Ann and another flashback now look I know that we saw two cities over run with infection but by the time we get to Utah it really seems like the humanity has this problem under control now Joe's decision would have meant a lot more if there would have been well more of a constant threat of the infected walking around throughout the entire show also not to sound shallow here but like zombies are awesome we love zombie stories because it's fun watching people cut them down people didn't just play The Last of Us for the cut scenes you need like a little meat on the bread you know what I'm saying and I definitely feel like this episode in particular would have benefited from having an action scene to kind of break up some of the dialogue overall though the show was amazing and definitely one of the best game adaptations ever made it's a heartfelt examination of personal loss and Trauma and we all felt Joe and Ellie go through a personal journey together where they learned how to work through their grief but still I would have liked just a bit more zombies I gotta have more cowbell well guys let me know your thoughts on the finale down in the comments below or at me on Twitter and if it's your first time here please subscribe and smash that Bell for alerts for screen Crush I'm Ryan Airy thank you [Music] foreign

Channel: ScreenCrush

Views: 258,375

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Id: zRzWpbu1DaY

Length: 26min 27sec (1587 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 12 2023