THE LAST OF US episode 9 | how a twist changes EVERYTHING

after all we've been through everything I've done you can't be for nothing I know you mean well I know you want to protect me you have and when we're done we'll go wherever you want always sheep Ranch the Moon um I'll follow you anywhere you go so The Last of Us season one concludes with a hell of an episode the shortest episode of the series some might argue it was rushed I personally think it was perfectly paced and concise and delivered absolutely everything it needed to well almost everything I would have liked to have seen Sarah's photograph even if I do actually prefer what they did in its place here and I think it's fair when people say there haven't been enough infected this series I don't mind at all when people say about the lack of action but I do think we lose some of the sense of threat the infected carry when we haven't seen them really much for so long either way I think it's a brilliant episode and there is a lot of big stuff we need to talk about spoilers for episode nine that's important to say but otherwise let's just get going [Music] foreign [Music] so before we talk about the massive moral dilemma here and some of the layers to it that I don't think people often notice we first need to look at Ellie who is not in a good place here last week she was put through traumatic events and I need to emphasize this again just because she was able to stop David and fight her way free doesn't make it any less traumatic I think people often look at that event as like some positive story of growth for how Ellie is able to fight and survive on her own and yes that's sort of true however it doesn't remove the trauma that is going to have an effect on her too often TV does this weird thing of glorifying trauma into some positive right of passage that characters need to go through to become better and that they're then thankful for the experience and that's just not a good message one fortunately that this show does not subscribe to which is great and this episode in a very simple concise way we see her ongoing pain doesn't require Mass dramatization or flashbacks because we know what Ellie's been through just having her a bit quiet and not quite following things I think it's all a great depiction and it leaves Joel the one now who's talking a lot he's slight unease because he knows she's struggling and he wants to make it better but he doesn't know how should he try talking about what happened or would that be the worst thing to do should he try cheering her up he Rambles on about guitar and Boggle and feels like he's not quite getting it right and ultimately he can't get it right there's no simple thing he can do to make it better he's not supposed to he cannot save Ellie from all despair all he can do is support her be with her be patient understanding I think we can empathize with his unease and also yeah he does a pretty good job here I think he wants to cheer her up which can be good but he's also not so forceful in cheering us that it didn't mean she has no room for her feelings he invites to open up but he also doesn't push her and he understands she might need time and Ellie is still early you know she's going through a lot but she can still joke and laugh and cherish the moment with the giraffes for example that's one of my favorite moments from the game and I'm glad to see it return here a moment that symbolizes hope really yes she's been through a lot both of them have Humanity has but there is still hope there is a point of me saying all this which is how directly relevant this all is to the big moral dilemma we get this episode and to their character arcs as a whole Joel cannot save Ellie from herder's fair but he can support her throughout this show we have seen him change from an out and out protector and Savor who doesn't want her holding a gun who wants her to follow his every command who feels like he's failed when she does have to shoot someone we've seen him change from that into someone who lets her have more agency who gives her a gun teaches her how to hunt and how to keep watch and eventually defend for the two of them when he is wounded although the circumstances are strange that the hazard seems like a clear Arc here of appearance increasingly trusting their child to grow until this episode things now get flipped on their heads let's discuss that after this wonderful bit [Music] this video is sponsored by World Anvil World Anvil is an online tool for World building campaign building character creation management good for writers game Masters and participants of said games from Dungeons and Dragons to all these other ones I haven't heard of oh I do know some of them actually but I said World building can feel daunting when there's so much to do while Danville makes a massive difference giving you all the tools and features you could possibly need a lot of different features the one I find the most fun though is their Chronicles feature say you want to design your own 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code tree which offers you 40 off all their subscriptions there are different levels and you can even try out the free version initially so give it a whirl take it for a test drive World anvil foreign this might sound a little critical of Joel initially but bear with me for it okay because it's not meant to be I've mentioned this Arc of Joel changing from protector or bodyguards into a parent except then the one time Ellie does have to fend for the two of them she gets put through her worst experiences yet and it does seem Joel feels a little guilty about that like that was another of his failures if he hadn't have gotten wounded or if he had somehow still forced himself to go out and do all of the hunting none of this would have happened to Ellie and secondly that if he had just reached her a bit quicker he could have saved her from David Ellie is of course able to save herself and that's massively to her credit there is a positive in there but it is still incredibly traumatic as well and this side of Joel that has wanted to protect her who is still burdened with the feeling that he has failed Sarah that side of him just would feel guilty which suggests two things one I shouldn't have been giving her control I should be an out and out protector because when I didn't do that it resulted in horror for her two I moved Heaven and Earth to reach her and I still failed to get there quick enough I cannot make that same mistake again I will not fail again next time she needs saving I will not let anything stop me or slow me down and so right at the last moment his whole Arc this series suddenly flips on its head and he charges off to be the total protector so much so that he takes away all of her agency and decision making here and we end up with something faintly like a reverse to Bill and Frank Frank choosing to die and Bill despite not wanting to lose him choosing to accept that decision does that mean Joel was bad and did the wrong thing no to be honest I'm not even sure what I think about this yet however it is important to note The Twist we get here directly twists his entire Arc it's not just a plot twist but a character twist I guess which in bed it much deeper into the story and I think is a big reason it feels so impactful Joel goes on a big Killing Spree to stop the fireflies from performing surgery on Ellie when he learns that the surgery needed to obtain a cure would kill her his motivations are love and care and wanting to save his new daughter however we also have to recognize his own inner feelings of failure they are a very important factor that people seem to overlook this side of him that still feels like he failed Sarah that hasn't come to terms of it that feels like he failed early last episode and cannot afford to suffer the guilt of going through that all again it's both that he can't bear to lose any ends he can't bear to feel like he failed Ellie I think that point does matter and what it all makes for is this wonderful Paradox on the one hand Joel being kind of heroic who suffered this pain of not saving Sarah and then goes through this journey and this time does save Ellie in any other story that would have been an arc of real heroic growth and of resolving his inner pains but here it sets against the massive moral complications that undermine it plus it feels less like this is an act of overcoming and resolving his grief then of being chained to it so this is kind of both those things and I think that makes it such a fascinating Arc for character I love it this is the thing though there's still more to it than that there's also Marlene and Ellie yourself which is where we'll get to another side of this that I think is often overlooked so let's do that now the whole back story with Ellie's mum and who also seems to have an oddly familiar voice can't think why that is a perfect addition which just cements her perspective I think it's really hard of a choice for Marlene too who does make a compelling argument this is about saving the world the one person who can cure this infection the one thing that would turn the fireflies into a genuine Force for good rather than just you know a word beginning with Terror that YouTube doesn't like me saying Ellie would die but it would be worth something except as Joel says it isn't for you to decide her account is that it's not for Joel to decide either that's Ellie really would want to give her life for the sake of a cure and Marlene is right Ellie would want to but Marlene doesn't actually know that because she didn't ask Ellie she didn't explain it to her to be honest she doesn't even know Ellie all that well which makes this interesting I think Marlene doesn't want to know what Ellie wants to do so proceeds with surgery without asking her whereas Joel does know what Ellie wants to do but chooses to go against it and he did a good job of showing Joel is conflicted about this I should say anyway it leaves all of this feeling like two parents fighting over a child without actually giving the kids a say in a matter and I think that similarity is deliberate if Ellie did have a say I'm almost 100 certain she would choose to give her life Riley gave her life Sam and Henry gave their lives tested all the good people who died where Ellie got to live does that leave her with feelings of survivor's guilt in Tess's case she died specifically so that Ellie could reach the fireflies and make a cure for Ellie to then not do that would feel like a betrayal of Tess's life as she says it can't be for nothing all of which just reminds you how much weight Ellie has been carrying on her shoulders this entire time it's phenomenal I guess the next layer of moral complexity that comes in here is whether or not Ellie is thinking straight whether or not it's too big a decision for someone her age I imagine Joel might make that argument after all you know had all these people not Died For A Cause early did not ask him to die for had none of them died had Ellie not been left with survivor's guilt would she still decide to give her life for the possibility of a cure that's an interesting question to wonder about um not one I'm going to give my answer to because I think it's better I just leave it open for you it's been years since I played the game and as it turns out I completely remembered the ending entirely wrong so I watched back some clips from the game and found that in the game you can find evidence that suggests the Cure might not be possible that there had in fact been dozens like Ellie who were immune who lost their lives under surgery and it still didn't produce a cure what's to say the same wouldn't happen to Ellie I think it does then take something away from the story when they leave that out of the show here however in its place I think we get this other idea the reason season Ali is immune is that her mother was bitten just before giving birth that does then leave you wondering well surely they can replicate that situation again produce another baby that could grow up similarly immune then try to extract a cure from that child that's a very different complication to throw into the mix and yes it means someone else would have to give their life in Ellie's place but it also means Joel hasn't necessarily doomed Humanity here the way it can be suggested this wasn't their one and only shots they can get other immune people but I'm now just getting lost presenting different sides of an argument when I wasn't really what I wanted to do my point was If part of Joel's motivation to save Ellie was guilt about failing Sarah part of Ellie's motivation to create a cure is guilt over the loss of tests and Riley and Sam and Henry and almost Joel although again she wasn't actually given the choice here there's one more thing we need to mention before finishing perhaps the most important thing foreign wrongs we get a scene in which Joel goes through a hospital with a gun and kills everybody in sights that's pretty horrible I think there's a deliberate parallel to real life which reminds us despite our empathy for Joel what he does here to all of these people is awful it's awful I really like the way the scene is done you know I've heard people wishing it was longer with more action but when this isn't a video game and you can't be in their shoes making these decisions I think it would remove the weight of what's Happening instead we get the sound half muffled in place of dark music we get slow dare I say it villainous shots of Joel's feet and there's a total dark numbness that the scene needs all of these people all of their lives mean absolutely nothing to drove right now all that matters is early they make that the focus of this scene and I think they're entirely right to and then when he does save her he has to lie to her fireflies tried to to extract to cure but it didn't work they had to rush out and Escape because of a Raiders attack for Ellie this queue had become her purpose why did she get to live where so many became infected it had to mean something this was her superpower the hope for the entire world and then just suddenly she's waking up in a car and it's all gone John tells her but if you just keep going you find something new to fight for I took Joel a good 20 years to find something new to fight for and Ellie for good or bad he just took away the very thing she was fighting for snatched it from her while she slept which is a hell of a thing to do when you think of it like that sometimes regardless of the Rights and Wrongs of morality there are consequences sometimes that's just unavoidable and the consequence here even if you feel Joel did the right thing is that Ellie might not be able to forgive him if she finds out in fact his lie would probably make it even worse the consequences are that in order to save her life he may have to live with her being angry at him hating him for it maybe possibly rejecting or leaving him I honestly have no idea what happens next season I never played the second game because it was released at a time in my life where I no longer had the same free time for gaming and I know next to nothing about the story there but surely this is a massive Point surely that transcends the Rights and Wrongs Ellie will feel betrayed by the only person she ever trusted just as Maria warned the only people who can betray us are the ones we trust so I think this show masterfully flips an entire character Arc at the last moment and also somewhat turns the whole theme upside down a story about how important love and close bonds are in a world where Humanity can be awful suddenly there's this wedge between their close Bond and there's a lot we can make of that but I also think it's better if I wait to see how it develops in season two there is a lot more I want to say about this show I want to talk more about people's criticisms about the lack of infected because I don't think it's as clear-cut as people suggest I want to talk about the suggestions people make about certain episodes being filler I want to talk about some of the more General points I never covered in my videos on the show you know look out for that another beat video when the whole season wrap up also look out tomorrow for a live stream sometime around three to four pm onwards I don't know how long it will last it was originally going to be part of a fun run days of a surgery for our pet rabbit Lenin but it seems you've already helped me solve that problem beautifully um so instead I'm going to do a live stream to say thank you and I'm going to read some old short stories I wrote years ago and either cringe with embarrassment or be pleasantly surprised I don't yet know I'm gonna do that answer some general questions maybe talk about the last of us some more I'm not yet sure we'll see what happens but if you're interested to come on board for that if you're not don't worry obviously um but like this video if you liked it comment your thoughts what did I not mention what have I missed what did I get wrong support me on patreon if you fancy doing that but otherwise hopefully see you next time and as ever a special thank you goes to Luke or treat you caber Michael Gallagher in squares flying spider Samara salsi Joshua C follier and Jab Bramwell thank you [Music]

Channel: My Little Thought Tree

Views: 32,569

Keywords: The Last Of Us, the last of us, the last of us analysis, the last of us episode 9, episode 9 analysis, episode 9, ep.9, ep9, review, analysis, explained, easter eggs, reaction, videoessay, the last of us explained, therapist reacts, therapist explains, my little thought tree, HBO, hbo, Joel saves Ellie, fireflies, bella ramsey, pedro pascal, finale, scene, marlene, the last of us ending, end scene, the last of us review, episode 9 review, the twist, meaning, deeper meaning, game vs show

Id: HVAQHIowxLM

Length: 18min 54sec (1134 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 14 2023