The Final of Us loves a good callback, and in its Season 2 finale, it attracts a heartbreaking connection from Ellie (Bella Ramsey) to Joel (Pedro Pascal).
The callback comes when Ellie makes an attempt to hunt Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) to her hideout within the Seattle Aquarium. As an alternative of discovering her goal, she finds Abby’s mates Owen (Spencer Lord) and Mel (Ariela Barer). In an try and study the place Abby is, she gestures to a close-by map of Seattle.
“You, bring me that map,” she tells Mel. “You’re gonna point to where Abby is.”
Ellie addresses Owen subsequent: “Then you’re gonna do it, and it better fucking match.”
If that tactic sounds acquainted, it is as a result of Joel used it not as soon as however twice again in Season 1. In episode 6, he first requested an aged couple (Elaine Miles and Graham Greene) to level out their present location on a map. Later, in episode 8, he pulled the identical trick on David’s (Scott Shepherd) cronies with the intention to study the place David had taken Ellie.
Mashable High Tales
What does the return of Joel’s map tactic inform us about Ellie?
Bella Ramsey in “The Last of Us.”
Credit score: Liane Hentscher / HBO
That Ellie tries Joel’s map tactic on Owen and Mel proves simply how a lot she’s discovered from Joel of their time collectively — and the way her revenge quest has seen her slowly turning into Joel, particularly in relation to violence. Within the season 2 finale, Ellie additionally discusses how simple it felt to hurt Nora (Tati Gabrielle) with the intention to study what she needed. Joel himself is not any stranger to torture: His use of the map technique in Season 1, episode 8 was accompanied by him ruthlessly stabbing considered one of David’s males within the leg.
Ramsey mentioned Ellie’s rising similarity to Joel in an interview with Mashable, saying, “Ellie really is becoming Joel in a certain way, and would hate that if you said it to her, because she thinks that she’s the opposite to him. In fact, they’re kind of two sides of the same coin.”
To seize that sense of sameness, Ramsey channeled Pascal in these darker scenes.
“I did sort of try and take, not really from rewatching [Season 1], just from remembering how it was to be in scenes with [Pascal], where he was taking this sort of hard-ass, protective stance,” Ramsey mentioned. “I really tried to emulate that a little bit with Ellie, and thinking about how much she looks up to Joel, and how she has learned everything that she knows, basically, from him.”
The Final of Us Season 2 is now streaming on HBO Max.
