The Last of Us Ep. 8 dials up the creep factor.
And provides emotional catharsis in the process.
The Short Take:
A harrowing episode that goes full on horror at the end. I’m aghast upon realizing that there’s only one episode to go, but this one puts us in the perfect place emotionally going into the finale.
Image Credit: CNN
[SPOILER WARNING: If you haven’t seen the episode, you won’t survive out here all alone.]
The Long Take:
It’s okay, baby girl.
This one line means the world in this show. It is the very same language Joel uses in the series premiere, as he holds his dying daughter, Sarah, in his arms. At first he tries to reassure her, telling her she’s going to be okay. Even when it becomes clear to Tommy and the audience that she’s not going to make it, Joel never gives up on her. He says, “Come on, baby girl. I gotta get you up.” But she’s already gone. (Incidentally, when I went back to Episode 1 and rewatched Sarah’s death, I teared up all over again. It’s still some of Pedro Pascal’s finest acting to date.)
At the end of this week’s episode, Joel uses the same term of endearment with Ellie for the first time. Having narrowly escaped David and his creepy cannibalistic religious cult, she is so shaken that she at first doesn’t even realize it’s Joel coming up behind her. Once she stops screaming because she realizes who it is, he gives her a hug, holds her tight and says, “It’s okay, baby girl. I’ve got you.” I’m sure I’m not the only one making this connection back to Sarah. Rather, I am taking the time to establish this parallel because I found it so impactful. I felt for these two so much in this moment because, after Joel nearly dying, after Ellie deciding to stay to help him, after Ellie leaving a knife with a prone Joel and risking capture to try to lead David’s party away from him. After David nearly raping and killing Ellie. After all that, this one hug and one line made me well up with emotion.
Image Credit: Buzzfeed
This embrace and these words create a moment that perfectly concludes the full arc Ellie and Joel have been going on this season. When Joel says this without hesitation to Ellie, after the harrowing events that transpired over the course of three episodes, it signifies that his transformation into Ellie’s surrogate father is complete. The conflict and resolution between Ellie and Joel in Jackson initiated the final phase of their evolution and definitely brought the two closer together, but the end of this episode marks the final formation of their bond.
Despite Joel telling Ellie to the contrary, I was definitely NOT okay during this episode, which was riveting and downright scary, despite the utter lack of zombies. I knew something was off with David from the jump, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it when he first appeared. Just something about his demeanor made him seem like he was just trying to create the illusion that he was kind rather than actually being kind. The way he interacted with his parishioners in the room seemed…unhealthy. I would largely credit actor Scott Shepherd, who played another creepy bad guy in Season 3 of True Detective, with making me feel that way before the character had really said or done anything to warrant my suspicion.
Image Credit: Looper
Everything else he does after that, of course, makes him seem creepier and creepier. I at first thought of but was not sure about cannibalism when he specifically asks how much game meat they have, and starts to list all the animals like elk and deer. Why would he need to be that specific? I wondered. But then I brushed it off. A much more obvious red flag was when some of the cult members stew venison and one of them asks what kind of meat they’re cooking. So sus, as the kids would say.
Only when David slapped the grieving daughter in front of everyone and made disturbing comments about how he’s her real father did I say, “Oookayyyy this is definitely a creepy cult.” I thought the steady reveal and progression of his evil made his ultimate “join me and let’s rule the world together” pitch to Ellie and then his final attempt to rape her seem more plausible. (Though let me clear, it was still totally nuts in general.) And, oh, did it heighten the suspense as well. I think if we had started the episode with him dialed to 11 like that, it would have been a lot less disturbing and harder for me to take him seriously.
David as a psychotic, abusive cult leader made this whole episode feel like a mini version of Silence of the Lambs. And not just because of the cannibalism, though I’m sure that’s what first brought my cinematic consciousness there. The writing certainly made me feel like we were dissecting David’s disturbed mind, trying to understand what made him tick. To see how hollow the veneer of guardianship and humanitarianism David tries to project to those around him. By the end, we realize that he doesn’t really want to save or help anybody — he wants control over them. It doesn’t matter that Ellie would be another mouth to feed if they took her in; all David cares about is having someone else to trap and abuse under the guise of taking care of them.
In a lot of ways, David is the anti-Joel. Joel is initially reluctant to take on Ellie as a responsibility, but when called to it he can’t help but selflessly protect her. David, on the other hand, wants so badly for others to think of him as their father, but does so in a twisted fashion, for all the wrong reasons. And so I find it extra clever that just as we arrive at the crossroads in Ellie’s burgeoning father-daughter relationship with Joel, she faces a villain that represents a perversion of fatherly love.
Right after I thought of Silence of the Lambs, I thought of The Shining. Part of that is because this episode takes place at a resort. It’s also because this episode, through Ellie’s perspective, feels like a self-contained psychological horror film within the larger series. Ellie, for example, reaches behind her for the cleaver under the table and then repeatedly slashes down at David with it, screaming and going and going like she can’t stop, even after he is long dead. And then she escapes, able to leave all the horrors of Silver Lake behind her.
What significance does this genre coating have for the story? I think it’s huge for Ellie’s character development, as it firmly establishes her as the heroine of her own story. Bella Ramsey gets to be the Jamie Lee Curtis in the Halloween series, the Sigourney Weaver in Alien, or the Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs (I really should say all their characters’ names instead, but I’m not confident I can remember them all.). Horror is actually one of my weakest genres because I’m a scaredy cat, so if you have insights about mapping horror onto this episode, please share in the comments!
This episode’s use of horror tropes proves beyond certainty that Ellie is smart, capable, and can take care of herself. It’s not that she needs Joel to survive. It’s that they need each other.
Image Credit: Vulture
In some ways, David continually telling her that she needs him because she can’t survive alone out there represents Ellie’s own inner demons about her own agency. In the flashback with Riley last week, we learned that she was the protectee in that relationship, with Riley being the more adventurous and capable of the two; Ellie becomes a bully’s target in her absence. And a lot of last week and this week was about Ellie dealing with the panic that her protector, Joel, is going to die and leave her to fend for herself. But she stitches his wound, gets medicine for him, and knows to leave a knife and block the door with a large piece of furniture so he at least gets warning when David’s men find him. And, until David shows up to foil her plans, she was well on her way to hunting for food on her own too.
When Joel hugs Ellie and says, “it’s okay, baby girl. I’ve got you,” he means that he will be there for her like a father. But what we’ve seen in this episode is that Ellie is also there to protect him. The hug is a moment of relief and safe harbor for both of them, and it’s very cool to be going into the season finale with them on that kind of equal footing.
Image Credit: Mashable
As far as where they will step next, I’m not sure. As I’ve said before, we’re way past where I’ve played in the game, so I have no idea how close we are to Joel and Ellie’s intended destination. I do think that with one episode to go and such a climactic moment here, we should manage our expectations. This finale is likely going to be a lot more about setting up the gambit for next season than introducing and resolving a new place and problem all in one episode.
I can only assume, though, that we’re in for more mushroom zombies. They’re long overdue.
I didn’t recall “baby girl” but the connection for me was the clear shot of the watch.
Scott was perfect and I forgot he was in TD!
They gave the white rabbit a pass so I wasn’t sure if they were going to do Joel’s interrogation scene or not but I’m glad they did. It bodes well for the last episode :)