This article contains spoilers for the first episode of The Last Of Us.The Last of Us is here and it's all one could ask for as a fan of the games or as a casual viewer of a survival drama. The show excites, scares, and makes you care about the characters it follows. While the series will follow our central father-daughter-esque duo Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), it does a great deal to enhance their relationship with the help of their post-apocalyptic surroundings and supporting characters. In the first episode of HBO's official The Last of Us podcast, series co-creator and co-writer Craig Mazin talks about why we need to watch out for the dangerous chemistry between Joel and Ellie.
Right from the first episode, the series uses children as a metaphor for what this world really is. We first meet Joel’s daughter Sarah (Nico Parker) right before the outbreak. She loves her father and is a pretty independent child. But when the Cordyceps outbreak happens she becomes a casualty and that’s Joel’s turning point, a loss that turns him into a hardened survivor. Then, when the series takes a leap we follow another kid, who turns out to be infected and is euthanized, whom Joel turns over in a fire pit with little remorse. Signifying that in this world children aren’t the future, per se, and the horrifying things Joel has had to live with for the past 20 years.
Then we meet Ellie, who isn’t a big fan of Joel right from the start. Joel and Ellie meet under distressed circumstances and when the former is tasked to take her to the next group of Fireflies, he isn’t willing to do it. Mazin explains: “Understanding where Ellie goes and understanding what the connection is between Joel and Ellie, that there’s a thread between them that is more than just ‘I used to have a kid and you’re also a kid.'” Ellie is in stark contrast with Sarah, she’s a survivor and isn’t afraid to charge when threatened. As Mazin notes in an after-show featurette, when Ellie sees Joel attacking the soldier in the final moments of the show, something activates in her. She likes the idea of being protected by a father figure, unlike Sarah who starts crying when she sees her father killing an old woman who was infected.
“There’s something else, there’s the connection already between Joel and Ellie that is different from his connection with his own daughter, and perhaps, potentially stronger and certainly potentially more dangerous,” Mazin continued. Perhaps, that dangerous thing is love, parental or any kind of love is a beautiful feeling but when tested to its limits can make you do violent things. And as we see in the final moments of the show Joel is quite a dangerous man.
The Last of Us episode 2 will debut on January 22. You can check out Mazin’s comments below: