The Last of Us Ending Explained: Did Joel Save Ellie From the Fireflies? What Happened to Marlene

The Last of Us Ending Explained dives deep into the explosive finale of the post-apocalypse series created by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. Notably. the series starred Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in the lead role and had a total run of 9 episodes. Moreover, each episode had an average runtime of 40-50 minutes.

The Last of Us Ending Explained

In The Last of Us Episode 9, Joel and Ellie have a pretty calm start as they both traverse through the destruction of the city debris. And miraculously bump into a herd of giraffes, only to witness a stroke of beauty in the apocalypse era, for the last time. Furthermore, as soon as they make the advance, the duo is confronted by a group of fireflies and a smoke grenade.

The rebel group makes Joel unconscious by knocking him on the head and taking Ellie into their custody. As the latter regains consciousness, he wakes up inside a firefly-occupied building/research centre and starts to question the whereabouts of Ellie.

Joel gets confronted by their leader Marlene, who mentions that Ellie is completely safe and that no harm was done to her. She also adds that Ellie has agreed to the procedure and that she is currently being operated on.

However, when Joel gets into the intricacies of the medical procedure he learns that the Fireflies are willing to sacrifice Ellie’s life in order to replicate the immunity. They make it pretty clear to Joel that Ellie will not make it alive, as the immunity thing is the first thing preventing her from turning into a clicker.

Even though Joel tries to meet with Ellie, Marlene orders the Fireflies to restrain him and send him back on his journey. The next couple of scenes find him venturing out of the place with two rebels while at gunpoint.

The Last of Us Ending Explained
A still from The Last of Us

Also Read: The Last of Us Episode 8 Twitter Reactions: Ellie’s Fight With the Cult Leaves Fans Impressed

This initiates the explosiveness in the finale as Joel counters the Fireflies and gets a hold of their guns. The raging survivor goes on a killing spree and literally massacres everyone inside the building, to save Ellie from the operation. Moreover, when he gets a hold of the immune teenager, Marlene takes him at a gunpoint.

She tries to make him understand the value of one life Vs the life of millions. But this only infuriates Joel, who is determined to save Ellie at all costs. Notably, the jump scene shows that Joel kills Marlene with a handgun, and escapes the building in one of their cars.

In the end, when Ellie wakes up from her sleep, she confronts Joel about the entire fiasco. However, the latter tries to fabricate an entirely new story, to prevent her from the guilt of the massacre. Eventually, Ellie believes in Joel’s theory after he makes a strong promise, as they both head on to Tommy’s.

The Last of Us Ending Explained
A still from The Last of Us

You can stream The Last of Us on Disney+ Hotstar. Let us know your thoughts about it in the comment section below.

Also Read: You can read all our The Last of Us Reviews Here

Manjeet Singh
Manjeet Singh
Manjeet loves to steer conversations around films and pop culture(usually to the point of no return). Finding obscure movies and consuming their Wikipedia literature is his daytime hobby. Being a hopeless romantic about cinema is what keeps him going.

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