I’ve played/whimpered my way through the The Last Of Us video game, so I knew roughly what to expect from the dramatic conclusion to Joel and Ellie’s journey to Salt Lake City. Still, though, I sniffled and blubbed my way through that 45-minute episode with the best of them – especially when Ellie promised her newfound father that she would follow him anywhere he goes.

The plan was simple: Joel (Pedro Pascal) was going to get Ellie (Bella Ramsey) to the Fireflies’ laboratory, they’d use her immunity to suss out a cure to the cordyceps infection that’s turning human beings into (whisper it) mushroom-zombies, and humanity would be saved. Even those who haven’t played the game, though, might have wondered exactly how those aforementioned scientists were planning to fish all of those lovely antibodies out of her brain. 

As it turns out, the Fireflies – even Marlene (Merle Dandridge), who’s known Ellie since she was a tiny baby – viewed the teenager as the very same thing that Joel has been pretending to all this time: cargo. Which means that, in their eyes, Ellie’s body is the disposable package, her soul is collateral damage, and her beautiful zombie-proof brain is the only thing that matters.

Hmm.

The trolley problem

Once again, apocalyptic fiction has offered us up its own version of the classic ‘trolley problem’: would you kill one person to save five others? Or, in this case, to potentially save the entire world? 

Well, in our world, studies have shown that 90% of people would, like Marlene, intervene and kill just one person.

If that one person was your child, parent, or sibling, however, then it drops down to a third. And so, when Joel is informed of the Fireflies’ plans to scoop the brains out of his beloved “baby girl”, he wastes no time in deciding that it’s entirely unacceptable. 

Back in episode two, the late Tess (Anna Torv) advised Joel to “save who you can save” – which one can only assume translates to “divert the trolley away from the five people, and then run as fast as you can to knock that one doomed person out of harm’s way”. To find a way to keep everyone alive. And, should you fail, never blame yourself, because it’s the trying that matters most.

Rather than figure out a way to make this happen, Joel decides to try his own method: he becomes the trolley himself. Grabbing a machine gun, he methodically starts gunning down soldiers, surgeons and even Marlene, and never once falters in his bid to rescue Ellie from certain death (and deny the human race of a possible cure, but more on that later). Then, he carries the unconscious Ellie to safety – just as he was denied the chance to do with Sarah all those years ago. Sob.

A beautiful lie

“It turns out there’s a whole lot more like you who are immune,” Joel tells Ellie when she regains consciousness. “There’s dozens of them and the doctors couldn’t make any of it work, so they’ve stopped looking for a cure.” 

It’s a lie – a beautiful lie, sure, but a lie all the same. And one can’t help but think it’s a lie that will have serious repercussions for the duo’s relationship in the second season of The Last Of Us.

Now, some viewers have since branded Joel the true villain of The Last Of Us. They insist that he should have at least asked Ellie what she wanted, as perhaps she would have been willing to sacrifice herself for the cause. They, too, believe that his dead-eyed detachment, and his willingness to murder unarmed doctors, suggests he’s crossed a line that he can never come back from.

And yet…

The improbable vaccine

Well, how would that cure have even worked? Really? Say they had managed to get the antibodies out and fashioned them into some sort of injectable vaccine, what then? It would need rigorous testing before being mass-produced and shipped out to every country around the world – and I highly doubt the Fireflies have access to all the tech and transport they need to make that happen. So would this be a vaccine created solely for their own personal use? Or, to be charitable to their cause, for America’s own use?

Then there’s the fact that it’s a vaccine, not a cure: all of the people who are currently infected and stalking the streets would remain murderous mushroom-zombies forever. A shot of antibodies isn’t going to prevent anyone from being torn limb from limb should they run into a Clicker or a Stalker out there.

Finally, what would the Fireflies demand in return for their vaccine, should they actually defy those seemingly insurmountable odds and manage to mass produce it? Money? Power? Because, let me tell you, for all of their cutesy slogans (“Look for the light” indeed) they’re not the sort of people who do things for others out of the sheer goodness of their hearts. 

Love is selfish

We have long claimed that love is selfless; that it is what guides heroes to commit good and just deeds. But here’s the thing: love is selfish… and that’s no bad thing.

As the philosopher Bernard Williams puts it: “Without selfish partiality – to people you are deeply attached to, your family and friends, to place – we are nothing.

“We are creatures of kinship and loyalty, not blind servants of the world.”

Yes, Joel committed a truly selfish act, but the fact that he did it means that he is entirely human. That he has opened his heart, allowed himself to care about another person and found something (someone) worth fighting for. That, when he was informed of a militia group’s plans to kill a healthy young girl and remove her brain, he did everything within his power to save her.

Does this mean he’s a hero, though? Of course not: heroism is a narrative construct – one that thrives in the black and white, and dies a bitter death in the grey spaces of reality. Villainy, too, is a harder one to pinpoint: Joel and Ellie have met people who have committed atrocities but who weren’t innately evil.

Basically, in this terrifying world, there are no heroes or villains: only survivors. And, while that might be a frightening lesson to learn – after all, it means any one of us has the propensity for evil – it is also a beautiful one.

It means every single one of us, no matter how far we’ve fallen, has the power to do some good, too.

The Last Of Us is streaming on NOW. 

Images: Sky/HBO