This The Last of Us episode 8 review contains spoilers.
After seven episodes, HBO’s The Last of Us adaption has reached its penultimate outing – and it is the grisliest one yet. This is the second in a pair of Ellie-centric episodes. While last week’s flashback gave valuable context to Ellie’s life as a loyal companion, this week’s episode saw her take the reigns as protector and leader in brutal fashion.
Even though we are only eight episodes in, we’ve seen Ellie step out of the shadow of her guardians (first Riley, then Marlene, and lastly Tess and Joel) and develop into someone capable of doing whatever it takes to survive. Those who have played both games will see that this is effective preamble to the even more tragic tale to be told in the show’s second season.
Like episode 6, “When We Are In Need” sacrifices showdowns with the Infected for more time with the world’s remaining human inhabitants. For the medium of TV, this works. But it has resulted in a somewhat disappointing reduction in horror and tension. Consequently, the game’s interludes of expertly spaced character moments feel slightly rushed by comparison.
Nevertheless, The Last of Us episode 8 sees Joel and Ellie reach increasingly grey areas of moral ambiguity. The chains finally come off and the pair individually show the darkest sides of their characters. As a result, episode 8 maintains the absurdly high quality of earlier episodes while heightening the stakes and setting the stage for the season finale.
The Last of Us episode 8 review – As you give, so you shall receive
Episode 8 is an adaption of the game’s vicious Winter section. The harsh snowy conditions make for a visually stunning episode that is as beautiful as it is barbaric.
Ellie, in an attempt to nurse Joel back to health after the fight at the university, sets out to find food. After successfully hunting a deer, she comes across David and James. David is the leader of a community of survivors. He’s also a sadistic and cannibalistic paedophile.
Unlike the game, David is a preacher, too. The trope of the devil masquerading as one of God’s most loyal servants is nothing new. This additional dimension of his character feels unnecessary – the kind and caring facade he presents in the game was enough. However, it doesn’t detract from his overall presentation.
Scott Shepherd does a fantastic job as David. The scene of him unflinchingly serving the man Joel killed to his surviving wife and daughter was particularly unnerving. Equally grim were the meagre portions he restricts everyone else to while taking large servings for himself. Not only does he enjoy consuming his fellow man but he also sees no issue in keeping his morally-conflicted followers hungry for the sake of his own pleasure.
David sends companion James (played by Troy Baker – the voice of Joel in the games) back to the community to get antibiotics for Ellie in exchange for her deer. The sequence of Ellie and David bonding through a shared fight against marauding Infected is disappointingly omitted. This means the shock revelation of the pair’s true identities – recreated almost word-for-word – lacks the shock of the game.
Still, it shows that every action you take in this post-apocalyptic world has consequences – even if you did it for your own or your loved one’s survival.
Embracing the dark side
Joel’s fight to find and save Ellie showed a darker side of him that – up until now – we had only heard about. He didn’t have to kill those two members of David’s crew, but he knew he was opening himself and Ellie up to serious risk if he let them live. And so, he took the unmistakably brutal yet probably unavoidable action of slaughtering the duo.
Similarly, the final fire-engulfed stand off between Ellie and David didn’t have to end in the latter’s death. She probably could have spared him. But – once again – The Last of Us shows us that actions have consequences in this world. And nobody was more deserving of those consequences than David.
The scene of Ellie repeatedly hacking into David’s head while screaming and crying after the attempted rape was haunting. It reaches down into your chest and rips your heart out – just as the killing does for the last shreds of Ellie’s innocence. Thankfully, Joel arrives just in time to comfort his “baby girl” after she saves herself from her horrendous ordeal. It is clear that the unlikely pair are now firmly in father-daughter territory as we approach next week’s final episode.
The Last of Us Episode 8 review: Verdict
Eight episodes in, I’m still not sure that the show quite reaches the level of the video game. But it has undoubtedly done a fantastic job of building up to what is bound to be an emotional and morally divisive finale. “When We Are In Need” is an expertly written and brutal 51 minutes of television that I won’t soon forget.
Overall Rating: 9/10
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