The Last Of Us: Ellie And Marlene's True Connection Is Hinted At In Episode 1
This post contains spoilers from "The Last Of Us" season finale.
The first season of "The Last Of Us" ended this week by coming full circle; as Ellie's (Bella Ramsey) story almost ended, viewers got to see how it began, with a scene that took us back to her traumatic birth. It was a moment that also revealed the connection between Ellie's mom, Anna (Ashley Johnson), and Marlene (Merle Dandridge), the Firefly who talked Joel (Pedro Pascal) into helping Ellie in the first place. Marlene ended up meeting a bitter fate at the hands of Joel, but not before we realized that she has a deep, personal tie to the girl who she was about to let die.
On the show's official companion podcast, "The Last Of Us" co-creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin spoke about the reasons they had for putting Ellie's birth scene — which, though not in the games, was conceived of years ago — in the finale rather than an earlier episode. According to Mazin, it was all about elucidating the connection between Ellie and Marlene in the most impactful way possible. "So, we now understand, okay, all the way back in episode 1, Marlene said, 'I put you there, Ellie." He also points to one of Ellie's lines that's more resonant in retrospect. "What, are you my mom or something?" Ellie asks Marlene when she's first captured, mostly joking.
'In a way, Marlene was her mom'
According to Mazin, "It was a joke then, but here we kind of answer the question of who the mom is. And in a way, Marlene was her mom because from basically two hours after she's born, Marlene becomes the woman who looks after her." But as Druckmann points out later in the interview, if Marlene does have a maternal sort of love for Ellie, it's tempered by her sense of duty for the greater good. "They both kind of have accepted this kid, and they'll do anything they need to protect them," Druckmann says. "But for Marlene, her love is much more outward and broad for all of humanity, that she's willing to sacrifice her own morality and what she believes is right." Joel, as he points out, "is the exact opposite of that."
There are plenty of other reasons Druckmann and Mazin cite for putting Ellie's birth scene in the show at the last minute. It "hurts more," as Mazin says, plus it points to "the nature of [Ellie's] immunity." It also hearkens back to a point of innocence, however brief, in Ellie's story just after we see her most upsetting, innocence-shattering moment. Plus, from a writer's standpoint, Mazin points out that we begin this story with Joel as the closest thing we get to a main character, and only learn about Ellie as the pair get to know one another. "We are discovering her through him," Mazin shares. "It's better to watch her becoming who she is with him and let that relationship be its own thing.
'I was there when she was born.'
Characterization aside, the Anna and Marlene scene shows the tough choices that have always been made to protect Ellie, whether they were the right call or not. "It connects her birth to the choice that Joel has to make at the end of this episode," Mazin points out. "So, when we get to the end and there's Marlene saying, 'I was there when she was born.'" It's an interesting addition that makes Joel's choice to set her future in stone for her all the more complicated. In the game, Joel could convince himself that he knew what was best for Ellie because he knew her better than anyone. Here, though, Marlene is able to communicate that she and Ellie have a history, but her words still fail to appeal to Joel's sense of mercy.
In the end, Anna and Marlene's scene makes sense because it brings motherhood into a story that's so far been all about fatherhood. Before Joel made what may or may not have been the wrong call, Anna made the right one, ensuring her daughter would have a good chance at life. Sure, it's bonkers to bring a kid into a zombie apocalypse and Ellie's life has been full of struggle and pain, but still: there's something fitting about following up on a moment in which Ellie protected herself fiercely with one in which we get to meet the woman who first protected her. The fact that Anna was played by Johnson, who voiced Ellie in the video game, only makes the scene more powerful. Anna, Marlene, and Ellie form a trio of resourceful, morally complicated women who aren't afraid to fight — even when it turns out to be a losing battle.