Why The Last Of Us Star Bella Ramsey 'Scared' Showrunner Craig Mazin On Set

Step away from the spores if you haven't watched "Feel Her Love," the fifth episode of season 2 of "The Last of Us." Major spoilers incoming!

Ever since Ellie — one of the protagonists of "The Last of Us" (who's played on the series by Bella Ramsey) — watched her father figure Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) get beaten to death by the vengeful Abby Johnson (Kaitlyn Dever) earlier in season 2 of "The Last of Us," she's been out for blood. (Specifically, Abby's blood.) Now, in "Feel Her Love," Ellie and her best friend turned girlfriend Dina (Isabela Merced) are in Seattle hunting Abby and her entire crew of "wolves" (meaning that they belong to the Washington Liberation Front). In fact, when she finds one of Abby's cohorts (Tati Gabrielle as the medic Nora), Ellie's thirst for revenge overtakes her to the point where even Craig Mazin, who co-developed and show-runs the series alongside "The Last of Us" video game creator Neil Druckmann, was frightened.

"In that moment, in that hallway [with Nora], [director] Stephen Williams and Bella and I discussed how this would challenge an audience because I think we all innately love Ellie and root for Ellie in part because Ellie is the protagonist — but not here," Mazin explained during an interview about the episode with The Hollywood Reporter. "No, not here. She does turn away from Jesse [one of Ellie's friends played by Young Mazino] and Dina. She does this horrible thing — the look on her face and the way she transforms in that scene. I was scared of her, and I didn't like her, and I didn't want her to do what she's doing."

Beyond that, Mazin revealed that he came up with an  ... unsettling nickname for Ramsey while they worked on the scene where she confronts Nora:

"Tim Good — the editor of that episode — and I referred to Bella in that scene as 'baby shark' because there's something about her eyes that are so dark and dead. There's this ferocity there that Bella can create. This is so far from what we saw just an episode earlier with her and Dina celebrating love and new life."

I described Ellie as one of the protagonists of "The Last of Us" earlier, but I should say directly that this series — and the video games it's based on — plays fast and loose with the mere concept of "protagonists." Joel, who died horribly in the second episode of season 2, "Through the Valley," was our protagonist in season 1; the focus has now shifted to Ellie, and anyone who's played the game knows that Abby also becomes a protagonist in her own sense. (Early into the 2020 sequel "The Last of Us Part II," which serves as the source material for season 2 of the HBO adaptation, the focus abruptly switches to Abby, and you play as her before you kill Joel, which really throws gamers for a loop as they're not expecting it.) Now, we're losing faith in Ellie, and as Craig Mazin told THR, he knew this would happen, because what Ellie does in this episode is so vicious and violent that it'll be hard for audience members to stick by her side. (It's also, as it happens, incredibly faithful to "The Last of Us Part II.")

"Just as Abby started to slip away from her stated reasons, we can see Ellie slipping away from her stated reasons," Mazin revealed. "This is no longer rational." The showrunner then went on to say that after the speech Ellie gives in the protected settlement of Jackson in episode 3, "The Path," asking people to help her find Abby in Joel's name, was ... just an excuse to commit violent acts:

"She's so far from that fake speech she delivered at the [Jackson town council] meeting. 'Oh, this isn't about vengeance, it's about us and community.' This is going right back to what has always been there in Ellie, which is a rage that I don't even think she fully understands herself. This is not the last time the season that Ellie is going to do something where we feel like, 'We can't go on that walk with you kid."

I've been saying that Ellie's actions in "Feel Her Love" are disturbing and vicious for a while now, so what actually happened here? Nora and Ellie first cross paths in "Through the Valley," where Ellie watches Abby beat Joel to the brink of death and then finish him off by driving the jagged, broken shaft of a golf club into his neck. As an incapacitated Ellie lies prone on the floor, she tells Abby, Nora, and their other allies that she'll kill all of them, and in "Feel Her Love," Ellie finally comes face to face with Nora.

After Jesse, Dina, and Ellie are attacked by Seraphites in an overgrown park in Seattle (and Dina takes an arrow to the leg), Ellie continues on her own, infiltrating Lakehill Hospital. (Unbeknownst to her, this WLF stronghold has a massive spore infestation in the basement. Thankfully, the spores can't infect Ellie — as we all know, she's completely immune to the cordyceps virus.) Ellie finds Nora in the medic bay and, thanks to an old elevator shaft, both of them end up in the basement, where Nora immediately succumbs to the infection. Not content to let the other woman simply die, Ellie beats Nora savagely with a piece of pipe, torturing her until she gives up Abby's location.

To be fair to Ellie, Nora makes a real meal out of saying she can still "hear" Joel's screams before saying he had it coming. Plus, we get a huge reveal when Nora says that Ellie must be the immune girl that Joel killed a ton of doctors for, including Abby's dad, to save, and Ellie says she knows this already — but Craig Mazin is right. This is a real point of no return for Ellie, who will clearly stop at nothing to get revenge and is unbelievably, dangerously single-minded as she continues her quest. She's already taken down one of Abby's allies, and now, she's coming for the rest.

"The Last of Us" airs new episodes on Sundays at 9 P.M. EST on Max and HBO.