The Last of Us season 2 premiere showed Ellie cutting a new bite wound, and there are specific reasons why. The inciting incident for both the TV series and the game is that Ellie is bitten by an Infected and survives, making her an extraordinarily rare case in the ravaged world this franchise depicts. Following The Last of Us season 1’s ending, the season 2 premiere picks up after a five-year time jump, but this aspect of the story is still integral to her character, and to those around her.
Bella Ramsey returns as the lead of The Last of Us season 2’s cast, but the new season also introduces several other characters around Jackson, the commune started by Tommy and Maria. Rather than focusing primarily on the two central characters, the sophomore season offers more of an ensemble, demonstrating the tight-knit and civilized community of Jackson as a beacon in a harsh world. Still, its population has secrets and biases of their own, playing out with some compelling dynamics.
Ellie Gets Bit By The Stalker In The Last Of Us Season 2, Episode 1
Ellie’s Immunity Is Proven Once Again In The Season 2 Premiere
Ellie and her new love interest, Dina, venture outside Jackson for a routine patrol in The Last of Us season 2, episode 1, where they enter an abandoned building, breaking protocol. This is an extensively risky choice as, even though they’re well-trained, all it typically takes is one bite from an Infected to kill off a character. Ellie finds herself in the building’s basement alone, separated from Dina after falling through the floor, in a one-on-one with one of the most deadly variations of Infected.
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Infected in The Last of Us advance through stages, growing more gruesome the longer they remain alive. Stalkers aren’t the final stage, of course, but if you’ve played the game, you know they’re a pain to deal with. Ellie has some trouble in the TV series, and she gets bitten before managing to killing the Stalker. Her survival allows her to share information about the Stalker’s increasing sentience with the Jackson council, warning them of how the Infected have grown over the time jump.
Ellie Cuts Her New Wound To Hide That It’s An Infected Bite
Ellie Still Can’t Reveal That She’s Immune
Ellie cuts into her arm in The Last of Us season 2 premiere, but the sole purpose is to hide the bite. If someone were to see that she was bitten, they might immediately kill her, or alert someone else who would. It would be a horrible, intense situation, and the fact that Ellie is immune also raises scientific questions which would lead her back to the point she was at in season 1, with people wanting to use her for a cure even at the potential cost of her own life.
The moment someone realizes that there’s a potential for a cure, all the hospitality and camaraderie of Jackson could fly out the window.
By making the wound seem like it came from a different source, she protects herself from those outcomes happening. Even in Jackson, where people are working together to survive and even establishing leisurely aspects of community, the stakes of something like this are still drastic. The moment someone realizes that there’s a potential for a cure, all the hospitality and camaraderie of Jackson could fly out the window, with Ellie no longer being seen as a human but as a vessel for the future, just like with the Fireflies.
The Last Of Season 2 Continues The Trend Of Ellie Hiding Her Immunity
Ellie Will Always Carry The Burden Of Having Something That Other People Want
Image via Max
The Last of Us season 2 mimics the video game with Ellie’s arm tattoo, which she uses to cover up the scars from her original bite. This aspect of Ellie hiding her immunity through the trip across America is crucial to season 1, and it remains so in season 2. Even though there’s considerably less hope for a cure being made after the massacre in Salt Lake City, she still can’t reveal this to people without rigorous consideration, as it will immediately change the way other characters look at her.
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Part of what makes The Last of Us so compelling compared to similar franchises that deal with zombie apocalypse-like scenarios, is that not only are the survival stakes heightened, but there’s also an element of the central protagonist being forced to hide something. The knowledge of Ellie’s immunity is life or death, and HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us will surely continue to demonstrate the atrocities human beings are capable of when faced with desperate situations. Episode 1 is just the beginning, teasing much more to come.
The Last Of Us
8/10
- Release Date
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January 15, 2023
- Network
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HBO
- Showrunner
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Craig Mazin
- Directors
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Craig Mazin, Peter Hoar, Jeremy Webb, Ali Abbasi, Mark Mylod, Stephen Williams, Jasmila ลฝbaniฤ, Liza Johnson, Nina Lopez-Corrado
- Writers
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Neil Druckmann, Craig Mazin