Joel, that was TOO MUCH! - THE LAST OF US Reaction 1x9 - "LOOK FOR THE LIGHT"

Everything is understandable... but WRONG! 😫😫😫
We feel bad with this season finale, what Joel did was so polemic 😓 but at the same time we get where he's coming from, same with the Fireflies, but we always come to the same conclusion: it should have been Ellie's choice 😕
Now how can they be happy after this, we need a second season now and at the same time we don't want to know! 😅
Thank you so much for watching, we hope you enjoy the reaction and have a great day, love you! 💝

[@NerdishReact]

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[@martinmillar7137]

That entire muted scene is imo one of the best ever recorded for tv or film... That is what it feels to love.. there is no grey area here... Just a blind love and a paternal instinct greater than any other force in the universe.. how that scene was compiled is as much poetic as it was harrowing. And genuine.

[@NerdishReact]

Absolutely, it was such an amazing sequence.

[@rx7dude2006]

The lady who plays Ellies mom is actually Ellies voice actress in the game.

[@NerdishReact]

We love that the production included so many actors from the game! That's awesome.

[@okreylos]

8:30 Joel is in full dad mode here. It's so relatable. His surrogate daughter is suffering, and he's trying everything he can think of to make her feel better, but it's not working.

[@NerdishReact]

Yes!! He became a dad again 🥺

[@100Companions]

"I know I said just kill everyone, but i didn't think he'd actually do it" 🤣

[@vladimirvanvhorno357]

This is what Bill's letter in episode 3 says. When you have someone to protect, God helps any motherf***ers that stand in our way. Joel will not lose another daughter. Joel is similar to Bill and was ready to fight for the newly aquired daughter. I think he called Ellie baby girl in the previous episode really show that she is his priority now. Nothing can stand in his way to safe Ellie. That was what happened to the FEDRA guards when he wanted to kill Ellie in the last few minutes of episode 1. And I, as a medical doctor, really against killing the only person immune to the infection. Do some more research before killing the only immune person. The choice to kill the only immune person is the very last that I will do. And remember that in episode 2 the Mycology Professor that had spent all her life researching for the fungus before the pandemic with so much better medical facilities said that there is no cure, there is no vaccine, start bombing the city with the people in ot to stop the infection. What can a doctor in a pandemic world and the minimum medical facility dan do to make a vaccine? The other thing is that eventhough the doctor can produce a vaccine from killing Ellie, I'm really sure that will just be used to fulfil the Firefly's agenda. Maybe the event in episode 4 and 5 will be repeated with the Firefly butchering the governments. Last time I checked, Marlene was not going to give the truck to Joel. She wants to send Joel empty handed, only giving him Ellie's knife. She even said that if Joel did something suspicious, the guards can shoot him. What kind of a leader is that? The same kind as Catherine from episode 4 and 5. 😅 I think if Marlene not rushing things, giving Joel the time he needs to say his goodbye, got convinced by Ellie that she wanted to sacrifice herself in order to produce a vaccine, just maybe Joel can have a soften heart and try to live with Ellie's choice. Marlene is wrong in not giving that choices to Ellie and Joel. Ellie could just do what Frank did to Bill. Asking Joel if he loves her or not and asking him to live her the way she wanted him to love her. By surendering her newly aquired daughter to the operation in order to get the vaccine. This masacre could be avoided if Marlene was a wise leader. Even after she said that she owed Joel for everything, she just giving him a hard time and making Joel become the monster we saw killing all those people and the so called innocent doctor. Last thing is that I cannot imagine giving the vaccine to people like David and his groups. I think I agree and will do what Joel did here. These are my thoughts for this episode. It is a pulley dilemma but I strongly agree with Joel here, eventhough I don't support him lying to Ellie

[@NerdishReact]

@100Companions lol I should have thought twice 😅 @vladimirvanvhorno357 that's an interesting take, thanks for sharing 🤗 We agree that Joel should have told her the truth in the end.

[@Big8SirCash]

Marlene didn’t find out about Ellie being immune until she found her in the mall. No one knew until then. Then you pick up at episode 1 when she is chained up and Marlene has that talk with her.

[@NerdishReact]

Right!! Thank you

[@MangoMann072]

The ending was wild. Joel was done playing games and he took action whether or not it was the correct action remains to be seen. Can't wait for Season 2.

[@NerdishReact]

It was! We were expecting something like that, but it was still surprising to see it.

[@MrPicklerwoof]

The whole incident at the hospital was just a predictable sequence of events, which started when the Fireflies decided to murder a child without any consent. Joel was always going to try and save her from being murdered. If the Fireflies hadn't lost their humanity towards a child then none of this would have happened. For me, it's the biggest lesson from The Last of Us. Bad things always happen when people lose their humanity.

[@NerdishReact]

The fireflies were too extremist in this case. We can't believe they wouldn't make a safe brain biopsy. We know Joel was right to save her, but we wonder if he's ever going to tell her the truth though.

[@AlyssaDeJesusMD]

Ellie's mother, Anna, was played by Ashley Johnson! She does Ellie's motion capture for the games :)

[@NerdishReact]

Cool! We love that the production included so many actors from the game.

[@okreylos]

12:55 Oof, right in the feels.

[@NerdishReact]

🥺🥺

[@okreylos]

24:00 Joel is trying way too hard here. He was fully disassociated during the hospital shootout (which Pedro performed so incredibly well), and I think he has real regret now, because he realized how Ellie feels about the situation. So sad.

[@NerdishReact]

Right! We don't know if regret is what he predominantly feels. If he has the chance, we feel like he would do it all over again

[@ChristiofromMauritius]

There's a parallel between Anna, Ellie's mother lying to Marlene about when she got bitten and Joel lying to Ellie about what happened at the hospital. That "It wasn't time that did it" line lives rent free in my head. "It can't be for nothing" is the trophy you get for completing the videogame game. Ellie was waiting for her time to die since Riley. My interpretation is that Ellie would have chosen to do the "operation". It's Joel who couldn't lose his daughter again. Brace for season 2. No one is ready for what's to come.

[@NerdishReact]

Interesting analysis, thanks for sharing 🥰 We can't wait for season 2!

[@boqndimitrov8693]

the truth is that most people would act like joel. in theory we all value great ideals and so on, but in practice we only care about our own lives. how could joel care about the fate of the world when the only person close to him, apart from tommy, was about to be cut down, because of the nebulous assumptions of some unknown scientists??his love for this kid, plus his old trauma from sarah's death led to the only logical outcome.

[@NerdishReact]

Absolutely, it's very interesting to read the different points of view in the comments about all of this.

[@Gabriel_Moline]

Excellent timing! I’m super drunk, so I can watch this now, completely forget everything, than watch it again!😆🌿🌸

[@NerdishReact]

Lol 😆

[@hugoleo2000]

The recording of the second season is already at the end. It will be shown next year. There will be three seasons in total.

[@NerdishReact]

Awesome!! We can't wait 😁

[@user-uy9tw2zb6g]

31:00 Initially, the creator of the video game wanted to complete it in a different way. The prologue of the second season (the second part) was supposed to be the epilogue of the first (first part). At the beginning of the second season, you will see HOW everything should have ended.

[@NerdishReact]

Ohh interesting! Let's hope that translates to the live action.

[@jlilley73]

Now that we've reached the end, you can see the parallels between this story and Attack on Titan. 😅 And retrospectively, some of the other stories earlier in the series can be seen in a new light -- particularly the storyline in Kansas City. I can't remember their names, but the older brother selfishly chose to betray a "great man" in order to save his brother, and he wondered to Joel if that made him a bad person. The man's sister had a point when she said that children die all the time (not that I'm on her side!). Joel's made the same choice that the brother did, but there's so much more at stake. I definitely think Ellie knows he's lying. She's decided to accept it for the moment, but I imagine it's going to drive a wedge between them until he levels with her. This season covers the entirety of the first game. I've read that apparently the second game is much longer -- or at least more narratively rich -- so there will be at least two more seasons, if not three!

[@NerdishReact]

Yes! We can totally see an AOT parallelism. We see a lot of AOT in many different stories tbh. Ellie for sure knows, you can see it in her face, she didn't look relieved when Joel answered, so we can see how this could become an issue for them in the future.

[@19nzinga]

Joel had been walking around basically like a zombie for 20 years not feeling anything. Just a heartless killer, if needed. Ellie, brought him back to life & love again. His NEW reason to live. And they wanted to kill her based solely on a theory the doctor had. Joel wasn’t about to lose his daughter again. Similar to the night they escaped the QZ and the Gaurd was going to shoot Ellie when he saw the bite. His PTSD took over. You bother were so right about seeing it Ellie,Joel, & Marlins perspective It was impossible choice. Such a great reaction!! I enjoyed every bit of it. Im sad that it’s over. P. S. Sorry this is so long, but I just wanted to say that you don’t have thank me so often, believe me I’m the one that’s getting the better end of the deal being able to watch you guys. It’s a pleasure. One last thing, have you guys watched the 2 Avatar movies? If you haven’t can you react to those pretty please. 😊

[@NerdishReact]

We totally get what you mean about the PTSD. It was Sarah's situation all over again and Joel wasn't having it this time. He knew he would regret it his entire life if he didn't save her. Also, we love giving you the extra recognition by the end of a series that you supported, not only because you totally deserve it, but also because it brings us a lot of joy to know you like the content we make so much and it's our way of giving back. It feels right 🥰💖 As for the movies you mentioned, we did watch the first one, but we still haven't checked out the second one. We could do a rewatch of the 1st to get ready for that reaction, since it's been years since we last saw it.

[@mentormachado4601]

​@@NerdishReactgreat react, You could watch a video about the entire gameplay of The Last of Us of the main parts of the game, maybe separate it into two videos, it's worth it for you to delve even deeper into this magnificent story, in the games you end up becoming even more attached to the characters, because as you are playing with them, it becomes an even more intimate relationship, after all you have many more hours with them than in a series, they are making the second season based on the second game, and the third game in the franchise is coming soon

[@douglas2938]

The story is brilliant because when it's all said and done, it puts everything we usually assume as true on the line. It's the trolley problem and Joel and Marlene have opposite views on what is the moral choice, and then it throws that same problem in each viewer's hands. Save the one, condemn the many, save the many, condemn the one, but what if that one was a child, or your child, a sibling, a parent, or literally Hitler? So would the decision be about who we sacrifice or who we save? Is it about freedom of choice, and if so, is there any instance where it would be moral to step over it? The funny thing about philosofical problems like that is that people may arrive at the same conclusion but the way they get there can say a lot about them, from personal life experiences to political affiliations.

[@NerdishReact]

Absolutely, it's very interesting to read the debate it generated in the comments as well. Awesome writing!

[@general-cromwell6639]

Thanks!

[@NerdishReact]

Thank you!! 💖 We're glad you enjoyed watching.

[@jarvisfowlkes3200]

Love you both so much, and you're right it was so violent

[@NerdishReact]

We really couldn't believe how violent the ending was, but it was to be expected. Thank you so much for supporting! Love you 💕

[@johnorozco8421]

For me this was the hardest part of the game, I died tree times.

[@NerdishReact]

Right, it looks like it would be a hard mission to accomplish without getting klld

[@general-cromwell6639]

Does the life of one person equal the saving of humanity? How selfless is that? NO. Anyways...yea. A lot of methods and insanity. Rock and roll. All the best. Cheers.

[@TheOrthoglyph]

Shameless would be a great live action reaction! Bojack Horseman gets my vote if you're doing an animated series!

[@NerdishReact]

Thanks for the recommendation! 🤗

[@wtimmins]

The giraffe that they pet is real! So cute.

[@NerdishReact]

Really!? Then that's why it looked so realistic 😅

[@TimSedai]

There's something to be said about Ellie being traumatized, YOUNG, and groomed into having a savior complex, and Joel taking the parental role of deciding for her as she's not mature enough to make that choice herself. Even in the apocalypse children can't consent

[@NerdishReact]

That's very interesting. We wonder if he'll tell her when she's of age so she can make that decision herself.

[@elheber]

If Ellie has been given a choice, we all know what she would have chosen. But you can see Ellie was in a dark place. Riley, Tess, Sam... her trauma from the last episode... she wanted to sacrifice herself. Joel knew. He could tell she was in a dark place. He was there before. That's why he told her about the time he was so sure he was ready. Joel's bullet missed. Henry's did not. All Joel was trying to do was to make sure her bullet missed. So that one day she will find something she will want to live for. Kathleen mentioned that maybe Sam was supposed to die. David's follower James said maybe it's God's will that Ellie dies. But Bill said in his letter, "God help anyone that stands in the way" of saving the person that gave his life a purpose. Joel was the best person and the worst person to give this mission to. From all his experiences, this was the only possible outcome.

[@NerdishReact]

Interesting take! We would love to know if he'll tell her the truth once she's in a better place mentally or if he's never planing on letting her know.

[@joepike1972]

Will you two play the game?

[@NerdishReact]

We don't have the equipment to do so unfortunately 😅

[@mysteronix]

💉

[@trulybtd5396]

Marlene knew Ellie was immune brcause she found her bitten and not turned when they went to pick up riely from her post in the mall. She didnt immediately kill her because of the bond she had to her. Makes you wonder how many immune people got killed or killed themselves when bitten.

[@NerdishReact]

That's an interesting take. We still need to know if there are other ways of being immune. If there aren't, then we don't believe there were much more immune people out there to begin with, since Ellie's birth was very particular.

[@RunningTogether]

FYI, this site ended EXACTLY like the first game, which is an excellent way to end IMO. Also, great crossover reference with Fallout (“war never changes”). 😂👍 Excellent points about the ethics here. Just to point out a few of the specifics of what Joel was actually saving Ellie from: The Firefly doctor is apparently incompetent, so I wouldn’t trust that he can make a cure or preventative treatment at all. First, he is speculating wildly about something that he has zero evidence for: the idea that Ellie was immune due to exposure near birth. At most, his only evidence for that theory is the purely anecdotal evidence from Marlene, who only knows that her mother was attacked at around that time and at most may suspect that her mother was lying about being bitten after birth. But even if he knew what we all saw, there’s no real evidence that Ellie was infected at that time or that it’s the cause of her immunity. Ellie wouldn’t have been directly infected, because blood does not pass directly from the mother to the child. There’s a barrier at the placenta and oxygen and nutrients are transferred through it in a way that prevents infections from passing directly into the child’s blood. That’s why most children of mothers with HIV/AIDS are not born with the disease, for example. (Some may get infected at birth due to exposure to the mother’s blood, but there’s no evidence that there were any complications of this pregnancy that would’ve caused that, and having just been bitten, there’s probably little to no infection in her blood at that point. Second, if Ellie WAS infected, why wouldn’t she just die? An infants immune system is largely reliant on the mother’s, so if her mother wasn’t immune, why would the infection not have passed to her and made her “zombie” or simply killed her? Of course, her mother may’ve been immune, but in that case Ellie is more likely immune from genetics. And from the look of the bite on her mother’s leg, it appears she probably wasn’t immune. Even if Ellie was infected at birth and immune somehow due to that, it’s a huge leap to conclude everything else the doctor (or Marlene) claimed. The doctor has done NO testing or anything to try to prove his hypothesis… we know this, because he’s had no time to do so… as soon as they caught Joel and Ellie, she was drugged for fatal surgery, so they acted faster than anything that would’ve allowed testing. Even if the doctor’s hypothesis is correct, hire could her be sure that her needs all of the cordyceps in her brain? It appears some of it grew in her arm, but even if that’s not true, people can very safely be given brain biopsies, where a sample of brain tissue is removed without harming them. Any rational doctor would start with getting a sample from her arm, then move on to a brain biopsy before jumping to a fatal procedure that would “kill the goose that laid the golden egg”. So, knowing that their science is in serious question adds to the other ethical problems with what they did. Rather than saving humanity, they may be wasting the only good chance remaining. Even if they were fully competent, taking away Ellie’s agency by not giving her a choice is ethically wrong. (Even if they didn’t mean to honor her choice, the correct ethical choice was to tell her; then if she refused they could make the arguable choice to disrespect her wishes “for the common good”… That wouldn’t make it right, but it would at least have made the first part more ethical.) As it is, they were behaving like incompetent Nazi doctors… doing fatal “research” on unwilling human subjects, without even the promise of any good results for those ethical lapses. So Joel had a very arguable moral duty to save her even at the cost of complicit lives. Joel’s clear ethical problem was lying to her afterwards. If he told her the truth, they could plan together how to SAFELY use her to investigate possible cures or vaccines, with a backup plan if Ellie chose to sacrifice herself only once they are convinced it’s actually necessary. Loved your reactions as always! 👍🎉

[@ChibiHoshiDragon]

In the game, it is easier to see the Fireflies point as Ellie had drowned. Joel was doing CPR when they got caught. The Fireflies knock him unconscious with the butt of their rifle and we see her intubated later, offscreen they get her breathing again. Joel doesn't even know if she had been underwater too long and if Ellie was even going to be conscious again; she could have been brain-dead for all he knew. fireflies didnt' even know. They would have had to wake her up to find out if the drowning had caused any damage. But waking her just to ask her would be cruel if it was only for everyone to discover she had some damage due to lack of oxygen. Keeping her unconscious could be perceived as an act of mercy. The game also shows more about the competence of the doctor via notes and recordings you find. There are test results. Blood titers and cultures. The doctor is NOT incompetent, the show just did a poor job of showing that there was science to back up the Doctor. And we don't know how long they have been under, so your claim that they didn't have any time to test is wrong. We know in the game there WAS time; the show never contradicts this as we are never told how long Joel had been unconscious. He had been traveling non-stop, for all we know he was out for a whole day or more. 8 hours is definitely plausible given his age, his energy levels, and emotional stress. And for the love all that is holy, the knife that cut the cord isn't behind a placenta. It had direct contact with the cord. And it is completely ethical to do something when you know there maybe collateral damage if there is a greater good. That is something every service member knows. Sometimes a civilian may get hurt and you don't have the time to ask if they want to be in the crossfire. As a Marine, I know plenty who have personally lived this. This is a Trolley problem. The doctor isn't incompetent. The result was 100%, not just a "chance". This was about the world or Ellie. Joel chose Ellie. This is *not* Joel choosing Ellie over a "chance". This is: A trolley is heading towards five people, if you pull a switch, the five will be saved and hit one person instead. This isn't: A trolley is heading towards five people, if you pull a switch, the trolley will hit one person and then may jump back to hit the other five or it may not. Stop trying to claim it was only a "chance" to protect Joel. He is no hero

[@RunningTogether]

@@ChibiHoshiDragon I was talking about the story of the show, not the game, as they aren’t identical. The game also never shows the “reason” Ellie might be immune as far as I recall, though perhaps I missed some notes somewhere. Regardless, that explanation is a pretty ridiculous one as it still explains nothing compared to just “she has an anomalous mutation that makes her immune”, which could just as easily be the case. I did mean to mention the possibility of the knife injecting her, so good catch! However, that still doesn’t explain why she wouldn’t have just died from any infection as an infant any more than why she didn’t if her first exposure was later in life. Infants don’t have magical immunity. But as I stated, even if all of that speculation is true, there are many other issues here. 8 hours, or even 48 hours if we want to be generous, is not enough to test as thoroughly as possible to have a high degree of certainty. Even if it was, they showed no evidence in the show that any biopsy of her arm where she was bitten was done, and we can see that there was no previous brain biopsy done from her condition as they were preparing her for surgery, and they were apparently not intending to try to get a sample without killing her even though that would certainly be possible. No matter how generous you want to be, their doctor was rushing things and was not being particularly ethical. In the show story, there was no drowning and no other excuses that “maybe she’s brain-dead”… considering the “they had lots of time”, they could’ve determined a lot from an EEG or other brain scans, so I don’t think the “maybe she’s brain dead” excuse holds much water even in the game, but here it’s non-existent. The idea that the results here was 100% certain that she would save the world if she died is ridiculous. Even Marlene says the doctor “thinks” it will work. She’s clear that she’s willing to take the chance… even if it’s a high chance, it’s certainly not 100%. Trolley problems rarely happen that simply in the real world, which is why they have to give such a very specific hypothetical circumstance to set one up for the ethical philosopher’s dilemma. I’m sure the authors intended this to be similar, but it’s the more realistic kind that is absolutely not 100% certain. Still, I’m not saying that Joel’s decision is definitely the “right” one ethically; I’m just saying that it is certainly justifiable under the circumstances. And it’s quite clear that the Fireflies’ decision is NOT ethical either… I believe this is meant to be a much messier ethical dilemma where neither side is doing something good. For the fireflies to be as ethical as possible, they would’ve needed to exhaust all possibilities to keep Ellie alive first (they did not). Then they would’ve needed to give her the choice since she was able to give consent here (There was no brain damage or inability to consent in the show, and no exigent or emergency circumstance forcing them to skip that step). Then you could argue that if she said no, they MIGHT still have had justification to do it anyway for the chances of saving the world (no correct answer here, as it would’ve finally reached something more akin to the trolley problem). Given what the Fireflies were doing, I think this was closer to the follow-up “problem”: if you have a healthy person whose organs could save 5 people, do you take them against their will to save those other lives? This is an interesting question but one that very few people dispute would be wrong to do (unlike the trolley problem itself). However, I grant that the difference between 5 people and “all of humanity” does make it more debatable… if they had taken maximal ethical or logical precautions first, which they did not; or if there were emergency circumstances precluding such precautions, which there were not. One can certainly still also argue that many of Joel’s actions are not good… certainly there are people who believe that violence is never justified, even in defense of others. That’s why we have a pacifist defense against being drafted. To be clear, I am not saying that Joel is a hero who did the “right thing”. I’m saying that most of his actions are easily argued as justifiable. The one that isn’t easily justified is lying to Ellie afterwards, because he’s again taking away her agency, just as the Fireflies did. Just as the reactors here said, the lie was selfish, as he was deciding for her that she shouldn’t sacrifice herself to save others. Before that, emergency circumstances DID prevent him from getting her decision, since she was unconscious and he had to act quickly to save her. There are some other questions about the ethics of his actions, such as killing the person who surrendered… The only defense there is the exigent circumstances justification that you pointed out for justifying some of the decisions of the Fireflies or other people in real-life battle situations, that he had no real way to take them prisoner without risking Ellie’s life… So there he was just choosing her life over theirs. Since they surrendered, he no longer has additional excuses about them being collaborators in the threat to her life, and he’s just presuming that they could still be a threat if he lets them go. And of course killing Marlene when she was helpless is also more ethically problematic, as her current threat is zero, and defense of others for a theoretical future isn’t usually deemed acceptable ethics either (though it can be defended to some extent). However, since she likely wouldn’t know how to find Ellie, it’s even harder to defend. Summary: Joel is no hero in terms of acting ethically, but many of his actions are very defensible. Life is more complicated than a trolley problem.

[@ChibiHoshiDragon]

@@RunningTogether The game, comics, and promotional stuff let logical people figure out how Ellie is immune. There is a recorder you have to pick up in the university but Joel fast forwards through it in a cut scene. You have to go back to listen to it all to get a clue. The recorder is taken off a skeleton. We know the Bloater in the dorm was a Firefly, and they take 10 years to form This tells us the University was abandoned by the fireflies 10 years ago. The recording says the last breakthrough was 5 years ago - before the man died. That means the breakthrough was 15 years prior. Anne was a nurse and likely was part of the research for the cure when Ellie was born. As to all the rest... this is *fiction,* not the real world, so applying real-world concepts of uncertainty isn't relevant. Saying the trolley problem doesn't work in the real world isn't relevant. Saying there wasn't time for tests isn't relevant. Just like it takes *time* in real life to export flour, ship it, import flour, pack it for retail, contaminate the machine so that even grain that was milled in the US gets contaminated, distribute it to all the stores via truckers, sell them off the shelves, and be eaten to infect people - that isn't relevant to the fictional story being told. You already have to accept that Cordyceps can leap to humans despite science needing *much* more. So _why_ is it hard to accept the cure is 100% because of real-life science? Why is it hard to accept that the Trolley problem works in this fictional world? Why is it hard to accept the tests work just as fast as the flour distribution? How can you accept the distro worked that fast but not the tests? How can you dismiss when one doesn't match the real world yet you expect the other to match the real world/can't dismiss it just as easily? As to what people in the fictional universe believe... There are Wizards in the Potterverse who think muggleborns steal magic. Real-life has retro-viruses, gene therapies, and the ability to alter genes to make pigs Xenotransplant compatible. Does that make those wizards right to fear muggles will create more muggleborns and therefore cause more squibs of "true" wizards and witches? And what do you mean, closer to a different problem? That IS what the trolley problem is; taking a healthy person's organs to save 5 others IS the trolley problem in a nutshell. The person on the other track isn't braindead, they are alive and healthy. You are moving the tracks against one person's knowledge or will. The only difference is: the Trolley problem includes a guarantee the 5 will not reject the organ and will be healthy individuals and not still die from complications from the original failure despite being a recipient. (which is the real reason it is considered unethical to take a healthy person's organs, it has no guarantee, not the concept of taking them itself) And there *are* ethical systems that do in fact find it ethical to force a healthy person to risk the organs becoming damaged or the person becoming unhealthy for the life of just *one* other - that is the Pro-Life movement to a T. Forcing the body to be used against their will to gestate a pregnancy, despite the risk of prolapse (uterine and rectal), despite the risk of gestation diabetes - which in turn increases the risk to have actual type 2 later in life (within 5 years), despite preeclampsia having a higher risk of organ damage and pregnant females who have it are five times more likely to suffer kidney failure, despite the risk of death... The only difference is the scale, which I believe _should_ cause morality to be adjusted. Interestingly, those who believe autonomy and morality are a sliding scale and a mild risk of just mental health of one isn't worth the potential life of another single person or three, but they generally change to being more acceptable as the number of lives grows. Hence supporting mild inconveniences and even lives in exchange for a large number of real lives, but not accepting it if there are only a few lives at stake. It is mostly that group that supports masks while being Pro-Choice and also more likely to side with the Fireflies' decision regardless of any choice of Ellie's - because the numbers aren't just 5 people, but thousands/millions. Whereas the tribal are the opposite, they would risk severe injury and even death of one person by force for one potential life within their tribe but would not sacrifice the same for millions of "others" outside that tribe. They instead protect that one in the tribe because they value only those in their tribe even if millions of others in other tribes are at stake because everyone doesn't have the same value to them, only their tribe members have value.

[@wtimmins]

This episode was a massive trolley problem. It's interesting how much people debate.

[@NerdishReact]

Yes! It's very interesting to read the debate in the comments.

[@user-uy9tw2zb6g]

Girls, where are you actually located? Why are you dressed so warmly?

[@NerdishReact]

Lol we're from Argentina and we live in Buenos Aires. It's the middle of winter here ❄️ aaand we film in the morning so it's extra cold 🥶

[@user-uy9tw2zb6g]

@@NerdishReact I am suffering from the heat in Russia :)

[@Gabriel_Moline]

11:30. I hope you both watch this, and by this I mean the entire series again. You miss so much speculating and commenting. I hope you give a bit of time, cuz you obviously miss sooooo much!🌿🌸

[@NerdishReact]

We watch it all over again while editing 👌🏻

[@MM-cb3jx]

NEVER ask a father to kill his own daughter (for Joel, Ellie is that now) even for this chance for a cure. Had they asked Ellie she might have said yes but maybe she would have known that Joel would have no reason to keep living with her dead and would most likely end himself. After all he is the only one she trusts to be her „father“. I stop here because otherwise we reach Spoiler territory for the second game.

[@SimsinWonderland]

She definitely would have said yes

[@MM-cb3jx]

@@SimsinWonderland possible. But if Joel would tell her : „if u do this we both will be dead tomorrow, I almost did it after Sarah and I can’t lose another daughter without ending it all and this time I won’t flinch“ … don’t u think she would have at least taken her time to think about it? Again I will not go into spoiler territory for game 2 , I am talking pure hypothetical here.

[@MM-cb3jx]

And yes that would be manipulating her by guilt but we know Joel would do what ever he can to keep her.

[@shayneoshaughnessy2471]

​@MM-cb3jx no she 100% would have said yes, even in the games they establish that. i still agree with you, and the whole point is she didn't get a choice at all in this.

[@MM-cb3jx]

@@shayneoshaughnessy2471 what i try to say is: dont use the way the game designers chose to make your arguement. Do you really think she wouldnt even think about it if it meant that Joel would die too?

[@trulybtd5396]

Should you really leave it up to a heavily traumatized 14 year old with massive survivors guit whether it us worth the risk for a remote chance for a cure?

[@ChibiHoshiDragon]

In the game, Ellie had drowned. Joel was doing CPR when they got caught. The Fireflies knock him unconscious with the butt of their rifle and we see her intubated later, offscreen they get her breathing again. Joel doesn't even know if she had been underwater too long and if Ellie was even going to be conscious again; she could have been brain-dead for all he knew. Fireflies didn't even know. They would have had to wake her up to find out if the drowning had caused any damage. But waking her just to ask her would be cruel if it was only for everyone to discover she had some damage due to lack of oxygen. Keeping her unconscious could be perceived as an act of mercy. This is a Trolley problem. The doctor isn't incompetent. It isn't "some remote chance". The result was 100%. This was about the world or Ellie. Joel chose Ellie. This is not Joel choosing Ellie over a "remote chance". This is: A trolley is heading towards five people, if you pull a switch, the five will be saved and hit one person *instead.* This isn't: A trolley is heading towards five people, if you pull a switch, the trolley will hit one person and then likely jump back to hit the other five or it may remotely not. Stop trying to claim it was only a "remote chance" to protect Joel. He is no hero.

[@trulybtd5396]

@ChibiHoshiDragon I didn't say Joel wad a good guy. I didn't even suggest it. I am saying there is no situation where we would let a literal child choose to sacrifice herself like this, especially one with her background. You are abselooutly right that this is the trolley problem, which is exactly why the writers could not leave it up to her. If ot was her choice, it wouldn't be the trolley problem any more. Edit: but I'll gladly engage, as long as you respond to what I write, not what you think I write. Joel is indeed the bad guy, because he did the bad guy thing. Almost everything he chooses in the end is foreshadowed by bad people's actions in the series up to and including shooting the doctor. (I'll keep it to the series, since they didn't play the game) The chance of the fireflies making a cure isn't just slim, it is zero. If they have a single doctor there is no way he is both a qualified expert in fungi. A brain surgeon, and a research epidimologist. Neither will they have the means of mass production or distribution. But let's accept the premise that they manage to make the cure. The world is already gone to shit. So either, the fireflies manage to use it on their limited population, and someone will realize it can be used for them to grow to absolute power, or worst case, every faction starts fighting about it. It is not outside the realm of possibility that They may even start purposefully infecting women in labor to harvest babies antibodies. This world can't be fixed by this cure. The world has to be fixed first, then a cure can be efficient. Or this has to be a step by step up process. Whether the fireflies have a cure or not will not fix this broken world.

[@ChibiHoshiDragon]

@@trulybtd5396 Will divide this into parts since it is tl;dr otherwise. 1 - _Children_ Well, when it comes to children making decisions this can cover more than Ellie. Should a child have a right to "sacrifice their immortal soul" and choose a religion on their own or leave it if they want, or is that up to the parents to decide they have to be forced to attend and learn it for their "own salvation"? Do children have the right to decide on birth control, abortion, and their body even if the adults around them believe it risks their immortal soul or is that only up to their parents or the law to "protect them from themselves, they are too young to make the decision themselves"? Do they have the right to transition and sacrifice their soul or is that only up to their parents or the law because "they are too young"? Belgium allows adults and emancipated minors to choose voluntary euth for physical and psychological suffering. The new law added minors of any age to choose if they have physical suffering with parental, guardian, or State consent. The Netherlands allows for minors 12-16 to request, with parental, guardian, or State consent; and 16 without parents. So there are situations and ethical/moral belief systems that would accept and allow Ellie to sacrifice herself. When thousands of lives are on the line, sacrifice on a large scale is acceptable to many people, even when a sacrifice of a smaller magnitude for a handful of lives is not.

[@ChibiHoshiDragon]

@@trulybtd5396 2 - _Trolley Problem_ Yes, this was about someone *else* pulling the switch, not Ellie. --- 3 - _Chance of a "cure" and means of mass production or distribution._ You are using real-life facts to judge a fictional world. That would be like saying in the Wizarding Universe, muggle-borns can be created because real science has gene therapy and retroviruses. Cordyceps' chance to jump to humans in real life is lower than the slim chance of a "cure". That doesn't mean one is not zero and the other still is in this fictional Universe In 2003, in real life, people didn't have the ability/means to export flour, ship it, import it, package it, contaminate flour from local sources to also get packed, truck it to stores, sell it off the shelves, and be eaten in a few days - yet it happened in the Last of Us Universe. So why do distro and means matter now? You already suspended your belief on how the flour got to the US and eaten so fast, so why can't you do the same for the inoculation? (Which, btw, doesn't need a brain surgeon or CDC expert. George Washington inoculated his army. Chemical messengers don't need modern knowledge either. Birth Control is a chemical messenger and the Pill has been around since 1960. They aren't doing anything with Anti-Bodies)

[@ChibiHoshiDragon]

@@trulybtd5396 4 - _The world is already gone to shit._ And this is taken into account when it comes to the variations of the Trolley problem. We aren't told initially if the 5 people on the track about to be hit are all old, young, have terminal illnesses, are healthy, are law-abiding citizens, are criminals, or anything. Those details are subsequently asked in the variations and do change many people's standards of ethics and response to the problem and throwing the switch. Another good parallel is the number, the more people added to the save side, the higher the chance people will throw the switch. Even the Sodom and Gomorrah story does include a variation of: the world is evil but I want to save it for the few. Lot asks God to stop if he can find righteous people and God is said to have lowered the standard as Lot did. That is what makes the story a Trolley Problem. People's minds *do* change depending on the variations on the tracks to be saved. People *do* debate the choices when the variables change. It is not absolute in most people's minds. Ethics is malleable depending on variables for most people.

[@rx7dude2006]

I never understood people calling him selfish saving the life of another person it is selfless actually given the fact that Ellie never had a chance to tell Marlene one way or the other, his job was to protect her and he did.I played the game so many times since 2014 and have had time to really dissect the morals of it all.Joel did the right thing any way you look at it.Marlene was definitely more in the wrong. And yes there is another season filming right now based on the second game.

[@NerdishReact]

I mean, his job was to protect her and get her to the fireflies, that's when the job ended and he continued to protect her after that because he cared about her. We feel like he wasn't ready to lose anyone anymore, even when we can tell he knows Ellie would choose to go through with it. And when the time came for him to tell her the truth, he lied, so he took the choice away from her once again. We still believe it was selfish, we aren't saying it was wrong.

[@rx7dude2006]

@@NerdishReact You really can't assume Ellie would give her life for it.Throughout the show and game for that matter she figured they would just take blood and be done.She even told Joel after she would go with Joel wherever he went and when Joel told her that she was what got him through she knew how much she meant to him.

[@ray24051]

Okay being that you guys already seen this episode we can discuss it a little more in depth. The Fireflies were really not the Good Guys Everyone thought they were their intentions might have been Good to try to save the world but there was no guarantee that cutting Ellie's brain out Would have been a success to finding the cure. So in other words she would have been sacrificed for nothing. Many people look at Joel as being wrong for making that decision for Ellie but the Fireflies did not even give her an option at all So they are basically going to kill her with her consent or not. Joel saved her out of pure love He grew to care for her and could not bare losing her.

[@MM-cb3jx]

I agree

[@ChibiHoshiDragon]

This is a Trolley problem. The doctor isn't incompetent. This is not about "a chance". The result was a 100% outcome. This was about the world or Ellie. Joel chose Ellie, who was his world. As long as his world was intact he could care less about the actual world. This is not Joel choosing Ellie over a "chance". This is: A trolley is heading towards five people, if you pull a switch, the five will be saved and hit one person *instead.* This isn't: A trolley is heading towards five people, if you pull a switch, the trolley will hit one person and there's a *chance* it will *not* jump back to hit the original five.

[@NerdishReact]

I mean, in theory the "cure" worked, but you can be for sure until you try. I'm not saying the doctor was incompetent or anything, but realistically speaking, there is a chance they wouldn't be able to do it. But even if they were 100% sure, we still understand Joel. Is it wrong? Yes, very much, but it's to protect the one you love.

[@ChibiHoshiDragon]

@@NerdishReact Realistically speaking, it is not possible for Cordyceps to jump to humans. Realistically speaking, it wasn't possible for contaminated flour from Jakarta, which the US only imports a small fraction of their flour from, to be: loaded and exported, shipped, unloaded and imported, allowed to contaminate flour milled from other places (like US-grown and milled as well as Canadian, which makes up ~60% of US flour imports), packaged, trucked to the stores, placed on the shelves, sold to the customers, and eaten, within two days... So why bring realism into the cure? I mean, realistically speaking, we can currently create Xenodonor pigs for organ transplants and are currently testing them in human trials. So does that mean muggles have a chance to create muggle-borns using genetic modification and the DEs may have had a point? And the point of the whole dilemma is that it *is* a dilemma. During an interview, Mazin talked about how racism and bigotry are also about love and protecting the ones you love, and your family, from what is perceived as a threat to their lives, culture, or soul.

[@agffans5725]

The reason why Marlene did not tell Ellie anything before surgery, is because in hope of a cure, they would have killed here no matter what she would have answered or agreed to, no matter how small a chance that it would have worked anyway, when you only have one shot at this, and not being able to make any tests, because Ellie would be the only test sample in any case. At the start of both episode 1 and 2, we are told by experts that finding a cure for this is impossible, and early on we are told by Joel that they have failed finding a cure many times before. With all that in mind, any sane parent would have done everything to save their child, exactly like Joel did. There would also be no reason to have any trust in the science of this broken a world, full of religious nuts and ruthless fanatics constantly fighting to control the QZ's. It's the lies at the end, and so leaving her no choice at all, that makes his decisions comparable to Marlene's. Marlene also defeat her own argument of Joel not being able to keep Ellie alive and from being "ripped apart" by the infected in the future to come, because if she really believed being immune will not really help Ellie from being killed, then what is the point of killing her in an attempt to make other people immune but equally helpless from being killed by the already infected anyway

[@ChibiHoshiDragon]

This is a Trolley problem. The doctor isn't incompetent. This isn't about "no matter how small a chance/it may not work anyways". The result was 100%, not just a "chance". This was about the world or Ellie. Joel chose Ellie because she was *his* world. This is not Joel choosing Ellie over a "chance". Tests *were* ran, and we found the notes and recordings in the game to prove it. The show never tells us how long Joel was unconscious. Do you think an old, tired, been traveling for months on end from Boston to Salt Lake with a small pause in Jackson going to wake up in an hour? so there was time. The show told us there is no cure for fungus as in no way to eradicate it/kill it, yes, but the show is not talking cure, they are talking about reproducing a chemical messenger and inoculating people so they can produce it themselves. The science *is* there if you listen. We have been capable of synthesizing chemical messengers for a while now. Birth Control Pills are a chemical messenger. This is: A trolley is heading towards five people, if you pull a switch, the five will be saved and hit one person *instead.* This isn't: A trolley is heading towards five people, if you pull a switch, the trolley will hit one person and then may jump back to hit the other five or it may not. Stop trying to claim it was only a "chance" to protect Joel. He is no hero

[@agffans5725]

@@ChibiHoshiDragon .. Sorry but I researched season 2 of the game so ...Spoilers ahead ! ... In the 2nd game there is a recorded audio log made by a surgeon, it tells us that an antigen test of Ellie show that the amount of cordyceps remain high in both her brain and spinal fluid, and that blood from her rapidly grow cordyceps in fungal tests in the lab. However, her white blood cells that should be fighting the infection are not doing so, so that everything that should be inflammatory and make her Zombie-like is not, even though she is technically infected, or in other words her immune system is not reacting to the infection at all, which on the surface, makes her not seem sick at all. Ellies medical blood work charts show that the level of both red hematocrit cell count and white blood cells are very low, just as her hemoglobin, so for a person that is infected she is showing the opposite of what should be the case for a person with an inflammatory reaction, or in other words she is showing immunosuppression, so everything points to her being infected, but by a non-lethal string of the many different species of cordyceps. Some will turn you into different kind of zombies, while some would do the exact opposite, like the Unilateralis cordyceps that turn ants into zombies, while the Tolypocladium inflatum cordyceps is used to create the most commonly used immunosuppressant drug cyclosporine, that would give you all the results that we see in Ellies medical charts, lowering the white blood cell levels and so prevent all your inflammation by keeping your immune system from doing it's job. In real life this cordyceps fungus would obviously not be able to infect a human host, but in this show it would, because they have mutated. So Ellie (and her brain) is in fact infected according to all the test results and test gadget also show, but with a strain of cordyceps that is used to make cyclosporine A, that is an anti-fungal medicine, which would explain why she is showing no symptoms of an infection and cannot be infected by any of the other species of cordyceps, because it not only suppresses her immune system but also fight off all other fungi. The cyclosporine A medicine is used to treat even the most severe fungal infections we know of, including severe fungal infections in the eyes, which is a key area that the zombie cordyceps attack besides the brain. So Ellie is not immune, but already seem to be infected by a string of cordyceps that kills off all other strings. So she cannot become a cure herself, but they need to infect people with the right strain of cordyceps to fight off all the other strains that create zombies. Unfortunately, they shoot everyone who are infected, because they assumed that they will turn. So that anyone who got infected, would either turn or be killed because they were infected, except for Ellie because her infection was hidden long enough to prove that she would not turn, even after getting infected a 2nd and 3rd time. The question is how they are going to deal with this data, if at all, in season two of the series, or what direction they are going for.

[@agffans5725]

@@ChibiHoshiDragon .. I did not write that he was a hero, only that any sane parent would have done everything to save their child, like Joel did in his own way of doing it. There would also be no reason to have any trust in the science of this broken a world, for all the reasons mentioned. I think you misunderstood the part about doing tests. They obviously made some tests on Ellie, but Ellie herself would be the only test sample, so with her dying, they would only have one shot at this to make it work, and in real life that would be impossible. Marlene did not tell Ellie anything before surgery because they would have killed here no matter what she would have answered or agreed to. This is made very clear in this episode.

[@ChibiHoshiDragon]

@@agffans5725 The FIRST game had the recording about Ellie's data: the blood titers, the growth outside her body, the prodrome of aggression, etc. The SECOND game only had the notes and x-ray. Other than that error, you are spot on about the creation of something similar to cyclosporine A in her body. You are assuming that it is a strain that kills off other strains. Likely, Ellie has a different, *unique,* strain in her brain that doesn't grow out of control or cause aggression and her body has learned to recognize it (which is why her white blood cells are fine), but she _also_ has the strain from the bite in her blood, which is why her blood grew cordyceps in the lab. (And likely why she caused the machine to detect it, whereas it didn't detect the "good" ones when she was a child growing up - There is no way she was never tested, they likely did random tests in the game given the spores exist and we see in the comics that she wasn't raised in that school, she got dropped off by a bus and was new, so intake would have happened. Having graduated 4th Battalion Parris Island, the military does intake at every new duty station, they don't rely on your MEPS results. With something so threatening like spores, there is no way they weren't constantly testing as they can't catch everyone breaking the rules as they break them) Likely, her brain strain fungus is mutated and doesn't allow the ones in her blood to colonize the brain because it suppresses the bad cordy's growth, but doesn't kill them completely. The body thinks they are the same so doesn't attack either. As soon as the bad Cordy leaves her body and is no longer affected by the ones in her brain, they grow like normal. (hence the proliferation in a lab/in-vitro) This means there is no need to create a vaccine or anything, no ultra-specialized CDC expert is needed. Just extract and proliferate the mutated protective version and innoculate everyone with this strain. Less specialization than processing a fecal donation for transplant. (Maybe if the Fireflies had a Specialist in Neurology and a Brain Surgeon, Ellie could survive the surgery if done by specialists. But at the time the Fireflies only had a regular doctor who would have extracted everything to ensure they got the fungus with its reproductive capacities intact and not targeted to extract only what is needed without disturbing Ellie's brain - which is why she would have died - all the specialists were F.E.D.R.A. or unreachable/unknown and not Firefly. Which hopefully could be the plot of the third game. Ellie and Abby work together to kidnap a few doctors, getting to and secretly getting a scan from a working unmovable machine in enemy possession with Abby defending, fetch quests for equipment parts, etc - though my ending is as she traverses the world she hears different perspectives on how her contribution would be a power grab for too many and cause wars and she becomes jaded that the world isn't worth saving and self-deletes in a cave; where she spores and the next generation playing nearby are unknowingly inoculated) As to injecting or shooting everyone infected; Just like this is a Trolley problem concept, this is also an Ellie is *unique* concept. She is the "chosen one". There are no others. Or are you saying there could be more Neos? They show pretty clearly that the bite looks bad minutes later, not like a fresh bite (Tess was bit 15-20 minutes prior to her death and it was already worse.) The only maybe in the game is if they are infected by spores there is no outward sign. BUT... The game did lay down the groundwork for her uniqueness too. Anna was part of the Fireflies. They had been researching the disease since the beginning. They had a breakthrough 15 years prior - Ellie and Joel found the recording from the doctor in the Colorado lab. It stated they had a breakthrough 5 years ago and then they moved. The bloater in the dorm was a firefly and we know bloaters take 10 years to form So the fireflies moved, the doctor freed the monkeys, 10 years prior, which was 5 years after the last breakthrough = 15 years. This would be around the time of Ellie's conception and birth. It is very simple to say Anna had been part of those experiments and the only pregnant person that was tested on, making Ellie Unique and destroying this fantasy that there could be others once and for all. Why need to be spoon-fed though? This is *not* a story about a "chance" for a cure - that is a fantasy This is *not* a story about "others" being out there - that is a fantasy This *is* a Trolley Problem story This *is* a Chosen One story There Is No One Else.

[@ChibiHoshiDragon]

@@agffans5725 Most people who make, "they were willing to sacrifice Ellie on a chance" do so to defend Joel's decision as heroic and not selfish. So I took your statement as a similar. Most humans are selfish and tribal, so it is no surprise most parents would do the same. It has nothing to do with sanity, though. It is in fact the opposite. Love causes people to do insane things. It is the cause of certain social problems too. Most -ists/-ots (race, theists, big, etc) are tribal to "protect" their children from the "other" too. (Moderation dislikes when I use certain words so sorry for the ambiguity) And this is *fiction*. Clinging to "real life" makes no sense. The Universe is established as: The mutation happened. A cure is possible. Ellie is the only one. That is like trying to claim that a muggle can gain magic if they use gene therapy because in real life we can alter genes with retro-viruses.