Will Livingstone in all probability did not understand it when he penned a ebook stuffed with cringeworthy jokes, however the fictional creator’s thrown at the least one fan a lifeline with it in post-apocalyptic America.

In HBO’s adaptation of The Final of Us, co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann introduced one of many recreation’s silliest fixed companions alongside for the journey, Ellie’s joke ebook, which each offers moments of severely warranted levity among the many story’s unrelenting quagmire of violence whereas reminding us that our powerful protagonist is, the truth is, a child. However this beloved tome of wit has a deeper significance to Ellie (Bella Ramsey) than mere hilarity — primarily due to who gave it to her.

Within the present and the sport, Ellie’s go-to studying materials is her beloved Savage Starlight comics and a tattered joke ebook titled No Pun Meant: Quantity Too by Will Livingston. (“You get it? ‘Too?’ Like T-O-O?”) In idle moments in episode 4, Ellie breaks out some cheeky Livingstone gold to each cross the time and get an increase out of Joel (Pedro Pascal). Shel gleefully will get revenge on Joel’s demand to remain put as he siphons petrol by studying out a number of tacky jokes, many taken straight from the sport.

“What did the mermaid put on to her math class?” she continues, guffawing and ignoring Joel’s unimpressed appears to be like. “An algae-bra!”

“I stayed up all evening questioning the place the solar went…after which it dawned on me,” comes one other, which truthfully reads like a Mitch Hedberg joke.

“What did the mermaid put on to her math class? An algae-bra!”

As Joel and Ellie make camp, Ellie drops one other banger disguised as a “severe query.” Ellie slyly poses the thought, “Why did the scarecrow get an award?” When Joel surprisingly solutions this one — “As a result of he was excellent in his area” — Ellie squeals, calls Joel a dick and accuses him of studying her beloved ebook. He is heard this one earlier than.

Riley knew her greatest good friend Ellie liked ‘No Pun Meant’. You possibly can see it on Ellie’s nightstand.
Credit score: Liane Hentscher/HBO

So, who gave Ellie the joke ebook? In episode 7, we be taught that Ellie has been a longtime reader of Livingstone’s work, as you possibly can spy the primary quantity of No Pun Meant in her dorm room at FEDRA navy college. “This otter be good,” reads a line on the entrance cowl. Later within the episode, Ellie’s greatest good friend Riley (Storm Reid) presents her the second ebook throughout their date on the deserted mall within the Boston QZ, studying out just a few zingers to one another in a hilarious second earlier than impending tragedy.

“Shut up! He made a second one?” says Ellie after Riley fingers it over.

Now we all know Riley’s tragic destiny, the significance of Ellie’s copy of No Pun Meant Quantity Too intensifies ten-fold — this is not only a foolish ebook, it is the very last thing her greatest good friend and old flame gave to her earlier than she was Contaminated.

Within the recreation, Ellie’s jokes to “lighten the temper” are a type of collectible(Opens in a brand new tab). In the event you discover all of them, the sport rewards you with the extremely named “That is All I Acquired” trophy(Opens in a brand new tab). The one option to hear Ellie’s jokes within the recreation is to face and wait together with her between targets; after a couple of minutes, Ellie will pull out her joke ebook out of boredom and rattle off just a few zingers.

“I keep in mind within the recreation being shocked that the sport was all of a sudden providing me this factor that had no profit for the sport in any respect,” director Craig Mazin mentioned on HBO’s The Final of Us podcast(Opens in a brand new tab). “It was simply gratuitous and but pretty and human. It was type of like saying, ‘Hey, you already know what? You don’t should be eyes behind your head or on the point of run or shoot at each second, you possibly can take the time to cease, go searching, expertise the fantastic thing about the world that’s been created.’

“What I additionally love about it and why it was important to incorporate within the present is that it undercuts this factor that occurs when adults write youngsters. They both write them too younger or too outdated.” Mazin mentioned youngsters like Ellie fall below one other class, a stage of life his good friend calls “fuck you, tuck me in.”

“They’re able to exit on their very own, they need a gun, they wish to be in cost, they assume they know the whole lot. Additionally, they’re nonetheless youngsters,” defined Mazin. “I like how Ellie has this pleasure for one thing so juvenile and childish and silly — and he or she is aware of it’s silly however she loves it. It is trustworthy pleasure.”

Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey): One among these folks likes jokes greater than the opposite.
Credit score: Liane Hentscher/HBO

In The Final of Us, humour is the one avenue through which Ellie is allowed to be who she is, a child, carrying round her joke ebook in her little backpack proper beside her handgun. This distinction between silliness and untimely maturity is among the strongest components of Ellie’s character that each Ramsey and recreation voice actor Ashley Johnson seize upon to develop this advanced, powerful, hilarious teen.

Whether or not she’s messing with Joel by means of the invention of a porn journal in Invoice’s truck in episode 3 or pretending to be Contaminated at the most inappropriate time round Joel and Tess in episode 2, Ramsey’s Ellie offers welcome chortles in a panorama of close to fixed stress and risk. As Mashable’s Belen Edwards writes, “Thanks for the snigger, Ellie. We actually wanted it after the present’s first three episodes, and based mostly on the whole lot you have been by means of, we all know you want it too.” Ramsey’s supply is constantly hilarious in its personal proper — keep in mind that inappropriately good “hehehehehehehehehehehehehe” studying of Invoice’s letter in episode 3?

Ellie’s jokes additionally play an even bigger function than foolish asides. Past their shared experiences of violence, loss, and grief, Joel and Ellie start to bond over these ridiculous jokes, with their burgeoning pseudo-father-daughter relationship given a second to truly be simply that. When Joel triumphantly solutions the scarecrow joke, we see a glimmer of camaraderie between them, reminding us of Joel’s previous as a father who consistently joked round together with his teen daughter, Sarah (Nico Parker).

Not the time for a joke. Ahhhh anyway, here is one about diarrhoea…
Credit score: Liane Hentscher/HBO

This comes up once more on the finish of episode 4, when Ellie and Joel are hiding for his or her lives in a Kansas Metropolis attic, and Ellie finds it an ideal second to drop a joke about diarrhoea: “Joel, do you know diarrhoea is hereditary? Yeah, it runs in your denims.” As Mashable’s Sam Haysom writes, “The joke about diarrhoea is the primary time Ellie correctly makes Joel snigger, and appears to mark a key bonding second within the pair’s relationship.” In the identical episode, Joel organically shares real emotion with Ellie for the primary time regardless of his former guidelines about “hold[ing] our backstories to ourselves,” opening up about Tommy within the automotive, answering Ellie’s questions on his worries over his brother. Pascal’s excellent efficiency in episode 4 is the primary main softening of Joel we have seen, and it is all thanks to those extraordinarily dumb jokes.

Ellie’s contrasting modes as a hilarious, joke-loving child being pressured to develop up in a merciless, threatening world makes her a really compelling protagonist, one a guarded Joel makes an attempt to each perceive and shield. In the exact same episode, book-ended by scenes displaying Ellie making jokes, she shoots a person to avoid wasting Joel’s life. In the identical hour, we watch Ellie drop bathroom jokes and tried to kill somebody. That is the world she exists in, a humorous child confronted with a horrific, kill-or-be-killed actuality.

Livingstone’s joke ebook does extra for Ellie than present gentle studying, it permits her to create a rattling break between the blood for her and Joel, whereas honouring her final present from Riley. As Ellie warns Joel, “Simply know, you possibly can’t escape Will Livingstone. He’ll be again. There’s nothing you are able to do to cease him.”

The Final of Us is now streaming on HBO Max.(Opens in a brand new tab)