Although she acts all powerful and badass, cursing and diminishing the specter of the contaminated, Ellie continues to be very a lot a baby, one which performs round with the gun she picked up at Invoice’s and makes “pew pew” noises. Whereas on the street, she picks up a brand new distraction within the type of a e book of puns, which she reads all through the entire episode. These make up the very best components of this week’s episode with Ellie attempting to make the cynical and severe Joel chortle, whereas he tries his finest to not let her discover that he’s really discovering the jokes humorous.

The massive thematic level of the episode is to, effectively, do what each single zombie story has accomplished ever, from “Evening of the Dwelling Useless” to “The Strolling Useless” — that people are the true monsters (stunning, I do know!). As sensible and precocious as Ellie is, she continues to be quite naive in the case of the actual horrors of the world, appearing stunned when Joel warns her not of contaminated, however of raiders that can do worse issues to them than killing.

Unsurprisingly, Joel is confirmed proper the second they arrive in Pittsburgh and see the QZ in ruins with FEDRA nowhere in sight, and are instantly ambushed. Joel will get pinned down by one of many raiders, and Ellie sees no selection however to choose up the gun she discovered at Invoice’s and shoot him. Although she would not kill him, she nonetheless panics, earlier than Joel finishes the job. He later apologizes for failing at defending her and forcing her to hurt somebody, which no child ought to ever do. Ellie confesses this was not her first time hurting somebody, however refuses to say extra.