Viewers shocked by ‘brutal’ Last Of Us season finale

HBO’s post-apocalyptic series The Last Of Us has been unrelentingly dark all season, but this ending was truly shocking. WARNING: Spoilers.

The Last of Us season finale.

WARNING: Spoilers.

The first season of HBO’s acclaimed post-apocalyptic series The Last Of Us came to a close this week – and the show’s brutal finale left many viewers stunned.

Based on a hugely successful video game, this season of The Last Of Us has followed Joel (Pedro Pascal) as he transports the young Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across America, 20 years after a deadly fungus turned everyone it touched into violent, marauding zombie-like creatures. The few not infected live in permanent fear, fighting each other for supplies and safety.

But in Ellie, the world has a glimmer of hope: She is the only known person to have been bitten by one of the infected and survived unharmed. If Joel can just get her safely across the country to a secret medical facility, she could hold the cure for the infection and set humans back on a path to restoring civilisation.

Another warning now: Even bigger The Last Of Us spoilers below!

Joel and Ellie have grown increasingly close through the season.

In the final minutes of this week’s season finale, which streams locally on Binge, Joel and Ellie have made it to the medical facility safely – well, almost, with Joel getting knocked out by guards who didn’t know who he was. When he comes to, he’s told that Ellie is about to go into surgery to remove the fungus from her body for testing.

One problem: The fungus is in her brain. The surgery will kill Ellie, who has no idea she will never wake up from the surgery.

Joel is faced with a choice: Do nothing and potentially help cure the infection that has ravaged the world, or do everything and rescue the young girl who’s given him a reason to live again.

He chooses the latter and, in one of the most harrowing scenes of the whole season, shoots his way through the facility to get to Ellie, brutally murdering everyone in his path – even the doctor who is about to operate on her. It’s a horrifically graphic mass slaughter of characters who are literally trying to save the world.

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Joel saves Ellie – and dooms humankind.

As the season ends, Joel has smuggled Ellie away, still unconscious and in an operating gown, to take her to the relative safety of a commune where his brother is staying.

Ellie presses him for information about what happened while she was under anaesthetic, and Joel flat-out lies, telling her that the doctors had already examined “dozens” of people with her immunity and found no cure could be extracted from them. Then, the hospital came under attack, and he smuggled her out just in time.

Ellie appears sceptical of this version of events – but chooses to go along with Joel.

Always a complicated character with a dark past, the finale saw Joel cross a line, potentially dooming humanity for his own interests.

But then again – who knows if the doctor could have even found a cure after removing the fungus from Ellie’s brain? Could she have died for no reason?

It was a murky, morally complex ending to the season – and left many viewers (particularly those who weren’t familiar with the original video game’s ending) stunned.

While some were disturbed to see this new side of Joel, others applauded the show for avoiding a clichéd ‘happy ending’ to what is a very dark story:

One thing I like about #TheLastOfUs’s ending in the HBO version is just seeing Pedro Pascal wrestle with all his emotions. There’s just an immediate change in his vibe + demeanor that makes that whole sequence more brutal than what we saw in the game

— Giancarlo Valdes (@_boogs) March 13, 2023

The final episode of #TheLastOfUs was brutal. Talk about an antihero. Should we still root for him?

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) March 13, 2023

Damn....what a #TheLastOfUs season finale!!

I'm sitting here in genuine shock and awe over that ending.

I'm also feeling a deep appreciation for the GUTS this show AND the source material had to avoid clichés and show us instead the brutal truth about humanity and love.

Damn. pic.twitter.com/MuR9fEBHVR

— John Rocha aka The Outlaw Nation (@TheRochaSays) March 13, 2023

Finished the season finale of the last of us. Everything is totally fine 😅pic.twitter.com/BHuslJdfi5

— Katie 🔮🥀🌭🙃 (@SO_I_CRAVE) March 13, 2023

live footage of me watching the finale of the last of us #TheLastOfUspic.twitter.com/PjLox6GxDh

— hannah 🐳 (taylor's version) (@hanfromdastreet) March 13, 2023

#TheLastOfUs season finale was BRUTAL, especially the hospital scene. Ashley Johnson was incredible in her scene. Show concludes with showing what the story is all about, love, grief, choices within a broken apocalyptic world, and how time/people can heal wounds. pic.twitter.com/vGx2hECYU4

— BLURAYANGEL 🦇 (@blurayangel) March 13, 2023

"It wasn't time that did it"
Joel was not going to lose another daughter, no matter what. That was brutal.#TheLastOfUspic.twitter.com/XyZkAaRgmM

— Aieldream (@aieldream) March 13, 2023

Wow. Really, really loved how they made the Joel hospital sequence even more brutal and murderous than when you play it in the game. #TheLastOfUs

— brent is ready for baseball ⚾️ (@brent858) March 13, 2023

So where to now? There will be a season two of The Last Of Us, and those familiar with the games will know that, while it still tells the story of Joel and Ellie, it jumps forward five years into the future.

But unlike this first season, which followed the story arc of the first video game, the story of the second Last Of Us game may get split into multiple seasons.

“It’s a big animal to take apart, you know? Because it’s a much bigger story and it’s a more complicated story. It’s a beautiful story,” showrunner Craig Mazin told IGN.

“It’s more than a season’s worth of television, for sure.”

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