Followers of "The Last of Us" detect an error in a scene 1:45
Editor's Note:
This article contains spoilers for "The Last of Us" Episode 7, "Left Behind," which premiered February 26 on HBO.
(CNN) --
We interrupt your zombie drama again with a touching love story, this time in the form of an extended
flashback
to a different phase of life.
"The Last of Us" continues to stretch its formula, while Joel (Pedro Pascal) continues to be seriously injured by the events at the end of the sixth episode, so Ellie (Bella Ramsey) is in charge of attending to him in the seventh, entitled " Left Behind".
The episode returns to the moment when a negative Ellie, who has undergone military training, is dragged by her deserter friend, Riley (Storm Reid from "Euphoria"), to an abandoned mall, which turned out not to be quite as abandoned as advertised.
Storm Reid, actress of "The Last of Us", gives advice to homophobic viewers of the series
The trip is apparently Riley's way of saying goodbye, as she has decided to join the Fireflies' resistance group, the Fireflies.
As the hour ticks on, though, it clearly turns into what amounts to a first date, with Riley exposing Ellie to a slew of wonders—escalating stairs, arcade games, photo booths, a merry-go-round
—
before of a spontaneous kiss that takes your relationship in a new and more romantic direction.
Along the way, the show even identified the source of Ellie's book of stupid jokes.
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This being "The Last of Us", nothing good can last long, and a zombie intrudes on their moment together, injuring them both.
The encounter will later lead Ellie to realize that she is immune to the zombie plague, as we know, while Riley's terrible fate leads to a reversal of Joel's situation, with Ellie finding a needle and thread to close her wound. .
Storm Reid and Bella Ramsey in episode 7 of "The Last of Us."
(Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO)
Although "Left Behind" added something to the Joel-Ellie dynamic, with her refusal to leave him, its exploration of love and loss in this bleak world was evocative of both the third episode, with its detour into Frank's love story and Bill set to music by Linda Ronstadt, as the fifth, to the extent that during a zombie apocalypse even the good die young.
"Everyone ends up like this sooner or later, right?" Riley says, by way of acceptance of her cruel fate.
(As a footnote, both actresses are actually 19 years old, though they play younger characters, which probably made their scenes together more impactful.)
What will happen later in "The Last of Us"?
"The Last of Us" has two episodes left to deal with Joel's condition and return to his ostensible mission to find out what makes Ellie special, while her growing popularity has fans obsessed — and sometimes nitpicky — with every detail.
The 5 best series premieres in January, according to Metacritic 0:59
For a moment, however, the series offered a respite as it showcased the dizzying effects of young love, underscoring how "The Last of Us" continues to defy expectations and why so many viewers just can't get off this merry-go-round.
(Like CNN, HBO is a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery.)
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