There’s a lot of injustice in The Last of Us. The Cordyceps outbreak doesn’t play favorites (outside of Ellie’s immunity, of course), so people are constantly ripped away from their loved ones; the fight between human factions for the few remaining supplies tears families apart right and left, and the survivors are always left to pick up the pieces and continue on with their lives as best they can.
But with all this injustice swirling around, the decision reached in the town meeting in this week’s episode absolutely wasn’t an example of it. Jackson made the right call.
[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for The Last of Us season 2 episode 3.]
In this episode, a few months after Joel’s death at the hands of Abby and the walls of Jackson being broken down by hordes of infected, we get a tense town meeting with a climactic speech from Ellie (Bella Ramsey) in which she requests some help from the citizens of Jackson to go track down Joel’s killers and bring them to justice.
The show sets the speech up as a triumphant moment for Ellie: She’s written her speech down just like Jesse (Young Mazino) told her to, and she’s even managed to tone down some of her usual anger. And yet, the Jackson city council voted against Ellie’s request in a landslide. And they were right to do it.
Just to be completely clear, when I say the town’s people got this right, I’m not talking about high-minded ideals or spiritual concepts. I’m not here to tell you that a burning desire for revenge will erode your soul, or that vengeance never heals wounds, it only makes new ones. That’s the show’s responsibility. What I’m saying is simply that the citizens of Jackson were right not to want to help Ellie on a totally and entirely practical level.
Her ask is absolutely ridiculous. I mean, sure, we’re pretty locked in to Ellie’s perspective in The Last of Us, so we get how painful it was for her to lose Joel. But for everyone else, Jackson, the peaceful walled city and the safest place that any of these people have been in since the apocalypse started, just had a major break-in. The streets were flooded with zombies, some unknown amount of people died, and there’s a tremendous amount of rebuilding still necessary to keep things even remotely safe.
And in the wake of all this tragedy, loss, and destruction, Ellie walks into the meeting and demands 16 of Jackson’s best fighters and strongest citizens to go hunt down people who live nearly 900 miles away. Look, we don’t know exactly how many people live in Jackson, or how many of those people are good enough with a gun to send on this hunt for revenge. But based on what we’ve seen, it certainly seems like that’s a significant portion of the town’s population.
To put all this another way: Every single part of Ellie’s proposal to the citizens of Jackson is totally unreasonable. But that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to us either. After all, we know Ellie is impulsive, short-sighted, and pretty selfish. That’s not really a criticism of her or to say that she doesn’t have many other redeeming qualities, just that big-picture strategizing and planning around the health of the broader community isn’t one of her natural strengths.
All of this may sound like a criticism of the show or its story, but it really isn’t. It’s a great addition to her character and the wider world of The Last of Us that Ellie isn’t a magically gifted orator, something that would feel wildly out of character for her, and that the residents of Jackson are able to recognize how ridiculous her request is. And, of course, it sets up a wonderful moment where Dina (Isabela Merced) realizes that Ellie’s planning to do something stupid and won’t let her do it alone — or underprepared.
As with its portrayal of Seth, The Last of Us wants us to know that Ellie’s quest is being doubted, at the same time it wants to be able to push through with her anger. It’s a subtle but effective way to remind us just how much of the story is rooted in Ellie’s perspective and rationale. Of course, that’s a bit of a double-edged sword: By presenting us with a very reasonable alternative to Ellie’s quest for vengeance, the show risks undermining her character and leaving us unable to relate to her fury. But, at least for now, episode 3’s town hall lands exactly on the right side of that line.
The post Jackson’s residents were right to vote against Ellie appeared first on Polygon.
