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the last of us - left behind review - elle and riley looking out
Television

The Last of Us – Left Behind review S1 E7

Jeffrey Lyles , , ,

The Last of Us isn’t going to have bad episodes. That much is clear. While Left Behind lacked the emotional pull or crazy action elements of some previous episodes, it reinforced that the show’s driving element is the connections of characters.

For viewers who’ve experienced the game’s DLC, this episode didn’t deviate too far with some of the exact game dialogue incorporated. There was one fairly significant change in the translation from game to show that I wish was incorporated, but the show runners have intentionally shown more restraint than the more is more philosophy of video game action.

Elle’s managed to get Joel into a neighborhood and found a house with a garage to store the horse. Joel is still in bad shape and literally pushes Elle away hoping she listens to his dying wish to get back to Tommy. For a long moment, Elle considers it, but gets caught reminiscing on her best friend Riley (Storm Reid).

Riley vanished three weeks ago and Elle hasn’t taken kindly to it. The FEDRA officer in charge of the youth brigade, Capt. Kwong (Terry Chen, Jessica Jones) encourages Elle to take a different path.

He sees a leader in her and wants that to develop instead of going down another, non-productive path. FEDRA has been portrayed as this somewhat shady, authoritarian group so it was a nice shift to see a decent FEDRA officer for a change.

Riley sneaks back into her old room with Elle and she’s got a surprise. Hopefully it’s some quiet lessons for Elle as she has zero noise discipline. Seriously, Elle would last all of 30 seconds in A Quiet Place.

In her time away Riley’s joined the fireflies and is completely on board with ending the fascist FEDRA. This leads to some healthy debate about the virtues of the Fireflies vs FEDRA.

the last of us - left behind review - elle and riley

It’s interesting how Elle sounds like a typical oblivious poster in the comment section who portrays themselves as a know-it-all but has little actual knowledge other than what’s been given to her.

Riley didn’t return for a debate though — she’s got bigger plans for Elle, namely a trip to the mall. And Riley’s got access to power to give her pal the full mall treatment.

Elle doesn’t need much to be amused, geeking outside over the escalator and then being nearly speechless after seeing the merry go round. Then she totally loses it when Riley takes her to the arcade where they play Mortal Kombat II. Good luck finding a mall that has an arcade let alone a relic/classic like MKII. But let’s not quibble over small details…

This is unfair but the Elle and Riley young romance doesn’t land nearly as strongly as as Bill and Frank’s grown man relationship. Elle and Riley are still in that awkward, shy teenage phase and aren’t quite able/ready to express their feelings just yet.

The show to game translation has been pretty flawless, but this was probably the one instance where the game did it better just because there was more time to quickly establish and develop Riley and Elle’s relationship before the big payoff.

And it was hilarious when Elle asked Riley how to play and she responded ‘Just mash the buttons.’ Truer words…Now if only they could find Star Wars.

The slow pan shot to the infected in the hallway suddenly stirring when it hears the girls in the distance was extremely well done setting up a nice sense of pending doom.

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Now it’s off to the food court, but Riley deprived Elle of some Sbarros. What are you even doing, Riley? She does have a gift for Elle — No Pun Intended Vol. 2 — which explains Elle’s deep appreciation for it on the road with Joel.

Elle isn’t happy after finding Riley’s grenade stash prompting the real reason Riley returned. She’s going to the Atlantic QZ tomorrow and while she pitched it, Marlene wasn’t down for Elle coming with her.

After calming down and having a little goofy dancing in the Halloween costume shop, Elle kisses Riley. It’s more of an innocent kiss and not the usual long make out session, let’s have sex that’s the norm now. It’s a nice moment wonderfully performed by Reid and Bella Ramsey that’s utterly ruined by the Infected strolling in.

This scene is so much more chaotic in the game as there’s a swarm of infected descending on the mall and not just one. I’m torn to the better approach. On one hand, the swarm is overwhelming and intense to watch play out, but seeing as how Riley and Elle aren’t these battle-hardened warriors, one is probably just as effective.

Especially in this context since that lone infected manages to bite both of them. Again, the game did this scene slightly better as Elle and Riley were this close from escaping the mall and back to safety when the infected got them. And this was after them successfully fighting off and killing various infected on their escape route. It felt more tragic that the final infected they encountered ruined everything for them.

Regardless, the bite reveal scene proved just as emotional with Elle freaking out and Riley calmly considering their fate. Riley mentions some options, including suicide, before deciding on living as long as they can.

the last of us - left behind review - riley and elle game version

We know how this likely gets resolved, but ending the flashback there was a brilliant touch. Elle looks around the house and finds a thread and needle. That’s all the sign she needed as she heads back and starts seeing Joel up. He might be ready to die. But she’s not ready to give up on him just yet.

Per the tease for next week’s episode, we’re getting to one of the game’s hardest sequences and this is a case where the show might top the game experience again.

Left Behind largely did justice to the game’s stellar DLC chapter showing another side of Elle at her most vulnerable, which drives her in the present not to lose another loved one.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Photo Credit: HBO

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