The Last of Us recap episode seven – the most painful farewell of all | Television

This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us TV series. Do not read unless you have seen episodes one to seven …

I can’t help but feel torn after this seventh episode. It has nothing to do with my enjoyment of it or the quality, but what it means for the rest of the series.

We picked up almost exactly where we left off, in the aftermath of Joel (Pedro Pascal) being stabbed, and finished – giant flashback in between – just a few minutes later with Ellie (Bella Ramsey) sewing him up, having discovered a needle and thread.

While I’m pleased that even post-apocalyptic kitchens have a messy drawer, what next? Joel is still at death’s door, they’re miles from anything approaching safety and more than 500 miles from the Fireflies’ hospital in Salt Lake City. Winter is coming and we have just two episodes left to wrap things up.

I have every faith in this series – in my eyes, it has barely taken a misstep – so the showrunners should have earned our trust. But, with episodes eight and nine rumoured to clock in at just 51 and 43 minutes respectively, I can’t see how it’s all going to fit in.

Three weeks earlier

The flashback sequence began with Ellie, Walkman on, jogging her way through gym class before getting into a fight with Bethany (Ruby Lybbert) and being hauled in front of a sympathetic Capt Kwong (Terry Chen).

We then saw Riley (Storm Reid) return. As ill-advised entries go, sneaking through a window and putting your hand over someone’s mouth while they’re sleeping would be up there at the best of times. During the apocalypse? It’s a wonder Riley got out of that one alive.

From then on, as they encountered the dead body in the corridor, swigged booze, played with Riley’s pistol and explored the abandoned mall, the tension rose. It wasn’t so much a question of if some infected were going to appear, but when, and how many.

The dialogue along the way was sharp and funny, showing that even when the world has gone to hell and your best friend is leaving you to join the revolutionaries, there’s still time for laughter. And crushes.

Just as last week’s episode served up spectacular cinematography, this week was no less beautiful, despite being in the confines of a dilapidated shopping centre. The shot of Ellie looking out over the balcony as Riley fired up the electricity was stunning.

After navigating “electric stairs”, we got a lesson in the logic of looting. Footwear was highly desirable, soap and lingerie less so. I can understand why no one was thinking about sexy knickers while cordyceps took hold of the planet, but a few bars of soap probably wouldn’t have gone amiss.

If nothing else, the fully stocked Victoria’s Secret window display did allow Ellie to think about desire for a moment, and question whether Riley could ever see her in that way. For the first and only time so far, we saw a moment of vanity as Ellie checked her hair in the shop window reflection.

Next up, the carousel, more booze, the photo booth and then a few goes on the Mortal Kombat II arcade machine she and Joel encountered in episode three.

Of course, such bliss cannot last. We soon found out that Ellie and Riley’s glorious evening was also intended as a painful farewell – just as we were given our first glimpse of an infected. From then on, it was merely a matter of time before they were attacked – not even the gorgeous scene of them dancing to Etta James and their eventual kiss could delay their inevitable demise.

When it finally came, the attack was incredibly violent, Ellie and Riley easily overpowered, the frantic camerawork emphasising the horror. The realisation of their bites was heartbreaking, despite having been signposted from the beginning.

We briefly cut back to the present, following Ellie’s search for medical supplies, before returning to the mall, where Riley gave Ellie two options – the second time this episode – end it now, or keep going to make the most of their remaining time together. “We can be all poetic and shit and lose our minds together.”

What next?

We left Riley and Ellie sobbing in the mall. We know Ellie is still with us – this was, of course, the moment she found out she was immune – and Riley is not. The assumption here is that Riley will turn and Ellie will be forced to kill her best friend, no doubt using the pistol Riley tucked in her belt. In doing so, she’ll answer the question from episode four about Joel’s attacker not being the first person she’d shot. She’s already lost the person she cared for most in the world. She’s not about to let the second slip through her fingers.

I don’t expect we’ll see what happened in the mall – so unless next week’s episode is going to feature nothing but Ellie sitting by Joel’s side, mopping his brow and nipping out to catch the occasional rabbit, expect a big time jump.

We’ve got two episodes left, and, as I said earlier, I’m slightly concerned about how much ground we have left to cover, but my hopes are still high.

Notes and observations

• I made a mistake in last week’s recap when I said Ellie’s sip from Joel’s hip flask might have been her first taste of alcohol. She said “still gross”, not “so gross”. As we saw here, she had definitely had a drop before. Apologies.

• Is it possible the booze and bills that man had been consuming before his death in the corridor had been bought from Joel and Tess?

• The episode pretty faithfully followed the storyline of The Last of Us: Left Behind, the 2014 expansion of the main game. It’s a game of two halves, one concerning Ellie’s adventures with Riley, complete with Etta James dancing and their kiss. The other seeing Ellie scouring an abandoned shopping mall in Colorado for medical supplies to treat the injured Joel before moving him to a hideout to heal and wait out the approaching heavy winter.

• Great music in this episode. We kicked off during Ellie’s gym session with Pearl Jam’s All or None (“It’s a hopeless situation / And I’m starting to believe / That this hopeless situation / Is what I’m trying to achieve”), then moved to A-ha’s Take on Me (a giant nod to The Last of Us Pt II), a lullaby version of The Cure’s Just Like Heaven which played on the carousel and finished with Etta James’s I Got You Babe for Ellie and Riley’s mall dance.

• Hats off Storm Reid for that performance as Riley, the epitome of the exciting, cool, intoxicating best friend.

• That Savage Starlight comic Ellie was reading in her room was similar to the one she and Sam discovered in the tunnel beneath Kansas City in episode five.

What did you think of episode seven? If you and your best friend were in a shopping centre (almost) all alone, what would you do? What next for Ellie and Joel? Have your say below …