Major spoilers for The Last of Us video game . After suffering several scrapes on her way west, Ellie faces unprecedented dangers in The Last of Us Episode 8. A promo for the episode, which premieres on HBO on March 5, shows cannibalistic cult leader David (Scott Shepard) capturing Ellie (Bella Ramsey) while Joel ( Pedro Pascal) is largely unconscious and fighting an infected stab wound. What will happen next in the show is anyone's guess, but viewers can get a good idea by watching the plot of Neil Druckmann's 2013 PlayStation game, which HBO's The Last of Us is based on. This is what happens to Ellie in the video game.
During an encounter with David, the girl, who was immune to cordyceps, was severely beaten, but eventually killed David and survived. Later, she and Joel finally arrive at the Salt Lake City hospital, where the Firefly team is working on a cure for the fungal infection that has devastated modern society. When Firefly leader Marlene tells Joel that Ellie must undergo a brain surgery that kills her so that the Fireflies can collect samples from her, he shoots Marlene and everyone else he encounters in the building. Joel arrives in the operating room just in time to stop the tooth extraction, saving Ellie's life and killing the doctor who knew how to treat it.
When the anesthesia wears off, Ellie wakes up outside the hospital and Joel is already on his way to join Tommy in Jackson, Wyoming. As Ellie was unconscious during the procedure, Joel lied and told her that the Firefly team had found others who were immune like her but had failed to create a vaccine or treatment. Armed with survivor's guilt, Ellie ends her first video game, depriving her of the chance to save humanity, and grapples with the futility of all the life-threatening risks and deaths she suffered along the way.
A sequel video game , The Last of Us Part II , was released four years later. Ellie and Joel live a normal life in Wyoming - until Joel confesses to Ellie that he destroyed humanity to save her life. The reveal leads to a brawl, but the resentment doesn't have much time to play out: Joel dies early in the game. Ellie shows up just in time to see a stranger named Abby, who is later revealed to be the daughter of Joel, the surgeon who was murdered in Salt Lake City, beat him to death with a golf club.
From there, the second game follows Ellie's quest to avenge Joel by killing Abby. The two engage in a cat-and-mouse chase across several West Coast states until Ellie finally finds Abby in California. The women fight, and just as Ellie gains the upper hand and prepares to drown her nemesis, the memory of Joel inspires her to show mercy. After allowing Abby to escape on a boat, Ellie returns to her life in Wyoming.
The final scene of the game shows Ellie arriving at the farm where she lives with her partner Dina and son JJ. But she discovered that Dina didn't want Ellie to continue searching for Abby, so she had moved out of the home, possibly back to the Jackson neighborhood. As Ellie sits in her empty home, she recalls a memory from her argument with Abby: The night before Joel was murdered, Ellie went to his house and they had one last conversation. Although Ellie told Joel she still didn't think she could forgive him for what he did in Salt Lake City, she said she "wanted to give it a try."
Abby may have deprived her of that opportunity, but Ellie and Joel at least found some peace before his death. The final shot shows her leaving the farm, likely making amends with Jackson's Dina and JJ and starting a new chapter.
Don't expect all of the action from the second game to take place in The Last of Us Season 2, though. As series co-creator Craig Mazin revealed to Collider in January, "There's a lot of story left that will probably take us more than a season to tell."
