The Last of Us (Season 1), Episode 8: Directed by Ali Abbasi, the eighth episode, ‘When We Are In Need,’ takes the most disturbing section of the game and creates by far the darkest and most violent episode of the show. Ellie learns the infernal nature of humanity and how it’s even more dangerous than the Cordyceps infection through David and his cult.
It’s also a redemption arc for her following the revelation of what she went through with Riley. Here, she learns how ruthless she has to be to survive in this world. But Druckmann, Mazin, and Abbasi are careful enough to remind us that violence doesn’t leave the perpetrator untouched in the horrifying and then conciliatory final moments of the episode.
Troy Baker, who played Joel in the game and its sequel, plays the role of James in this episode. His live-action presence certainly pleased the fans though the fan service is a twisted one given the kind of character James is.
The Last of Us (Season 1), Episode 8 Recap:
David, a preacher and the leader of a group of survivors, presides over a meeting of his people. The winter is harsh, and one of their members, Alec, has recently been killed and cannot be buried because of the cold ground. There’s a scarcity of food, and doubt is beginning to set in among his people in his leadership. At the end of the congregation, James informs David that some of their members noticed deer nearby. David decides to go in search of them with James later.
Ellie has managed to stitch up Joel’s wound and stop the bleeding, but they’ve run out of food. She takes his hunting rifle and decides to search for some. She comes across a deer and shoots at it. The deer runs away and falls dead but is found by David and James first, who is about to take it. Ellie arrives in time and puts them at gunpoint. David wants to make peace and says that he has a large group that’s in need of food. Ellie lies about being part of a larger group but then decides to trade half the deer for medicine. James is sent to get the medicine while Ellie and David sit and talk next to a fire, the latter still being at gunpoint.
David tells Ellie that before the outbreak, he was a Math teacher. He became religious and took up Christianity after the outbreak, becoming a preacher. He garnered a number of followers. Following the fall of the Pittsburgh QZ in 2017 due to a FEDRA-Fireflies conflict, David left with his followers. They became a nomadic company, picking up new followers wherever they went. But then he reveals something to Ellie in trying to explain the recent events.
A few days back, four members of David’s group went out in search of food, but only three returned. He was told that one of them was murdered by a ‘crazy man’ with a ‘little girl,’ and he knows that the latter is her and that she’s not part of any group. Ellie realizes that it’s the man Joel killed at the University. Therefore, Ellie points her gun and quickly leaves with the medicine James had arrived with. Back at the house, they’ve put up in, Ellie takes a shot in the dark and gives Joel a penicillin shot in the area of his wound.
Back at the resort where David’s cult lives, a woman suspiciously cooks meat that she’s told is venison. At dinner, everyone eats the meat, and then David tells them that he’s found Alec’s killer. He plans to take a band of men with him the next morning to find Joel and Ellie and bring the former to justice. When Alec’s grieving daughter, Hannah, states that they should kill them, David slaps her. Then, he tells her how he’ll be a father to guide her, demonstrating how he rules over his people with an iron fist.
The following morning, things seem peaceful, and Ellie administers the second shot of penicillin. When she goes out, though, she realizes that David and some men are in the vicinity, searching for them. She runs back to the house, gives Joel a knife, and implores him to defend himself if they make their way down to him in the basement. Joel is still weak and barely able to stay awake. So Ellie puts a cupboard against the basement door to conceal it. Outside, Ellie takes the horse and shoots at David and his group to draw them away from the locality. James shoots down Ellie’s horse and is about to kill her, but David stops him. He is adamant about taking her back to their group. He leaves with James and asks the rest to find Joel and kill him to quell their bloodlust.
On realizing that an intruder is in the house, Joel composes himself and kills him using the knife Ellie left him with. He then kills another person outside and uses the body to attract others. He then takes the remaining two men hostage and makes one of them point out where they are and where Ellie has been taken lest he tears off his kneecap, playing his game with them. The man does as he is asked and states that Ellie has been taken to a nearby resort called Silver Lake, where the cult is staying. Joel believes him and then brutally murders the two of them.
At the resort, Ellie is kept in a cage. David tries to convince her to trust him and join them. Later, he brings her food, but then Ellie notices a human ear in the cage across the room. She realizes that David and his men are cannibals and that she too, in all probability, will be killed and eaten. David explains that it was a necessary step he reluctantly took in difficult times, with food being scant.
Only a few people in the cult know about them eating humans, not all, and he doesn’t want to kill Ellie. David sees himself in Ellie, someone who’s a leader and loyal, as well as someone with a violent heart. He tells her that he struggled with his own violence for a long time but has brought it under control. He also states that he merely uses religion to manipulate people and keep them under his command. To him, Cordyceps is the ultimate survivor and a symbol of the divine, something that is ruthlessly protective of its kind and multiplies as a result of its ruthlessness.
Ellie is hardly convinced by all this and breaks David’s finger. A livid David brings James with him, and the two of them take a struggling Ellie to kill her and chop her up. Ellie reveals she’s infected and has spread the infection to him by having bitten David in the struggle. As the two struggle to comprehend what has just happened, Ellie kills James with the cleaver meant to cut her up and runs away.
The Last of Us (Season 1), Episode 8 Ending, Explained:
Joel arrives at the resort and enters a storage room there after noticing blood on the doorstep. In there, he finds Ellie’s backpack, which confirms that she’s there. But he also finds naked dead bodies of human beings up on meat hooks and rushes to find Ellie before the worst can happen. In a restaurant made of wood, Ellie takes a burning knife and throws it at David when he comes after her.
She misses, and the place catches fire. David tries to find her, but Ellie jumps him eventually and stabs him, but he also incapacitates her in the process. David pins her down when she’s about to crawl to the cleaver. He is about to sexually assault her (revealing what he meant by stating that he struggled with violence in him once) as the fire continues to spread. Thankfully, Ellie grabs hold of the cleaver and brutally hacks him to death, hitting him with it multiple times.
Distraught and unsettled at what she’s just done, Ellie leaves the burning restaurant. Joel finds her and calms her down from her hysterical state, calling her ‘baby girl,’ the name he used to call Sarah by, showing what she’s come to mean to him. The two of them then leave the place.
