But Joel isn't having any of it and shoots Marlene twice, once in the stomach and again in the head, as he growls, 'You'd just come after her.' There, he's intercepted by Marlene, who argues that sacrificing Ellie is the only way to save society and that, if the teen was given a choice, she'd want to give up her life in the name of a cure. After brutally taking out several Fireflies, he reaches the operating theater and kills the surgeon, before lifting an unconscious Ellie off of the table and running to the basement car park. Putting two and two together, Joel realizes that Ellie can't survive the procedure and goes on a murderous rampage through the hospital to find her. When Joel requests to be taken to the youngster, Marlene explains that she's being prepped for surgery – and that the operation is the first stage in the Fireflies manufacturing a cure for the Cordyceps fungal infection.

He immediately asks whether Ellie is, to which Marlene assures him that she wasn't hurt in the explosion. Joel wakes up in a hospital bed, with Marlene (Merle Dandridge) standing by his bedside. Then, all of a sudden, they get caught up in a grenade blast. 'Me too,' he replies, before lightening the mood and suggesting Ellie reel off some jokes from her pun book. 'Well, I'm glad that that didn't work out,' a sorrowful Ellie whispers to her new best pal.

'Time heals all wounds, I guess,' Ellie says, quickly realizing she's got the wrong end of the stick when Joel interjects, 'It wasn't time that did it.' 'There’s no halfway with this, we finish what we started,' she argues, and Joel nods in agreement.Īs they wander through the derelict streets, Joel tells Ellie about the time he once attempted suicide and how now, in her, he's found something to keep fighting for.

For a second, Joel takes pause and suggests to Ellie that they forget the whole thing just stop looking for the Fireflies and the hospital and go back to Jackson, but Ellie insists that they keep going. After ditching their car on the highway, the pair set off on a five-hour hike to Salt Lake City, where they come across an emergency medical camp and… a herd of giraffes.

Tell me why game ending explained