The Last of Us Episode 1 ending explained

The Last of Us Episode 1 is a bracing, decade-traversing introduction to the long-awaited video game adaptation and one of the best shows of 2023 – so let’s break down the ending.

The Last of Us follows Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) on a cross-country trip across America, a country rendered bloody and terrifying as a result of a monstrous fungal pandemic.

In Episode 1, it’s mostly a tale of two halves: Joel’s 2003 pre-outbreak life with his daughter Sarah (Nico Parker) and 20 years later, where Joel and Tess (Anna Torv) meet Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a young girl with a “greater purpose than any of us could have possibly imagined.”

Seeds are planted and scattered across the first episode – many of which will be picked up by fans of the original game – so let’s get into what happened by the end.

The Last of Us Episode 1 ending explained

Let’s cut to the long and short of it: Ellie appears to be immune from the Cordyceps virus, and Joel and Tess have been tasked with smuggling her out of the Boston compound’s walls to the Fireflies at the old Capitol building, just like in the game.

After we see Sarah’s death in 2003, murdered by a FEDRA soldier amid the initial outbreak, Episode 1 skips ahead 20 years to Joel’s bleak life burning bodies and earning extra ration cards on the side by smuggling pills and cigarettes. He works with his partner Tess, and the pair have a formidable reputation.

Upon trying to pay a visit to Robert, a rival smuggler who screwed them out of a car battery, they arrive at a local Fireflies base. There, they meet Marlene (Merle Dandrige, reprising her role from the game), the “Che Guevara of Boston”, who just caught a bullet in a firefight. She’ll live, but she asks Joel and Tess to get Ellie to the old state building outside the walls in exchange for guns, ammunition, and a truck loaded with fuel. They agree to help.

HBO

Before setting off, Joel and Ellie kill some time in his apartment, where Ellie finds a Billboard No. 1 Hits book with a piece of paper indicating a code: a ’60s song means they have nothing in, a ’70s song means there’s new stock, and ’80s songs mean trouble. This is how Bill and Frank, who we’ve yet to see, communicate with Joel.

As they make their way out of the city, they run into a FEDRA soldier who Joel supplied pills to earlier in the episode. Nevertheless, he forces them onto their knees, and as he tries to test Ellie for Cordyceps, she stabs him in the leg with her trusty knife. He shines the flashlight of his gun in her face, which flips the switch in Joel’s head – he tackles him and beats him to death, fuelled by his memory of Sarah’s murder.

Tess sees the test kit on the ground: it came back positive, but Ellie doesn’t appear to be infected. She explains she was bitten three weeks ago but has yet to turn, peeling away at the significance of their journey.

This moment almost exactly mirrors the game, with Ellie pleading with Joel and Tess not to kill her. Joel doesn’t buy it at first, but he buries his suspicions until he can get everyone to safety. It seems likely Episode 2 will follow their brief trip to the Capitol building – but we won’t spoil what happens there just yet.

The Last of Us Episode 2 will be available to watch on January 22 in the US and January 23 in the UK.

For more TLOU content, check out some of our below guides:

Joel & Tess explained | Sarah spoilers | Fungus threat is terrifying | The dog’s fate | Who is Marlene? | Why is Ellie so important? | Soundtrack choice | FEDRA & the Fireflies explained