When Joel realizes that the Fireflies are going to perform a fatal surgery on Ellie, rather than just take some blood, he makes the vicious, but totally understandable, decision to murder Marlene and her group.

Will Joel ever reveal what actually happened in the hospital? In the brutal world of “The Last of Us,” this scenario is not off the table. Might she have purposely infected other soon-to-be mothers in hopes of creating more inoculated children? As we saw in the finale, Marlene is capable of making ruthless decisions if there’s even a chance that it could save humanity. It’s unlikely that other pregnant women encountered this precise series of events, but it wouldn’t be difficult for Marlene ( Merle Dandridge) to connect the dots as to what ensured Ellie’s survival. This implies that Ellie receives her cordyceps immunity due to the specific timing of this bite. She is bitten by an Infected in the final moments of her pregnancy, cutting her daughter’s umbilical cord moments after receiving a bite. In a flashback, actress Ashley Johnson (who portrayed Ellie in the game) plays Ellie’s pregnant mother Anna. The season finale begins with a sharp deviation from the original video game.

SEE ‘The Last of Us’ is taking over our Emmy odds faster than show’s cordyceps fungus toppled humanity

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