After a heartfelt remembrance of Joel and Ellie’s time in Jackson and the return of Pedro Pascal in last week’s episode, we circle back to the “present” to catch back up with Ellie in her hunt to find Abby for the season finale. And season finales can be tough. The pacing can be difficult to keep the viewer on the edge of their seat in anticipation throughout, and completing character and story arcs that still end in a satisfying cliffhanger to make the next season eagerly awaited can result in some tricky and risky storytelling to keep the series alive during its downtime between seasons. Unfortunately, The Last of Us’ Season 2 finale only checks a couple of these boxes in its final episode, “Convergence,” as it forcefully meanders through key relationships and stampedes to its scattered conclusion.
We last left Ellie after she had split with Dina and Jesse after their encounter with the Scars in the forest. Dina took an arrow to her leg, Jesse took her back to the theater, and Ellie pressed on to her fateful encounter with Nora. The finale doesn’t skip a beat from this conclusion, as the episode opens with Jesse removing the arrow from Dina’s leg back in the theater. This sequence results in Jesse figuring out that she is pregnant due to her saying, “I CAN’T die,” and refusing alcohol to help with the pain, since Dina never turns down a drink. A painful scene to watch immediately gives us the information we had been wondering about: “How would Jesse find out?” Albeit quick, this information would pave the way for Jesse’s motivations for the rest of the episode and…life.
Ellie returns to the theater in her vengeful aftermath and discloses to Dina the truth behind what Joel did to the Fireflies in order to save her. In a rare moment for Ellie’s character, she shares her true emotions and vulnerability about how she felt during her encounter with Nora in a transparent way, one that we can visibly see start to drive a wedge between herself and Dina. We can see here that Ellie and her fear of being alone is starting to take over, creating a monster that even Ellie isn’t prepared to deal with. Dina recognizes this, and without any dialogue, we can see that Dina realizes that Ellie is willing to push important things aside in order to press on with what is consuming her. It’s an important narrative moment for the show, even if it makes both the characters and the viewers uncomfortable.
After leaving an injured Dina in safety at the theater, Ellie and Jesse trek out to find Tommy, who had split patrol with Jesse in their hunt for Ellie and Dina. Here, we get a slower-paced look into Jesse’s character, how he feels and acts towards Ellie, and his new motivations after finding out that he will be a father. A necessary narrative choice ends up feeling flat and forced, seemingly fitted to be a mirror of Joel’s responsible nature to Ellie’s recklessness. Although Ellie’s motivations at this point do indeed seem to be selfish, her outburst about community does hit all the right notes at their journey’s conclusion. This extended time with them seems to exist mainly to arc back to a conversation that they have later, making this time feel forced later in the episode.
The two split when Ellie sees the aquarium and connects the dots about Nora mentioning a whale before her death. Jesse, determined to find Tommy after they hear chatter about sniper fire on the stolen radio, delivers the famous line, “I hope you make it,” and leaves Ellie to go after Tommy. This strikes a nerve in both the game and the show, because we KNOW how much Tommy means to Ellie, but overcome, she again pushes this aside in her pursuit of Abby and heads to shore to find a boat to get to the aquarium.
At this point, nearly halfway through the episode, the buildup hasn’t really felt like a season finale. Once Ellie makes her way down to the shore, the music kicks in, and we’re finally on our way to what seems to be the conclusion we have been waiting for.
Ellie sees Isaac leading his army in a fleet of boats into a war that we don’t understand yet. All we know is from an exchange between Isaac and his commander of sorts. We know that some kind of escalation is happening and that they may not survive it. What this creates for Ellie is a diversion for her to get a boat and head for the aquarium. The sequence of her battling a storm in a dark sea illuminated by lightning strikes creates danger and anticipation in the way that a finale should. In a detour, Ellie is capsized by a huge wave surge and ends up ashore on Scar Island, where she immediately runs into the ambient whistles of the group. She is taken hostage in what looks to be her execution when a horn sounds to interrupt her demise. Even though this sequence occurs to present yet another situation that the world is telling Ellie to stop, it still lands a little flat and seems to play only as a reminder that the Scars exist and are willing to protect their own at all costs. The minimal groundwork laid about the Scars and their ongoing conflict with the W.L.F. in this season likely serves as a precursor to what we will see in season 3, but it seems out of place here, right in the middle of Ellie’s crescendo pursuit.
Once Ellie is let go for a greater effort, she sneaks her way into the aquarium, where she looks to find Abby, she finds Owen and Mel instead in one of the most gut-wrenching scenes of both the game and TV series. Recognizing them on sight, Ellie demands that they show her where Abby is on their map. (There is a pretty major plot hole here from the game pertaining to the map, but we won’t get into it here.) Owen feels like Ellie will kill them anyway, so in a desperate move, he reaches for his gun. Ellie reacts on instinct and shoots and kills him. What she doesn’t initially realize is that the bullet passed through Owen and hits Mel. What she further doesn’t realize as Mel begins to bleed out, is that she is carrying a child… Crushing.
The scene plays out with a pretty large addition to what we see in the game. An absolutely wrecked Ellie is asked by Mel with her dying breaths to cut out the baby before she passes. Ellie doesn’t know how and can’t bring herself to even attempt. This is an absolutely chilling scene in what it means on so many levels. The parallel to Dina’s situation, the lengths that Ellie will allow herself to go to, and the repercussions of her vengeance are all on display in these quick few minutes. It’s morbidly the highlight of the finale in the weight that it carries for both the character and the story, and it also leaves us wondering, whose baby is it?
Tommy and Jesse show up in the aftermath of what has happened and whisk a damaged Ellie away back to the theater. Once back, they all finally agree that they need to get back to Jackson. Circling back to Ellie and Jesse’s conversation earlier, they have another back-and-forth regarding their relationship. In a theme of the story, they reconcile that they would do anything for each other right before something terrible happens.
After hearing screaming from the foyer, where Tommy and Dina reside, Jesse and Ellie sprint towards the door. As soon as they crash through the door, Jesse is immediately shot and killed. This plays out identically to the game in its quick order, leaving the viewer no time to anticipate or reconcile. A reasonable character in an unreasonable world is quickly taken from us, and Ellie, only for the camera to swing up to the perpetrator. It’s none other than Abby, holding Tommy at gunpoint on the floor. It’s hard to process all of this in short order as Ellie is realizing everything that she has caused. Ellie explains that she’s the one that Abby wants and to let Tommy go. Gun pointed at Ellie, we hear a gunshot, and then cut to black. And we have our season cliffhanger.
We have to admit, we didn’t really see the season getting as far as this pivotal scene, especially since we haven’t seen Abby’s side of the story. It raises so many questions. How did Abby find them? Where’s Dina? Does she shoot Ellie? Most season finales end on a cliffhanger and leave you in great anticipation of the next season, but still offer some form of resolution beside it. We don’t get anything answered here, or even know Abby’s motivations that made her end up here. Sure, having questions and curiosity is great, but without some development from Abby and, to a lesser degree, Tommy, we’re left feeling a little confused and shorted.
We get one last scene to tease us into season 3, and we felt like it was a great transition out of the rushed confusion of what just happened. We pivot back to Abby waking up in some sort of barracks. She’s informed of a meeting with Isaac and heads outside. When the camera pans behind her as she walks up to a guardrail, we see that she is overlooking Seattle’s football stadium, fully occupied by a far larger W.L.F. operation than we had imagined. This image is striking for fans of the game and was fun to drool over as the season comes to a close with the words, “Seattle: Day One.”
It’s important to note that this is how the game played out, by pulling the plug of anticipation and sending you elsewhere to develop back into that moment. It’s not a traditional way to procure a story, but a unique one that adds something more into how we feel about our characters, the choices they make, and who they affect.
It looks like we will be getting Abby’s side of the story and what happened to her over those three days in season 3. This is exciting for many fans of the game, who seem to be in large support of really enjoying Abby’s story, some enjoying it more than Ellie’s side. We might have to wait awhile to spend time with Abby, as season 3 isn’t scheduled to begin filming until 2026, potentially pushing its release into 2027.
The Birdict:
The Last of Us’ Season 2 finale, “Convergence,” is a mixed bag of pacing and storytelling, with a mostly flat first half and a rushed second one. It succeeds in two of the series’ most important scenes, creating a longing for more key character development over the next season that will retroactively make those scenes all the more impactful. A quick and scattered ending brings up too many questions without any kind of balanced resolve, but the transition out of the episode and into Season 3 makes us extremely excited to spend time with Abby and begin to decide for ourselves who the real heroes and villains are.
The Barn 