History Headscratchers / TheLastOfUsPartII

** They probably didn't anticipate that Ellie might be in the room when they killed Joel, and they didn't know how to react when it worked out that way. Maybe it's more merciful to drag Ellie outside so she doesn't see the death. But then again, maybe it's better to give Joel and Ellie a chance to exchange a few words before the end. Maybe one of them will shout "I love you!" or something, and maybe it's important to give them that chance. Knocking Ellie out runs the risk of injury. If you do take Ellie outside, there's also the question of who do you send to do that? How many people are required to keep Ellie restrained? If they keep her in the room they've got maximum strength in numbers. If they send two people to take her outside there's a chance she overwhelms those two people. (Especially since she might already have allies en route). Now maybe in ''retrospect'' they still should have hauled her outside, but hindsight is 20-20. They hadn't anticipated this situation, so they didn't know how to react in the moment.

* How is it that Abby and her friends are so uncaring towards the idea that they scarred Ellie by murdering Joel right in front of her? Abby, I can understand with her being so filled with rage towards Joel that she never thought about how her actions could affect others. However, her friends didn’t do anything to make themselves look better when they had Ellie pinned down as Abby finished off Joel right in front of the poor girl. Why did none of them think to knock her out or something before Joel was killed? It was clear that Ellie cared about Joel and was begging for his life. Did any of them think that maybe they shouldn’t be doing that anymore or again, knock her unconscious or take her outside so that she didn’t have to see that happen? Were they that vindictive towards Joel that they were willing to let him listen to Ellie’s cries and pleads just to make him suffer before he died?

** First off, it makes sense that the characters would use "cure and "vaccine" interchangeably, because no one outside the original medical team knows exactly what they found in Ellie or what they were planning to do with it. It's clear that they were trying to make a cure and/or a vaccine, but there's no one still alive who knows any details beyond that. Secondly, this ''doesn't'' drastically change the argument about whether Joel was justified. A cure would save millions of lives in the long run. A vaccine would also save millions of lives in the long run. It's a big deal either way.

** First off, it makes sense that the character would use "cure and "vaccine" interchangeably, because no one outside the original medical team knows exactly what they found in Ellie or what they were planning to do with it. They were trying to make a cure and/or a vaccine, but there's no one still alive who knows any details beyond that. Secondly, this ''doesn't'' drastically change the argument about whether Joel was justified. A cure would save millions of lives in the long run. A vaccine would also save millions of lives in the long run. It's a big deal either way.

** Brain surgeons are rare. Immunologists are also rare. Jerry was apparently ''both''. This was a man who could do brain surgery, take out some vital element, and then use that element to create a vaccine to an otherwise unstoppable infection. The entire ''world'' was probably frantically researching vaccine options during the apocalypse and nobody ever came up with anything. So it's safe to say that this a really hard thing to do and Jerry is exceptionally skilled. Also new doctors typically get their training from ''existing'' doctors. Do you know how hard it would be to learn medicine from textbooks alone? Especially ''surgery''? But they apparently don't have any brain surgeons remaining, so how exactly would they train a new one?

** They ''did'' mention Joel's last name. Tommy and Joel mention their names and the fact that they're brothers. What are the odds that there's a separate pair of Tommy-Joel brothers in the same location where they expected to find the actual Tommy and Joel? At that point Abby shoots Joel in the knee but doesn't immediately kill him. Then she says "Joel Miller" and Joel doesn't even attempt to deny it. He says "Why don't you say whatever speech you've got rehearsed and get this over with?" The odds of them having the wrong Joel are ''really'' low at that point.