YMMV / The Last of Us (2023)

For YMMV tropes pertaining to the original game, go here.

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• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Ellie's actions in the opening section of "Long, Long Time". She finds an Infected trapped beneath rubble in the basement of an abandoned convenience store as Joel searches for emergency supplies he had stashed there. Seeing the Infected as posing no threat to her, she approaches it, cuts into its forehead to expose the fungus under the skin, then stabs it to death with a stoic expression. Did she do all this out of a curiosity about the fungus or to see the being she could've become if she wasn't immune? Was it a sadistic or vengeful act, since she had already lost two people she cared for (Riley and Tess) to the Infected? Was she acting pragmatically or out of a desire to put it out of its misery? Perhaps all of the above?
  • Did Frank fall in love with Bill from the start? Or was he manipulating his way into shelter only to fall in love over time?
  • The Jackson guards claim their dog will rip someone apart if he senses the Cordyceps inside them. Does he actually smell the infection, or does the intimidation factor cause people who know they were bitten to squirm and run? In Ellie's case, she simply stayed in place (a useful strategy for confronting angry dogs) and the dog turned out friendly.
  • When James and the other cannibals collectively agreed to shoot Ellie before David showed up and overruled them, was it because they wanted to avenge Alec, or was it because they were aware of David's pedophilia and wanted to spare Ellie from his lust?
  • It is divisive as to whether Joel or the Fireflies were right in the finale. On the one hand, Joel kills them all for selfish if understandable reasons (wanting to save Ellie regardless of whether the Fireflies could make a vaccine) and may very well have doomed humanity. On the other hand, the Fireflies immediately jumped to killing Ellie rather than searching for other options and refused to allow her to consent to the operation; it's been noted that by killing her, they easily could have ended any chance at a cure permanently even without Joel's interference. The "correct" answer has regardless always been that neither Joel or the Fireflies were entirely right or entirely wrong; and the only thing they were both wrong in was taking Ellie's choice away.
  • In the finale it’s assumed that Marlene, while she clearly isn’t happy about it, fully trusts her doctors when they say that they can definitely produce a vaccine out of the benign fungus in Elle’s brain and is determined to go through with the euthanasia… so she tells the cold-blooded killing machine who has obviously bonded with Ellie exactly what they’re going to do to her, gives him Ellie’s own knife (the symbol of her own promise to keep Ellie safe), then tells two of her people to escort him safely outside of the city after he’s told her he’s going to do whatever he has to do to prevent Ellie dying? It’s not too big of a stretch to suspect that Marlene was having severe doubts about the certainty and capabilities of her medical staff, but as the Firefly leader couldn’t be seen to be putting the life of her childhood friend’s daughter above even a slim possibility that they might be able to magic up a cure. Making it possible for Joel to take the matter out of her hands, however, might have been her mind’s subconscious way of dealing with the ethical conundrum.
  • In the finale episode of season one, the usually chatty Ellie is quiet and distant from Joel, insists on finishing their mission despite the possibility of abandoning it, is shown to still feel tremendously guilty about Riley and openly, directly questions Joel about the events at the hospital despite having come to trust him implicitly. Given that the pre-show recap makes a point to remind us just how much her life has gone to shit since the mall, is Ellie trying to make sure all their suffering wasn't for nothing, as she says? Or is she trying to make up for everything she feels responsible for and was treating the entire season as a drawn-out suicide attempt, knowing full well what the surgery would mean for her personally?
• And You Thought It Would Fail: The series came out after other live-action adaptations like Resident Evil (2022), Halo (2022), and Sony's own Uncharted (2022), which had mixed-to-negative reception. There was also the general fatigue toward Zombie Apocalypse after continuous supply of works like The Walking Dead (2010). As a result, there were doubts about this series, remaking that, at best, it will became another average adaptation and be forgotten soon. It ended up becoming one of the most successful HBO shows in the past decade, averaging 32 millions viewers per episode in US and increasing sales of the video game franchise in turn.
• Award Snub:
  • Bella Ramsey & Storm Reid were expected to get a Best Kiss nomination for the MTV Movie & TV Awards—and have a good chance at winning too, but the kiss between Anna Torv & Philip Prajoux not only got nominated instead, but didn't win either.
  • The only Emmy Awards the cast won after the first season include the Outstanding Guest Star in a Drama Series categories; Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey both lost in the leading categories due to competition with the last season of Outstanding Drama Series winner Succession.
• Awesome Music:
  • The opening credits of the series chose to retain Gustavo Santaolalla's titular track from the video game, which genuinely elevates the simple but powerful imagery of the Artistic Title.
  • The end of the first episode is set to "Never Let Me Down Again" by Depeche Mode. A more somber acoustic cover, sung by Craig Mazin's daughter Jessica, plays over the end of the sixth episode.
  • "Long, Long Time" makes use of Max Richter's heartbreaking "On the Nature of Daylight" (used to similar effect in Arrival), with it playing as Bill and Frank get married and eat their final meal together. And that's not including when you actually get the titular Linda Ronstadt track sending off Joel and Ellie from the POV of Bill and Frank's room.
  • "Left Behind" features a lot of classic music during Ellie and Riley's night in the mall, including A-ha's "Take on Me" and Etta James' "I Got You Babe." Both of these songs appear in the games as well.
• Catharsis Factor: Much like in the video game, watching Ellie chop David's face up with a machete is nothing short of satisfying.
• Complete Monster: "When We Are In Need": David presents himself as a religious, caring father to his community of Silver Lake, but is in truth a violent, controlling sadist, and by far the worst monster that Joel and Ellie face. David has been cannibalizing friend and foe alike for a considerable time, feeding the unknowing citizens of his community the bodies of their loved ones while David makes sure he gets more food than the rest of his starving clan. Quickly established as a child abuser who backhands young Hannah for interrupting one of his sermons, David is further revealed to be a flat-out pedophile and rapist, having indulged in his proclivities in his past life as a schoolteacher before further embracing his "violent heart" with glee when the apocalypse hit; Hannah is heavily implied to be one of the victims of his sick depravity. David tries to seduce Ellie into being his lover, and when she rejects his disgusting advances, David responds by trying to chop her up and eat her. He then changes tactics and proclaims his intent to make her his Sex Slave, and attempts to start this process off by violently raping her as he cheerfully notes "the fighting's the part I like the most!"
• Draco in Leather Pants: Though understandable and deeply in character, the first season finale's cinematic language frames Joel's rampage in the hospital and then lying to Ellie as tragic and morally ambiguous, arguably even outright selfish. Many fans, however, dismiss this and paint it as unambiguously heroic.
• Fandom Rivalry: With Netflix's animated shows Castlevania (2017), Arcane and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, which are also based on video games. Much of this rivalry started when the entertainment press praised The Last of Us for breaking the video game adaptation curse without mentioning the critical acclaim of the Netflix series. Given how those shows are animated and have fantastical settings, some have even accused any such snubbing as discriminating against animation and fantasy.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • The Mandalorian has some older viewers who also developed an interest in The Last of Us since both series star Pedro Pascal as an orphan's ruthlessly protective father figure, and Mandalorian fans already compared that show's mission-of-the-week structure to a nonexistent video game. It's extremely common to see fanarts depicting Joel and Din with the other's surrogate child.
  • Some fans of Game of Thrones also get along quite well with The Last of Us thanks to both works featuring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey playing beloved characters and being produced by HBO (though Pascal's character and Ramsey's character were never even on GoT at the same time; he died in season 4, and she didn't appear until season 6).
  • Fans of Black Mirror, particularly fans of "San Junipero" jumped on board in episode 3 since it focuses on the lives of a gay couple who grow old together, marry and end up Together in Death all set to a contemporary pop song.
  • Station Eleven, another post-apocalyptic show streaming on HBO Max that frequently flashes back to 20 years prior, is commonly recommended to fans of The Last of Us who enjoy the show's humanist aspects.
  • Surprisingly enough, despite both being very tonally different and being based on a franchise owned by one of PlayStation's rival studios, it has some of this with The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Part of this is due to the fact that both this show and that film have been praised for being faithful adaptations of their respective source material, and have fans who hope the trend of good video game adaptations continue.
  • Same with Fallout (2024), another post-apocalyptic show based on a video game. Given how both are helmed by respected TV showrunners and received universal acclaim from critics and gamers, fans hope the successes of these shows will continue the trend of good video game adaptations.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • The show trended on Indonesian social media primarily because the opening scene of the second episode was set in Jakarta, the apparent ground zero of the pandemic. It also helps that the scene featured Christine Hakim, one of Indonesia's most famous actresses, and overall was well-researched in portraying Indonesia in the early 2000s.
  • HBO Max stated that Brazil alone was responsible for over 50% of all online engagement and posts on social media related to the series. It helps that the Brazilian dubs for the games have been highly acclaimed, and the Brazilian voice actors returned for this series.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The third episode in which Frank is heavily implied to have a terminal disease (and eventually kills himself) debuted on the same day that Tess's actor from the game, Annie Wersching, passed away from cancer. Her passing also occurred exactly a week after the second episode, which featured the death of the series' incarnation of Tess.
  • David revealing that he has a violent heart can cause some queasy feelings considering his domestic violence toward his former girlfriend, Marin Ireland, whom he gave a black eye.
• He Really Can Act: Nick Offerman is best-known for being a funnyman on Parks and Recreation, leading to a number of viewers being completely blown away by his dramatic turn in this series and his ability to convincingly sell a tragically beautiful gay romance, despite not being gay himself. He went on to win an Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series Primetime Emmy Award.^note The other three Last of Us cast members nominated for the award include Murray Bartlett, Lamar Johnson, and Keivonn Montreal Woodard.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Ellie agreeing that she isn't "girly" when Joel says he doesn't think she's girly the way Sarah was becomes this after Ellie's actor, Bella Ramsey, came out as non-binary shortly after the first season finale.
• I Knew It!:
  • When Ashley Johnson was announced as part of the cast, the fans quickly speculated she'd play Ellie's mom, Anna. This turned out to be the truth.
  • Eagle-eyed viewers spotted that in the first episode, the Miller family coincidentally avoided eating products with flour or sugar in the day leading up to the end of the world, and immediately speculated that infected food was how the pandemic started. Episode three confirmed these theories.
• LGBT Fanbase: The original game already had many queer fans, but the show has won over many more with its nuanced and tender take on Bill and Frank's relationship, as well as Bella Ramsey's portrayal of a lesbian first crush in "Left Behind." On top of that, Bella Ramsey is non-binary and Pedro Pascal is known as a strong ally of the LGBT community.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Pedro Pascal, the ultimate DILF.^ExplanationHBO announced the casting of Pascal as Joel two months after The Mandalorian Season 2, Wonder Woman 1984, and We Can Be Heroes (2020) all either starred or co-starred him as other single fathers. Since the trend of him playing paternal characters no longer felt coincidental, the announcement led to an increased discussion on it, including comparisons between Joel and Pascal's previous fictional patriarchs. He later got in on it himself and has happily referred to himself as the "internet daddy".
    • Scientists predict that by 2050 every popular show may involve Pedro Pascal escorting magic child to safety.^ExplanationA variant of the above meme, coined by The Chaser, with less focus on Pedro Pascal's sex appeal.
  • Season 2 will be Game of Thrones all over again.^{Spoiler-laden Explanation}Pedro Pascal's character on Game of Thrones, Oberyn Martell, dies when the Mountain smashes his head in to win a trial by combat. The Last of Us Part II kills off Joel when Abby bashes his brains in with a golf club, provoking concerns that the TV adaptation would mark HBO's second time subjecting one of Pascal's roles to a mind-crushing demise. For bonus points, Bella Ramsey played Lyanna Mormont on Game of Thrones, although she and Oberyn never met.
  • Did HBO add dragons?^ExplanationHBO included some clips as part of a longer promo for programming airing in late 2022 or early '23. Many fans who tried to trim it down to just the TLoU section accidentally left in a clip of a dragon from House of the Dragon confusing viewers who didn't know about the channel advertising both shows in the same video.
  • Joel must be playing a New Game Plus.^ExplanationHe acquires an assault rifle in the very first episode, long before players could ever get their hands on one in the game.
  • 'Pray or run.'^ExplanationA lot of Youtube reactors watching episode 2 assumed that Professor Ratna, after being asked what the Indonesian government should do about controlling the outbreak and thinking deeply for several moments, would say something like "pray"; they were very surprised when she instead said "Bomb."
  • Piano frog^ExplanationA frog seen "playing" a piano in a flooded hotel by moving across the keys has become unexpectedly popular online, drawing comparisons to the "Gentleman Frog" meme.
  • Bill is essentially Ron Swanson in a zombie apocalypse. ^ExplanationA joke arising from Nick Offerman portraying both characters.
    • “Frank, I need you to give me all the bacon and eggs.”/ “I’m a simple man, I like hot guys and setting traps."^ExplanationThis of course led to many captioning a picture of Bill with a number of classic Ron Swanson memes.
  • 'We wouldn't.'^ExplanationSome viewers started wondering how humanity would avoid or survive the cordyceps outbreak if it happened in real life. Others promptly pointed out the infuriating responses of a lot of people (and indeed authorities) to the very real COVID-19 pandemic, and how so many had died and were still dying because they utterly refused to take the virus itself or any preventative measures seriously; concluding that humanity likely wouldn't fare any better if faced with a fungal pandemic.
  • Bill is a master Project Zomboid player. ^ExplanationBill's Establishing Character Moment when he's introduced in Episode 3 has him plundering his empty town for supplies and setting up defenses and basic necessities, which is one of the core gameplay mechanics of the zombie survival game Project Zomboid. The fact that he managed to do quite well for himself and Frank for 20 years led to jokes that Bill must be an extremely good Project Zomboid player.
  • "10 miles west of Boston"^ExplanationThe Title In at the beginning of episode 3 stated that Joel and Ellie were 10 miles west of Boston, with no attempts made to disguise the mountainous landscapes of the Alberta Rockies in the background (even worse, 10 miles west of Boston, if you're heading for Lincoln where Bill and Frank are, is either in the town of Weston, which is largely residential and open fields, or Waltham, which is almost entirely residential and commercial buildings; these towns would, even after twenty years, mountains or not, look nothing like what we see in the show). Naturally, the internet had fun with this by slapping a "10 miles west of Boston" label on pictures of all sorts of exotic and fictional landscapes.
  • Bury Your Gays? No, Berry Your Gays!^{Explanation (spoilers)}Episode 3 is largely devoted to showing the loving relationship between Bill and Frank developing over two decades' worth of flashbacks. One scene sees the couple enjoy some strawberries that Frank secretly grew. While they both do die at the close of the episode, it's portrayed as the bittersweet ending to a satisfactory life together rather than a plot device.
  • WAS THAT DINA? ^{Explanation (spoilers)}This phrase trended after the release of Episode 6, usually in all caps, where many fans theorized a girl in Jackson staring at Ellie was actually Dina from Part II making an early cameo. In the companion podcast, the showrunners imply the girl was Dina but stopped short of confirming it.
  • Joel Miller is The Contractor.^ExplanationIn Episode 6, Joel explains that he used to be a contractor to Ellie, who finds the idea quite cool and jokingly calls Joel "The Contractor" as if he's a badass contract killer. This prompted edited pictures of Joel starring him as "The Contractor" in the same styles as The Mandalorian or Taken.
  • Joel's anxiety attacks^ExplanationDue to his vulnerabilities and growing bond with Ellie, Joel gets hit with anxiety attacks several times in Episode 6. Joel's expressions in these sessions have since become a popular reaction meme template used to describe something that provokes heavy emotional reactions - ironically or otherwise - including, of course, every episode of The Last of Us series.
  • “[X] will play Abby in season 2” ^ExplanationAbby’s divisive reputation in the fandom has gotten tons of joking fancasts of who will play her in season 2. With choices ranging from Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson (due to him playing someone who killed a Pedro Pascal character) to Abigail Thorn (due to her name also being Abby).
  • They saved the rabbit!^ExplanationThe rabbit that Ellie failed to catch in Episode 8 is originally killed by Ellie's arrow in the game, which brings no small amount of joy to many fans who were shocked by the cute rabbit's Surprisingly Sudden Death in the game but is Spared by the Adaptation here. No such luck for the poor deer, though.
  • Joel did nothing wrong.^ExplanationA lot of viewers sided with Joel refusing to let Ellie to be sacrificed in the hopes of obtaining a cure for the fungus, pointing out Marlene's hypocrisy in not giving Ellie a choice about her fate and the sheer stupidity of the Fireflies immediately preparing to kill Ellie rather than carry out further tests, casting doubt on whether they'd be capable of generating a cure at all.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Kathleen was already over this line when she killed all the FEDRA collaborators. But if there was any doubt, her speech about how maybe Sam was just supposed to die and kids die all the time makes her firmly irredeemable.
  • The final episode can potentially see one or both factions cross the line depending on your perspective:
    • Joel himself crosses it when he systematically murders almost all of the Fireflies at the hospital, including Marlene, to keep them from killing Ellie to find a cure. Worst of all, he'll never know whether Ellie would have even wanted to be saved.
    • On the other side, the Fireflies cross it when they're perfectly willing to kill a young girl without her consent (and explicitly deceiving her about the nature of the surgery) for a chance at creating a cure/vaccine that they might not even be able to distribute.
• Nausea Fuel: Some of the scenes of the infected are sickening, much more so than their game counterparts.
  • The first episode shows Nana with cordyceps mycelia blooming out of her mouth.
  • An autopsy scene at the beginning of the second shows a doctor pulling still wriggling mycelia out of a dead person's gums with tongs. This horrifies the mycologist performing the procedure and all of the viewers.
  • At the end of the second episode, a stalker infects Tess with its tendrils by kissing her on the mouth.
  • A scene in the third episode sees Ellie slashing open the forehead of a trapped Stalker with a knife, revealing that the fungus has completely invaded the infected's fascia. And the worst thing is the Stalker itself is clearly still conscious and aware of its own predicament, yet there's nothing it can do about it but wait to die.
  • Episode 8 has David's group saying grace over and slurping down a stew made from one of their dead members. The camera even closes up on the man's daughter eating him.
• Older Than They Think: Intentionally or not, the lack of Infected in Jackson, Colorado, or Salt Lake parallels an early, more "grounded" concept for the video game, in which the plague killed humans rather than zombifying them; this changed due to Naughty Dog realizing they needed more enemies for the player to fight.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • John Hannah appears for a three-minute scene as a mycologist on a talk show in the Distant Prologue. In those three minutes, he proceeds to give an utterly chilling monologue as to why a fungal outbreak, like the one viewers are soon going to see, would be so terrifying.
  • The Indonesian mycology professor Ratna and the Indonesian general Agus Hidayat (portrayed by renowned Indonesian actors Christine Hakim and Yayu A.W. Unru, respectively), who show up in the prologue of the second episode set just before the outbreak, have left a lasting impression on fans for showing the terror of the fungal outbreak as explained by Dr. Neuman, to the point that they have to resort to crossing a Godzilla Threshold to contain the infection... which by that point is way too late, and the end of human civilization cannot be avoided. Needless to say, Indonesian audiences went wild on the scene.
  • The Bloater in episode 5. It interacts with none of the core cast, isn't acknowledged by name to boot and is only around for a minute, but it's a highlight of the episode. With its absolutely stunning suit-work, its Big Entrance utterly evaporating what confidence Perry had and killing him with a game accurate recreation of its infamous jaw breaking death scene, reactions to the Bloater have been astounding.
  • The little girl Clicker, also in episode 5, nearly steals the whole spotlight for being incredibly creepy and unnerving, especially due to her bizarre movements (which are themselves entirely real; she is played by 9-year-old contortionist Skye Cowton). Unlike the aforementioned Bloater, she does directly interact with the main cast (Ellie) and brutally mauls Kathleen to death. This is also the first depiction of an infected child in the entire series (with the exception of Sam), let alone one becoming a Clicker.
  • Graham Greene (Actor) and Elaine Miles show up in the beginning of "Kin" as Marlon and Florence, elderly inhabitants of a rural cabin whom Joel interrogates for directions. The scene, exclusive to the show, was widely praised for its lighthearted tone after the emotionally harrowing "Endure and Survive" and for their charming performances, and the fact that they didn't meet a gruesome fate (unlike Joel and Ellie's other erstwhile allies, Tess, Sam, and Henry) has fans wanting them to reappear or even star in their own spinoff.
  • A girl staring at Ellie in the Jackson dining hall who was only on screen for a few seconds had fans excited due to her uncanny resemblance to Dina, Ellie's girlfriend and a major character from the second game. In the companion podcast, the showrunners have implied that was the girl's identity but didn't confirm it.
  • Ashley Johnson as Ellie's mother Anna, whose story is finally told in the first season finale, where she's introduced escaping through a forest to an abandoned farmhouse and killing a Stalker, all while giving birth. After realizing she's been bitten, she holds her knife to her throat for presumably hours so she won't turn and endanger her daughter and when Marlene finds her, she forces her friend to take Ellie to safety then perform a Mercy Kill on herself so she doesn't turn.
• Out of the Ghetto: The series firmly defies the assumption that video game adaptations suck, being absolutely beloved by fans and even people who never played the original games.
• Paranoia Fuel: Joel tells Ellie that the best estimate of how the fungus initially spread was via infested flour, which was able to infect people even after having been exposed to high temperatures and cooked into various baked goods. When you watch the first episode again after knowing this, you can see just how many different times the Millers only narrowly avoided eating flour throughout the day through coincidences like having to eat eggs or leftovers for breakfast because they ran out of pancake mix, or declining to take some biscuits from the Adlers (which are implied to have infected Nana). It showcases why surviving an outbreak like this would be so damn difficult; you'd have to not be one of the original people infected, and the Millers only avoided this by complete happenstance.
• Questionable Casting:
  • There's been no shortage of online commentary claiming Bella Ramsey looks nothing like Ellie from the games though that hasn't prevented their performance from garnering praise, including an Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series Primetime Emmy nomination.
  • Melanie Lynskey as the ruthless militia leader in Kansas City has gotten no small amount of flack for coming across as unbelievable in the role. Many likened her to more of an upset teacher or "Karen" than someone able to command the respect and admiration of an entire military uprising.^note As we infer from dialogue, her brother was the original leader of the uprising, and was a strong, charismatic leader, until Henry betrayed him to save his brother Sam. The uprising took place shortly afterwards (only ten days before Joel and Ellie arrive), so the rebels may have simply put their leader's sister in charge due to her angry motivation and her potential as a figurehead, and she wouldn't have lasted long once things calmed down and they realized she wasn't up to the job. Despite this, she received an Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series Emmy nomination (but lost to Storm Reid).
• Realism-Induced Horror: The cause of the outbreak is utterly horrific due to the sheer simplicity of it; a dangerous contagion spreads through the world due to global warming and having infested a vital foodstuff.
• Signature Scene: The scene in Endure and Survive where dozens of various infected shoot out of a hole and kill almost the entire Kansas City Resistance is remarked as one of the best "holy shit" moments of the series.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • To Chernobyl, another series written by Craig Mazin for HBO that features a dictatorship's response to unprecedented yet realistic cosmic horror that leads to the abandonment of human cities to Nature.
  • In a unusual spin, many critics have summarized the show as "The Walking Dead done right" (citing for example less padding, more threatening infected, more budget for sets, and some degree of government response present even after 20 years).
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The removal of Ellie and David's initial team-up fight against the Infected is thought to be an odd omission as the whole point of the fight was to lead viewers to believe that David might actually not be that bad of a person, but then the whiplash happens and it suddenly turns out that David's a complete monster. Here however, it just skips ahead to the reveal. In addition, the fight would have added a much needed encounter with the Infected after how odd it was that the Infected became so rare to see throughout the second half of the season.
  • The removal of several of the game's action sequences irked some fans of the game series. While most fans understand the TV series can't be as much of an action-fest as the third person shooter game, they did wish for more with Bill's town, the hotel basement and Firely lab sequences being especially missed.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The Infected were thought to be incredibly underutilized throughout Season 1, especially in the second half, where they so rarely pop up that you're left wondering if they're even still a threat to humanity. The show creators even agreed that this was a problem, and they made a promise that there will be more action scenes against the infected when Season 2 comes around.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Joel in the Season One finale, which paints his decision to save Ellie as entirely selfish. While the conflict is meant to be seen as a Trolley Problem, this negates that the Trolley Problem never implies that the person on the track is someone you love. Therefore, the questionable logic of Joel's actions is easy for many viewers to forgive, because it is ultimately the only human decision one could make in that situation. Not to mention, Marlene didn’t even let Ellie make her own decision whether or not it’s okay for her to die to create a potential cure.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: While Joel's decision to save Ellie is explicitly more selfish than in the game (likely for the sake of later events in the story), Marlene and the Fireflies still come off as being in the wrong to many viewers. While more detail is given to explain how a cure would work, making it more certain, Marlene still takes Ellie's choice away from her (and in this version, even lulls her into a false sense of security), making the Fireflies come off as much worse than Joel in this scenario.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: The lost child who wanders into the quarantine zone, who has long and disheveled hair and doesn't speak, is often mistaken for a girl but is credited as "The Boy" in the credits.

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