REVIEW: ‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 Episode 7 — “Convergence”

Have you ever worked with someone and wondered how they got their jobs? Like, someone so dumb they couldn’t spell cat if you spotted them the “c” and the “t?” And you sit there, watching these people making the worst possible decision at every moment, and you wonder, sometimes aloud, “how do you still have a job?” That’s how I felt watching The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 7, “Convergence.” Except the question isn’t “how do you still have a job?” it’s “how are all of you so dumb? Why can’t a single one of you make a good decision one time?”

“Convergence” lays bare my issues with The Last of Us Season 2. This is a show where everyone constantly passes around the Idiot Ball, and everyone conveniently holds it when the plot has to move forward. If any character ever made a reasonable choice, this story would end. But nobody is capable of it.

Our episode opens with Jesse (Young Mazino) taking care of Dina (Isabela Merced), who has done her best Skyrim guard impression and taken an arrow to the knee (it’s actually more like her thigh, but roll with me here; I’ve always wanted to make a really terrible arrow-to-the-knee joke). The arrow is too close to an artery, so Jesse can’t pull it out; he has to push it through.

Dina’s freaking out, yelling that she can’t die, and we know it’s because she’s thinking about the baby, all while she refuses to tell Jesse about her pregnancy. When he offers her whiskey for the pain, she adamantly refuses it. Twice. She’s telling him she’s pregnant without telling him in basically the most unsubtle way possible, which is very The Last of Us season 2. He gets the arrow through, Dina’s all right, life’s good. Well, still bad. But nobody’s dead (yet).

Last week’s episode stopped the narrative’s momentum in its tracks for The Last of Us Season 2 finale.

Ellie (Bella Ramsey) comes back a little later. In case you’ve forgotten after last week’s extended flashback episode, Ellie was off torturing Nora (Tati Gabrielle) for information on Abby’s whereabouts. Last week’s episode was a really odd place to dump all of these flashbacks; it killed the narrative momentum from earlier episodes.

When Jesse asks Ellie, “Where were you?” I was also trying to remember where she was. Good ol’ Jesse, always looking out for everyone else, even if he is kind of aggressive about it. Ellie speaks to Jesse long enough to find out Dina’s in a dressing room. Ellie finds her. They hold hands. It’s all very cute. When Ellie asks if the baby’s okay, Dina says yes. When Ellie asks how she knows, Dina says, “I just do.”

Dina’s recovering, but Ellie’s back is scratched up, and she’s bleeding through her shirt, so Dina has her take it off and start washing her back. Ellie did get some info about Abby from Nora, the two words: “whale” and “wheel.” The problem is, she has no idea what that means, and since the cordyceps were starting to go to Nora’s brain by the time it could mean anything.

Ellie’s half-naked and bloody during this conversation, vulnerable both physically and mentally here, and the weight of what she has done gets the better of her. She talks about how easy it was to get what she needed from Nora. She just kept hurting her.

The way Ellie says it, you get the feeling that her propensity for violence horrifies her. Ellie doesn’t like how easy it was to do this, and more to the point, we kinda get the idea that she enjoyed it, and she didn’t like that, either, and seems to be scared about what that says about her. This is the first time you get the sense that Ellie realizes what going down this road will mean, and she’s not happy how easy it is for her. But that doesn’t mean she has no penchant for enjoying it.

The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 7 establishes that Ellie’s violent inclination is just who she is, not a reaction to trauma.

When Dina asks if Ellie killed her, Ellie says no. She just left her there. So, an infected Nora is just wandering around the ruins of that hospital, which is… an image, and says something about this version of Ellie. That’s pretty sadistic stuff, but the show has gone out of its way to portray Ellie as a sadist. Gail (Catherine O’Hara), Jackson’s therapist and the show’s mouthpiece for what the writers seem to be thinking, just in case someone somehow misses how The Last of Us wants us to feel, has basically said she was probably always that way.

In this version of the story, Gail establishes that Ellie’s violent tendencies aren’t born from pain. Instead, they’re part of who she is as a person. And that makes her a much less interesting character than the one from the game. In the source material, she was driven to violence by grief. Ellie is violent because she’s violent, the show argues. If Joel’s death hadn’t driven her to this sort of thing, something else would have.

“Maybe she got what she deserved,” Dina offers, after Ellie tells her what she did.

“Maybe she didn’t,” Ellie says.

And then she tells Dina everything. How the Fireflies would try to use her to make a cure, how Joel (Pedro Pascal) killed them all to save her, how one of them was Abby’s dad, the whole business. Dina asks if Ellie knew who Abby’s group was. Ellie says no, but she knew what Joel did before they arrived in Jackson. It’s a bold admission on Ellie’s part. But she is clearly still drowning in guilt over Joel’s death and what she’s just done.

When Dina next speaks, her voice is flat and her face is expressionless. “We need to go home,” she says. And while there’s no emotion in it, you can tell that Dina, rightfully, feels utterly betrayed. Ellie lied about all of this and put Dina and her unborn child in danger to get her out of here. I’d be pissed, too.

The next morning, a very quiet Jesse and Ellie are packing everything up. The plan is to find Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and get out of Dodge. Dina hobbles out to give Ellie a good luck charm. Ellie jokes that it may not be working for her. “I’m still alive,” Dina says. This whole thing clearly makes Jesse uncomfortable, and he offers to go alone so Ellie can stay with Dina, who can’t travel on her leg. But Ellie knows they’ll be safer together, so tension or not, off they go.

Outside, Ellie asks Jesse how he found them, and he talks about the two-day process of tracking them through Seattle, and lets us know that Shimmer, Ellie’s horse, is okay. He is still pretty mad. Mostly, though, Jesse has figured out why Ellie and Dina look at each other the way that they do and why Dina refused the whiskey the other night. He starts probing, and Ellie confirms Dina is pregnant.

Jesse says he can’t die because he’s a dad, so they need to find Tommy and get the hell out of Seattle. Hard to blame Jesse, honestly. All of this is Ellie’s fault, and she got here by lying to damn near everyone about why it happened. She could probably stand to be reminded of what she’s so callously put in danger.

As Ellie and Jesse traverse the city, they see some art praising the Seraphite prophet, who looks notably different from what we’re used to thus far. In this depiction, she’s Black; previously, she’s been white, which causes Ellie to wonder if there’s more than one leader. But we won’t learn anything more about that now.

They duck into a garage to get out of the rain, only for WLF soldiers to chase a Seraphite into the garage, beat him, strip his clothes, and drag him out. Ellie wants to help, but Jesse says no. These people are tearing each other apart. It’s not their war, and he is not dying for them.

This sequence is… interesting. It once again makes Ellie look like an idiot who doesn’t think before she does things, but it also clashes with everything she’d done up to this point. Ellie has been willing to lie and risk the lives of several people to avenge Joel— including her pregnant girlfriend— but now she wants to put it all on the line for some Seraphite kid?

The sequence feels like the writers can’t decide who they want this version of Ellie to be. They know that Jesse just wants to leave, and the showrunners, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, want Ellie and Jesse to be in conflict with one another, so she has to be against him. This version of Ellie already feels incredibly compromised and inconsistent with the rest of the series, and scenes like this don’t help.

Ellie’s violence takes a toll on her relationship in “Convergence.”

Jesse and Ellie are in a bookstore, waiting for Tommy to meet them, but he is not there. Ellie picks up a copy of The Monster at the End of This Book for the kiddo. It’s a great choice, as Jesse remarks, but it also feels important that Ellie finds it. Who is the monster at the end of this story? If you’re paying attention, you’ll probably get the barely-veiled symbolism.

Ellie is still trying to fix things with Jesse, but he wants to bury it because, well… a lot of stuff is going on and they gotta fix that, first. Jesse tells Ellie about a girl in a group from Alberta who stopped in Jackson. About how he loved her. How he wanted to go with her when he left. Jesse shares that he stayed because he was raised in Jackson and taught to put others first.

Ellie clocks the meaning of this story immediately; it’s not about how, having experienced love himself, Jesse knows that Ellie and Dina are the real deal, and that he doesn’t love Dina that way. It’s about how Ellie always does whatever is best for Ellie, consequences be damned. Ellie mocks him by calling him Saint Jesse while everyone else is terrible, but he gets the better of her when he asks, “If I go with that girl to Mexico, who saves you in Seattle?” Touche.

Their conversation is interrupted by a WLF radio call about a sniper. They head to higher ground to get a better view because the sniper is likely Tommy, and when they do, Ellie sees a Ferris Wheel near the aquarium at the city’s edge and finally puts together where Abby is, “whale” and “wheel.” Ellie, of course, immediately proves Jesse’s earlier point and wants to drop everything and go, but Jesse is unwilling to risk leaving Tommy behind. Ellie doesn’t understand why Jesse’s so against this because she thinks Jesse voted to go after Abby’s crew in Jackson, and we learn he voted no because it wasn’t in the best interests of the community.

This is where Ellie loses it. She calls him a hypocrite for letting that Seraphite die because he wasn’t part of Jesse’s “community.” She says that she watched her community get beaten to death in front of her, and tells him that if he were in her shoes, he’d be doing the exact same thing. Jesse told her he hopes that she makes it and heads off to find Tommy.

Ellie doesn’t have a place in Jackson, or at least she sees it that way in The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 7.

On the one hand, Ellie’s right. That community hasn’t been there for her, and has often been hostile to her very existence because she’s queer. Remember the whole thing with Seth (Robert John Burke) in the season’s premiere episode, and how nobody did anything about it but Joel.

Why should Ellie care about Jackson? On the other hand, it’s clearly her turn to hold the Idiot Ball again. This is a bad idea, especially because she is by herself. There’s a storm coming. Tommy is potentially in trouble. Dina’s hurt. They are outmanned and outgunned, and she’s guessing at where Abby is at best. But none of that seems to matter to Ellie, who… doesn’t think about anything she does. I don’t know about you, but I don’t remember the previous version of this character being that dumb. But this Ellie is. So we’re going to the aquarium.

Ellie makes her way to the harbor and sees Isaac and the WLF loading something into boats before heading somewhere else, though we have no idea what they’re actually up to yet. Once they’re gone, Ellie grabs a small outboard and heads for the aquarium. But the storm’s really kicked in here, and that little outboard is no match for the big-ass wave headed her way. Another classic example of Ellie not thinking before she acts. The wave crashes over the boat, and Ellie washes up on shore.

Before she can recover, a Seraphite kid finds her and realizes he needs an adult. Several Seraphites come back, and they’re ready to hang Ellie and gut her like a fish — shout out to the kid, who, when Ellie begs him to tell the other Seraphites that she isn’t WLF, does his best Comodus from Gladiator impression — when they learn their village is under attack, so they leave her and Ellie books it out of there.

So that’s where the WLF is going. It really is convenient how often Ellie is saved from almost certain death by folks from elsewhere whenever she does anything profoundly stupid, which basically happens whenever she does anything. If we were keeping a count, it would be high—maybe next season. The messaging is clear here: cycles of violence, one group killing another ad nauseam, forever. There is no subtext here. It’s just text. And The Last of Us is happy to beat you over the head with it until you understand.

Ellie gets to the aquarium and gets in through the roof. Once inside, she finds some sleeping bags, medical equipment, used bandages, surgical tools, and so on. This place looks more like a hospital than an aquarium. If Ellie notices, we don’t really know. She stops to clean her revolver. Ellie follows fresh tracks to an open door. Goes in. Hears something. It’s Mel (Ariela Barer) and Owen (Spencer Lord), arguing about Abby, who is apparently behind enemy lines.

Owen is determined to get her. Mel’s against it. Owen says he’s going; if she’s still there when they return, she can go with them. Mel reacts as you’d expect, and then she notices Ellie, who has a gun trained on both of them. Owen recognizes her and tells her he’s the one who kept her alive, but Ellie doesn’t care. She just wants to know where Abby is. They try to talk their way out of it, but Ellie overheard them talking about her, so she knows they know where she is.

Ellie spots the map Owen was using on the table and tells Mel to bring the map over and point to where Abby is. Then, she will ask Joel to do the same thing, expecting them to match. Owen is convinced she’ll kill them both. Ellie says she won’t because she’s not like them, though we know this isn’t really true.

That said, she’s shaking, breathing heavily, can barely hold her pistol steady, and is clearly uncomfortable. She looks equal parts focused and scared. It’s a great scene for Bella Ramsey, who conveys so much with her body. I think, at that moment, I would have believed her. Owen clearly doesn’t; he agrees, but grabs a pistol hidden under the table and tries to shoot her. This is one of those really, really stupid changes that the show makes to the source material that actively makes things worse.

Once again, The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 7 highlights the changes from the source material in a bad way.

In the game, Owen is close enough to go for Ellie’s gun. Here, he tries to grab a gun under the map, turn, aim, and fire before Ellie, who is holding him at gunpoint, can pull the trigger. I’m going to write from personal experience here; I’ve been target shooting with pistols for years, and I am a very good shot who can aim pretty quickly. I don’t care how fast you are, you are not going to be able to draw, aim, and fire before a person who is already pointing a gun at you can pull a trigger.

Owen is a member of the WLF; he is a trained soldier. He should know better. But it was his turn with the Idiot Ball. Fortunately for him, he won’t ever have to hold it again, because Ellie fires first and puts a hole in his throat. Unfortunately for Mel, she was standing behind him, and she was hit in the neck. Once she falls, she asks for Ellie’s help.

Not to save herself, mind you. Mel knows she’s dead. She opens her jacket to reveal that, like Dina, she’s pregnant. She begs Ellie to cut her baby out of her before she dies. Ellie, though, doesn’t know how. Mel tells her she needs to make one incision, but she isn’t specific, and Ellie, who doesn’t know where, which direction, or how deeply to cut, panics.

Mel finally says, “low transverse.” This type of incision is made horizontally, across the lower part of the uterus during C-sections. But Ellie doesn’t know what that means, and both break downs and freezes up. Mel dies, asking her if she got the baby out. Tommy and Jesse show up just afterwards to find a devastated Ellie and two bodies.

The back half of this scene works, though I think the narrative parallels are a little on the nose, even for a show that doesn’t trust its viewers like The Last of Us. I understand Ellie’s reaction because the thought going through her head is probably thinking about what would happen if this were Dina, and she didn’t know what to do. But I think the show gets us there in a cheap, if realistic way. Our leads leave the bodies and head back to the theater.

The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 7 ups the stakes with death, but the deaths aren’t executed well. 

Once we’re back, Tommy and Jesse plan their escape. Ellie walks in on their planning session, clearly messed up, and Tommy tells Ellie they made their choices. They were part of Joel’s death, too, but it’s clearly a cold comfort for Ellie, who realizes Abby will get to live while people she likely didn’t want to kill died at her hands. Sensing that Jesse and Ellie need some time alone, Tommy leaves so that they can talk. Ellie thanked him for coming back, and Jesse said that maybe he didn’t want to, and maybe Tommy had made him. When pressed, though, he admits that isn’t true.

“Because you’re a good person,” Ellie says.

“Yeah,” Jesse says. “But also, the thought did occur, if I were out there somewhere, lost an in trouble, you would set the world on fire to save me.”

“I would,” Ellie says.

This scene has two meanings. First, it’s a chance for Ellie and Jesse to reconcile and remember their love and respect for one another. Second, Jesse’s right, but maybe not in the way he thinks. Ellie would set the world on fire for him, or Dina, or Tommy, or anyone she loved. She’s just like Joel, and that means she’d burn down the world to save the people she cared about. Jesse means it as a compliment here, at least mostly. But it’s a telling line that reveals a darker part of who Ellie is. I don’t like how little this show allows us to read into things, but this line is good.

There’s no time to celebrate, though. They hear the sounds of a struggle and Tommy shouting in the next room, and draw their guns and run after him. Jesse barely clears the door before he’s shot in the head; there’s no fanfare to it. One moment he’s alive; the next he isn’t. His death, like Owen’s was, is stupid. Running straight through those doors was dumb. But hey, Idiot Ball.

Jesse’s killer is Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), who is standing over Tommy, pointing a gun at his head. She demands Ellie throw up her hands or she’ll shoot him, too. When Ellie emerges from the cover she’s been hiding behind, the recognition on Abby’s face is instantaneous. Ellie begs her to let Tommy go, but Abby thinks he killed her friends. That’s wrong, Ellie tells her. She did, though she claims she didn’t mean to. She’s the reason Joel killed that hospital. She begs Abby to let Tommy go.

“I let you go,” Abby spits. “And you wasted it.”

Then she raises her weapon, points it at Ellie, and fires as Ellie begs her not to. The scene cuts to black.

Abby finally makes her way back into The Last of Us in “Convergence.”

We get one more scene before this episode ends. Abby is asleep on a couch when she’s woken up by Manny (Danny Ramirez), who says Isaac is looking for her. Abby walks out into a giant football stadium full of crops, what looks to be industry, and if Abby’s living space is any indication, housing. She looks out over it as white text appears in the lower right of the screen and tells us when we are: Seattle, Day One.

The game does this, too, but it’s still a bold choice to retell the story from Abby’s perspective, though this season’s decision to reveal her motivation early on kind of blunts the impact of it. We already know why Abby did this; we’ll learn who she is, but the mystery is gone. Will it work? Who knows? But it’s a bold decision nonetheless.

I didn’t hate The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 7, but I am getting tired of how nobody in this series can make a single good choice. If any one of them does, this plot stops dead. Dina and Ellie go home, and maybe live happily.

If Owen doesn’t pick a gunfight he can’t hope to win, he and Mel probably don’t die. If Jesse doesn’t barge headfirst through a door into a situation he knows nothing about, he probably doesn’t get shot in the head. If Ellie had just listened to any of the people around her, none of this would have happened in the first place. Any one good decision stops this. But nobody is capable of making it.

I don’t expect characters always to make good decisions. We’re stupid, panicky, angry, flawed animals. But by the law of averages, someone has to be right sometime. And in The Last of Us season 2, nobody is. I don’t need to like any of these people. But they’re past the point where I can understand them. There is no amount of rage worth sacrificing everyone you care about, and that is the only place this road leads. That nobody seems able to see this is a flaw with the show’s writing that all the moral ambiguity in the world can’t fix.

I don’t hate The Last of Us season 2 Episode 7, or even the season. But I am tired of its inability to write characters who are capable of making intelligent decisions, even once, and taking itself so seriously while it does it. Maybe season 3 changes that. This was a middling season of television, especially by HBO’s lofty standards. Or maybe we just go back to passing around the Idiot Ball again. Who knows? Either way, I’ll be there. See you next season.

The Last of Us Season 2 is streaming now, exclusively HBO Max (formerly MAX). 

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