Joel would have done what he had done even if Ellie hadn’t saved his life.  It was a selfish decision - he didn’t want to lose Ellie.

From what I’ve heard, for season 1 they made Ramsey look younger and smaller then she actually is (she is 19 where Ellie is 14). Their plan is to not do this for season 2 so she will automatically look older then S1 Ellie, even without any makeup they add onto that.  Plus they probably won’t start filming for maybe a…

Also, this is a world where people outside of QZs will plan ambushes to kill you - like the guy pretending to be hurt when Joel and Ellie show up in Kansas City (Pittsburgh in the game).

“The Fireflies botch it, though, and a bunch of cordyceps-infected monkeys break loose and attack the Fireflies.”

Agreed about the swimming. I understand that they didn’t want to have multiple episodes where Joel had to ferry Ellie across some water on a pallet - this is a game mechanic that’s part of the puzzle solving of the game. But after 8 episodes of nothing being done with her not knowing how to swim, I thought for sure…

“So we were supposed to understand that her scratch at that exact point of birth is what caused the immunity?” Yes. This has been a theory for years about a possible cause of Ellie’s immunity. Druckmann has said since the finale that this flashback was a scene he had wanted in the original game but he couldn’t figure…

He was probably like “I don’t like babies, why do I have to hold the baby?”

When Marlene is talking about Cordyceps thinking Ellie is Cordyceps, she’s talking about the infection already inside her.  She’s not talking about the Infected people, which will attack anything to spread the fungus to other people.

The cure has nothing to do with Ellie’s brain, or her blood.  It’s the Cordyceps growth in her brain, which they can’t remove without cutting up her brain.

Marlene thinks Joel is the same man she knew back in Boston - the smuggler who does jobs for money and doesn’t care about anyone.  She thought she’d tell Joel about Ellie and he’d say “Yeah, whatever, where’s my payment?”  She had no idea that he and Ellie had bonded during the trip.

Probably because even if Ellie had said “no”, Marlene and the Fireflies would have gone ahead and done it anyway.  Also, Marlene probably didn’t want to revive Ellie and tell her that she had to die, just to say good-bye to her again.

The Fireflies have been working on a cure for ~20 years. Do you really think they’re going to ask the only immune person in the world if they would consent to this procedure? If they did and Ellie said “no”, do you think the Fireflies would just let her go? Of course not - they’re going to do this procedure no matter…

“The Fireflies could have put a bullet in Joel’s head and tossed him in a trash chute before he woke up. Problem solved.”

Ellie doesn’t assume she’s going to die when helping the Fireflies create a  cure.  She says too many things throughout the show/game that tell us that she thinks she’ll show up, help the Fireflies, and then her and Joel will leave.  She does not think this will kill her.

The Firefly doctors have been working on a cure for ~20 years, so they are the only experts around.

“The idea of Joel choosing Ellie over the cure is a great idea dramatically, but you have to actually earn those kinds of moments for them to work.”

In the game Ellie is unconscious when the Fireflies find them.  Not sure why the show decided to change this so she is conscious when they take her away from Joel.  How much did she see before she lost consciousness?  She mentions Marlene - did she see her and talk to her?  Why she automatically assume Marlene is…

In the game Marlene specifically says “a vaccine”, not “a cure”. I wonder if the current Covid climate made them feel they had to change this wording for the show.

They don’t need Ellie’s brain, they need the Cordyceps growth in her brain.  It can’t be removed without cutting up the brain.

A biopsy wouldn’t work.  They don’t need a sample of Ellie’s brain, they need the Cordyceps growth, and they can’t remove that without cutting up her brain.  As Joel says, “it grow throughout the brain”.