‘The Last of Us’ Episode 8 Recap: It’s Okay, Baby Girl (2024)

Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Episode 8 of The Last of Us. Episode 7 of The Last of Us, “Left Behind,” ended on a rare note of promise, as Ellie (Bella Ramsey) sewed up the wounded Joel (Pedro Pascal), showing that Ellie wouldn’t leave behind her traveling companion, sticking it through no matter the danger. We watched as a vulnerable Joel had to rely on Ellie for his life, the realization of Joel’s fears that he wouldn’t be able to protect her on the journey to the Fireflies. In the eighth episode, “When We Are In Need,” things get even darker for these two, as we have the bond between these two cemented, while we also see that Ellie is more than capable of taking care of herself—and Joel, when the case arises.

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He Shall Provide

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Episode 8 beings, however, with a reading from Revelation 21, which speaks of a new Heaven and a new Earth, since the first ones had passed away. As we hear these words, we see a town that is almost the opposite of Jackson: buildings covered in snow and abandoned, no people on the streets, just cold and empty. We then see David (Scott Shepherd), who is reading this Bible verse to a group that looks desperate and haggard. When David hears a girl crying, he stops reading and goes over to her.

Inside the old steakhouse they’re meeting in hangs a banner that reads “When we are in need, He shall provide.” David says he’s read this passage too many times, and the girl says she doesn’t remember what comes next. David recites “And God will wipe away all the tears from their eyes, for there will be no more death. Neither sorrow nor crying. Neither will there be any more pain, for the former things have passed away.” The girl nods that she knows what that means, and David shows the girl compassion. As he walks away, the girl asks “when can we bury him?” David looks around and meets eyes with James (Troy Baker, who voiced Joel in the video game), and then replies, that the ground is too cold, and they can bury this man in the spring.

After the meeting, David meets people outside, promising they’ll get through this. As the other people leave David asks James how much they have left of venison, elk, and rabbit. James says if they ration it, they may have a week, two at best, but two men saw some deer a few miles away, yet it could be nothing. As James walks away, David says he sensed doubt in the steakhouse. James says they haven’t lost faith, they’re just scared. But David clarifies he doesn’t mean from them. James laughs it off and says he still believes, but it’s been a rough six months. David then says he needs to know James is with him, and when he agrees, David tells James to go get his gun—they’re going hunting.

Ellie and the "Crazy Man"

We then cut back to Joel and Ellie. Joel is still prone in the basem*nt of the house they’re hiding out in, but the wound isn’t looking good. She puts water on Joel’s lips, and she shares some of the little food they have left—but Joel is mostly unresponsive. Ellie says she’ll be right back, takes Joel’s rifle, and heads to the woods to hunt. She sees a rabbit, but he runs off, and she trips trying to chase after him. As she keeps walking, she hears an odd noise, then finds a deer. This time, she hits the ground and shoots from a distance. She hits the deer, but he still runs off, and Ellie goes after it.

A trail of blood shows that the deer eventually died, but David and James found it first. They seem scared, worried that someone is nearby, but try to take the deer before anyone shows up. However, Ellie soon sneaks up on them, shouting that they need to drop their rifles while she aims her gun at them. David praises her stealthiness, but Ellie isn’t having it, telling them to walk away. But David asks for ten seconds of Ellie’s time, in which he says that he’s from a larger group, and they’re all very hungry. Ellie replies, lying and saying she’s also from a larger group who are also hungry. David states that even so, she can’t bring this deer back on her own. David says he’s not looking to just take the deer, and that they can trade with Ellie. Almost giving her situation away, Ellie excitedly asks if they have medicine for infections. David says yes, that Ellie can follow them, but Ellie refuses. Ellie says James can go get the medicine, come back, and they get half the deer. David tells James to get some penicillin and needles, and when James looks uncertain about this order, David says it’s not a code, to do what he says. James leaves for the medicine, leaving Ellie and David alone in the woods.

As they wait, David asks if Ellie’s gun is her dad’s gun and if he’s the one who’s sick. Ellie is unresponsive and David says it’s a four-mile roundtrip to the settlement, so they’ll be waiting for a while. David offers to start a fire at a nearby building, and Ellie reluctantly agrees, telling him to bring the deer. The two sit by the fire, and David attempts to make conversation, but Ellie is silent (for once). David assures her that he means no harm and that there’s room in his group if she wants. Ellie asks if David is the leader of this “hunger club,” and David says it wasn’t his choice, that they chose to follow him. Ellie asks if this is a cult, and David jokingly says she’s got him there, that he’s a preacher, but just normal stuff. Ellie mentions that even after the world ended, he still believes this sh*t, but David says he became a believer after the outbreak, and that before he was a preacher, he was a math teacher. Ellie jokes with him, and we can see the wall starting to fall. David then says that he found God after the apocalypse, which is either the best or worst time to find him. After the Pittsburgh quarantine zone fell in 2017, David left with a few others, and that’s how their community began. David says they’d settle somewhere, but then raiders would come, and they’d have to move again, and they’d find new people along the way until they ended up here.

Ellie says their luck had to run out sooner or later, but David doesn’t believe in luck, that everything happens for a reason. When Ellie seems to not believe him, David says he can prove it to her. David says they didn’t expect the winter to be this rough, so David sent four people to a nearby town to scavenge, and only three come back. The one who didn’t come back, Alec, was a father who had a daughter Ellie’s age. This man was murdered by a “crazy man” who was traveling with a little girl. Ellie, realizing that the man David is talking about is the one that stabbed Joel, and the one that Joel killed, straightens up, as David smiles, saying “everything happens for a reason.” It turns out James has returned, and is behind Ellie, aiming his gun at her. James and Ellie hold their guns at each other, and James ends up lowering his. David tells James to throw the medicine to Ellie. Uncertain, James does as he’s told, and David says he knows she’s not from a big group, and he can protect her. But Ellie isn’t hearing this, taking the medicine, and running away without the deer. As she goes, James questions if David is going to let her get away. Ellie runs back to Joel and quickly uses the medicine on Joel’s wound. After this success, she lays down next to Joel with her arm around him.

God's Will

Back to David’s group, and in the kitchen, we see supplies are low. A man brings out some suspicious-looking meat, and when the cooks ask what it is, the man replies that it’s venison. They put the meat into a pot, and later we see this concoction being ladled out to the people in the steakhouse. As they eat their meager portions, David and James return with the deer, and David stands in front of his group beaming at this find. But the group doesn’t respond, and he quickly realizes James told them about the girl. David admits that yes, they found a girl who was with the man who took Alec from them. But David says tomorrow, he’s getting a group together to find the pair, and they’ll bring that man to justice. Alec’s daughter—the one who was crying in the opening scene—says that they should kill both the man and the girl. David walks up to her, takes off his glove, and hits her with it. When her mom tries to intervene, David waves for her not to. Then David helps the girl up, and David says that even though Alec is gone, she’ll always have a father, and she’ll show him respect when he’s speaking. David sits down as a plate is brought to him. He leads the group in prayer, and they all begin to eat their shares, all shoveling down their rations for the day.

The next morning, Ellie is still by Joel’s side, and she checks his temperature. The wound already looks slightly better, as Ellie administers more medicine to it. Elle goes outside and gathers some snow to feed their horse, and as she stands outside the house, she sees birds flying away. Ellie hides and sees David’s men searching for them. We go to the group, where David warns about the dangerous man and says they’ll bring the girl back with them. James mentions if they bring her back, it’s another mouth to feed, and David says if they don’t, she’ll die. But James says maybe that’s God’s will, which stops David in his tracks. All David has to do is look at James for him to realize that he’s gone too far, and the group continues to search.

Ellie runs back to the house and down to Joel, begging him to get up, but he’s barely awake. Ellie puts a knife in his hands, saying she’s going to lead the men away from him, and that if anyone comes downstairs, he has to kill them, but it’s hard to tell if he can even comprehend what she’s saying. She tells Joel not to fall asleep, but he closes his eyes as she leaves him, barricading his room from the outside, before taking to her horse. She finds the group and shoots at them, but David says he wants her alive, as he slyly smiles. As she runs by, James shoots the horse out from under Ellie. Another man tells James to shoot Ellie, but David stops them with a gunshot to the sky. David carries Ellie as he heads back home, telling two men to haul the horseback, and the others to go door-to-door looking for Joel.

Get Up, Joel

One man enters the house Joel is staying in, and Joel wakes up from the footsteps above him. As the man walks down the stairs, he finds the mattress Joel was lying on empty, but covered in blood. As the man searches, Joel sneaks up on him and stabs him in the neck—and it seems as though it took all of Joel’s remaining strength to do just that, as he attempts to get back up.

We then cut back to Ellie, who David has put in a caged-off section in a kitchen. When she wakes up, David is there waiting. When Ellie asks why she’s in a cage, David says because he’s afraid of her—she’s a dangerous person. David makes sure Ellie knows the others want to kill her as if she should thank him. David asks what her name is again, and she replies, “Eat sh*t.” David responds that no one can survive on their own, but he can protect her. Yet Ellie says that she’s not on her own. David asks how Ellie’s friend is doing, and when he sees the uncertainty on her face, he latches onto that, saying that part of her life is ending, and he’s offering a beginning. But if Ellie can’t trust him, David says that yes, she is alone.

David’s men continue their search for Joel, and one of the men finds another one of the men knocked out in the snow. When the man goes to investigate, Joel knocks him out with the butt of his gun. We cut back inside the house, where Joel has one man tied up, while he beats up another man tied to a chair. When the man he’s punching says he doesn’t know any girl, Joel pulls out his knife and stabs him in the knee. Joel tells the man to focus, or he’ll pop his kneecap off, and the man says she’s alive. A bit more cajoling from Joel’s knife and the man says she’s being held at Silverlake, a nearby resort. Joel pulls the knife out of the man’s leg and puts it in his mouth. Joel pulls out his map and tells the man to point with the knife in his mouth where they are, and where the resort is, and it better be the same spot the other guy points to. After the man points to the map, Joel stabs him dead. The other man says he’s not telling Joel sh*t, but Joel says he believes him. Then Joel grabs a pipe and beats the other man to death—a quick but powerful glimpse at the violent, destructive man Joel used to be, who will do anything he needs to survive.

Tiny Little Pieces

Back to Ellie, she attempts to escape her cage, to no avail. As she does this, she sees something outside the cage that terrifies her. David walks in, bringing her a plate of food, and David looks to see what has troubled Ellie: a random person’s ear that has been left behind on the floor. David accepts that his secret has been found out, and he promises the food he brought her is just deer meat. Ellie asks if they’re going to chop her up, but David says he’d rather not, and once again ask Ellie her name. David says “if you want to judge me…” before Ellie kicks his food, calling him a sick f*ck for eating people. David admits that they do and that only a few people know, but he would’ve told her. David says it was a last resort, and it shames him, but what was he supposed to do, let his people starve?

David says Ellie sees a lot, but so does he. David says when he looks at her, he sees himself: she’s a natural leader, smart, loyal, violent. David says he knows if he lets her out, she’ll stab him in a second because she has a violent heart—and he should know, he’s always had one too. He struggled with this, but once the world ended, he saw the truth, thanks to cordyceps. He says that cordyceps aren’t evil, they’re fruitful, they multiply, it feeds and protects their children, and it protects their future with violence if it must—and it loves.

Ellie asks why he’s saying this, and David says it’s because she can handle it in a way the others can’t. The other people need God, heaven, and a father, but Ellie doesn’t. All David wants is an equal and a friend. David gets closer to the cage, telling Ellie he can tell the others to stop looking for Joel, and they’ll listen to him, as long as Joel leaves them in peace as well. Ellie contemplates this, as David states that they do what they tell him to do, they follow him…and they would follow both him and Ellie. David asks her to think of what they could do together, as he puts his hand on one of the cage’s bars. David contemplates how they could grow with both of them in power, as Ellie slowly moves her hand closer to his. David says to imagine the life he and Ellie could build, as he puts his hand on hers. Ellie puts her other hand on top of his hand…then breaks one of his fingers, and she grabs for the keys. David slams her against the bars hard until she bleeds from the nose, as the real David comes out, saying just wait and see what he tells the others now. As he walks away, Ellie states her name. David looks back, and says, “What?” to which she replies, “Tell them Ellie is the little girl who broke your f*cking finger!” David retorts, “How did you put it? Tiny little pieces?” before leaving her.

It's Okay, Baby Girl

Back to Joel, who has made it to Silverlake looking for Ellie, when he sees a trail of blood in the snow. He breaks into the locked door that the trail leads to and finds Ellie’s pack. He finds their horse inside, and then three human bodies tied up by their ankles without any heads. As we cut back to Ellie, David and James have come to get her, and she screams and fights them, even biting David in the process. They both hold her down on a table, and David says she had her chance, as he lifts a butcher knife. Right before he swings it down, Ellie proclaims that she’s infected. This stops David, as he realizes the implications of the bite she just gave him. Ellie says he should look at her arm, and David sees the bite, to which Ellie says, “everything happens for a reason, right?” James and David can’t believe it, and as they debate it, Ellie grabs the butcher knife and stabs James in the side of the throat, and she runs while David shoots at her.

Ellie runs out of the room she’s been held in, and we see she’s in the steakhouse from before, and she grabs a burning stick from a nearby fire. David carelessly pulls the knife from James’ lifeless body and goes to hunt Ellie. She hides with the stick as David enters the room, knife in hand. She throws the burning stick at him and misses, which quickly catches one of the curtains on fire. David continues to look for Ellie, telling her there’s no way out, and that she can’t be infected, since no one infected fights this hard to be alive. Ellie asks how she did it or if she's just “that f*cking special.” Meanwhile, Joel makes his way through the snowstorm with Ellie’s bag, urgently searching for her. Back at the steakhouse, David complains about how good he is, and how he could’ve made Ellie’s life better, repeating her name, as though knowing her true name is almost a gift to him.

David says that neither one of them is dying today And that he’s changed his mind—Ellie needs a father, and he’s going to keep her and teach her. But Ellie has found a knife, and she gets the jump on David, stabbing him in the leg, which leads him to knock her to the ground. David climbs on top of her and tells her that the fighting is what he likes the most. Ellie cries as David gets closer to her, as he says there’s “no fear in love.” But Ellie grabs the butcher knife that David has dropped, and stabs him. Then she gets on top of him with the knife, hacking away at him over and over and over again as she screams, while David’s blood flies in her face as the building burns around them.

Ellie escapes the steakhouse, exhausted from killing David. When Joel finds her and surprises her, Ellie yells again for him to get off of her, not realizing that it’s Joel. She fights him when he turns her around, and it takes her a bit to calm down and realize it’s Joel. He holds Ellie’s head in her hand, saying, “It’s me,” and Ellie almost can’t speak, as she hugs him, finally feeling safe. At this moment, Joel says, “It’s okay, baby girl”—which he used to call Sarah, and what he called her when she passed in the first episode. Joel says he’s got her, and he gives Ellie his jacket, holding her and her bag as they walk away from Silverlake, safe with each other once more.

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