At the beginning of the episode, we start off with Ellie’s mom Anna (Ashley Johnson) and she is stumbling through the woods as she is in labor with her almost-newborn baby Ellie. Anna finds her way to a cabin as she is in pain escaping clickers and infected, an infected simultaneously enters the room attacking Anna and she stabs it in the head with her switchblade, which we see in the games. She ends up giving birth to her baby Ellie and she realized she was bit, on the leg by the infected.

Anna holds her baby which gives the audience a sentimental feeling that is pure during a difficult time. As Anna is holding Ellie she calls her strong and cries in happiness and agony since she now understands she won’t be able to watch her child grow up. Anna stays up all night holding Ellie and the switchblade close to herself just in-case if more infected show up. Thankfully, Marlene (the Group of the Militia group the ‘Fireflies’) shows up and we know Anna is not telling the truth as she tells Marlene that she cut the cord before the bite.  She chooses not to nurse Ellie due to the infection so she didn’t want to risk it after that.

As Marlene takes Ellie, Anna begs to be killed and Marlene urges to not kill her. She walks out as Anna is willing. Marlene tells her guard to close the baby’s ears and Marlene shoots Anna. We now find Ellie and Joel in Salt Lake City, this is where the Fireflies are stationed and Joel is almost done fulfilling his final duties for Tess.

 Ellie is extra quiet and Joel notices as she isn’t paying attention. Eventually, they get to a building and Ellie was supposed to climb up and help Jeol up, but Ellie leads him to something special. They find a giraffe and she feeds leaves to the giraffe, this is a special moment between them as this vulnerable moment is so pure, that even after the darkness there is some light. 

They arrive at the hospital and they are causally making their way through as Ellie is telling Joel some jokes from his pun book, and they get ambushed by Fireflies. Joel wakes up in the hospital and Marlene apologizes to Joel, as her people didn’t know it was him and Ellie. She reassures Joel, Ellie is fine and she explains that “The Cordyceps grow inside her brain. That’s why she’s immune” she goes on telling Joel how it would be painless, and Ellie would want this. Joel disagrees and tells her she doesn’t understand.

Marlene tells her she does understand and she has no other choice. She has a guard escort Joel out and she says “If she tries anything. Shoot him” Joel ends up gunning a few hundred men to get to Ellie. She finds Ellie and the first doctor grabs a scalpel and tells him not to shoot, and Joel ends up shooting him point blank in the face. After, Joel escapes to the parking garage with Ellie in his arms, we then cut to now, and we see Ellie waking up and Ellie asking what happened and Joel lies to Ellie saying ‘it turns out there’s more just like you” then we cut back to Salt Lake city, Marlene is in the corner telling Joel he can still do the right thing, Joel then shoots her in the head.

Fast forwarding, Joel and Ellie are now at Jackson and as they finally make it, Ellie and Joel have a very important conversation. She then says “Swear to me that everything you said about the fireflies is true.” Joel replies with “I Swear” Then we cut to the credits of the end of season 1 of HBO’s The Last of Us.