For those who love acoustic covers of ’80s classics, your day has come. The Last of Us, at long last, has finally adapted one of the franchise’s most iconic moments. Early on in Season 2, Episode 4, shortly after arriving in Seattle to hunt down Abby and her team, Ellie and Dina make a brief stop in an abandoned music store. After browsing around for a while, Ellie heads upstairs, finds an acoustic guitar, and Bella Ramsey finally gets the chance to show off their musical talents to the audience.
Ellie performs a slow, soothing cover of the 1985 classic, “Take on Me” (a song the show has used for the character on multiple occasions), sounding more akin to The National than a-ha. Dina enters, and Ellie briefly pauses out of embarrassment, before Dina urges her to play the rest. She does, and as unlikely as it seems that a synthpop masterpiece could be used for a tender moment in one of the most brutal shows and video games ever, it’s a lovely sequence.
‘The Last of Us’ Uses Music To Inform Ellie’s Character
As previously mentioned, this isn’t the first time The Last of Us has used a-ha’s most famous song. The series’ seventh episode, “Left Behind”, which revealed much of Ellie’s backstory, prominently featured the tune. Ellie’s best friend Riley (Storm Reid) has recently joined the Fireflies and will soon be leaving town, and for her last day in Boston, she takes her closest confidant to an abandoned shopping mall for a night of fun.
“Take on Me” is used as a needle drop when Ellie rides an escalator, and as such, the song becomes a key motif for her personal relationship with Riley. But the song’s lyrics also shed light on deeper feelings they may hold for each other: “Talking away, though I don’t know what I’m to say, I’ll say it anyway, today’s another day to find you shying away. I’ll be coming for your love, okay?”
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Indeed, as the story continues, it becomes clear that their connection is at a crossroads; since Riley is about to leave town (hence the lyric “I’ll be gone in a day or two”), Ellie realizes that her feelings for her best friend are romantic. As the night carries on, the two gradually break down their barriers, address their unspoken desires, learn to stop shying away from one another, and admit that they love each other.
Of course, tragedy strikes shortly after this, and Riley is killed by a horde of infected, while Ellie gets bitten but somehow manages to avoid turning, leaving her with intense survivor’s guilt. All in all, it’s a shockingly effective use of music to inform the character and shed light on Ellie’s internal conflict, which is also true in tonight’s episode.
‘The Last of Us’ Sheds Light on Ellie’s New Romantic Connection
It’s no accident that the creative team returned to “Take on Me” in a scene that proved a key turning point in Ellie’s blossoming relationship with Dina. If anything, the lyrics illustrate their bond even more effectively than with Riley; the last few weeks have shown Ellie shying away from the possibility of a new romance, even as she realizes she can’t deny her feelings. More crucially, after Ellie performs the song for Dina, their unspoken secrets are brought to light, namely that Ellie is immune to bites from the infected and that Dina is pregnant with Jesse’s child.
The song sheds light on Ellie’s relationship with Joel as well. When the two first met, Joel was the one who felt the need to shy away from her efforts to connect, as he didn’t want to risk potential heartbreak over the possibility of losing another daughter. Yet he, too, ultimately realized he couldn’t bottle that up, and this inevitably led him to possibly doom the world to save her life. The first two episodes of the second season, before Joel met his shockingly gruesome end, saw their connection suffering from unspoken feelings, as he seemed unwilling to admit the fundamental selfishness of his actions, even as she clearly saw the truth.
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But even outside how effectively the song lends itself to the show’s subtext, the scene also proves a necessary calm before the storm. The Last of Us Part II is an almost unrelentingly brutal game, with fewer moments of levity to counter the darkness than its predecessor had. Both in the game and the show, this sequence gives us a much-needed moment of grace to remind us that there’s still a possibility of hope for Ellie even amid her revenge quest.
It’s one of the best scenes in the entire game, and at long last, we’ve seen its promise fully realized on television. As the second season kicks into full gear and looks to be relentlessly grim in the weeks ahead, it’s nice to see that The Last of Us can still make time to find the beauty still present in a seemingly hopeless situation. The Last of Us is streaming on Max, with new episodes every Sunday.
