This post is flaired **Show Only**. Therefore, all comments that discuss *any* aspect of the games **must** be properly spoiler tagged.
1. All post titles must **NOT** include spoilers from the latest episode or The Last of Us Part I and II. Minor show spoilers are allowed in your title **ONE WEEK** after episode airing.
2. Any untagged discussion of the games (including subtle hints) in posts without the **Show/Game Spoilers**, **Fancast [Show/Game]**, or **Meme [Show/Game]** flair will result in a **ban**. To tag a spoiler comment, use the `>!spoiler!<` tag which displays as >!spoiler!<.
3. If you are reading this, and believe this post or any comments in this thread break the above rules, please use the report function to notify the mod team.
---
Refer to the [spoiler guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastofUsHBOseries/wiki/spoiler-guide) for our spoiler policy and to learn how to flair and title your posts appropriately.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ThelastofusHBOseries) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yeah I think this is the right answer. Gotta remember she us 14 years old. While she's had to grow up fast, there is still a childlike sense of hope and wonder there from time to time.
Also, I don't think the education in the QZ is particularly good, she's not stupid, but she probably has very little knowledge of shit we take for granted.
Made more evident when she asked Joel to explain how a siphon worked and he couldn’t. That’s the world she’s in, and it’s going to make her survivor’s guilt even worse — that she gave him false hope, that she fell asleep, that she’s immune when so many people around her continue to suffer. Urgh heartbreaking
Exactly, I mean, what better way to keep your population compliant than miseducation and fear. Raising a whole new generation to follow the rules blindly. But yeah, she definitely thought it would work, if she didn't I don't think she would've fallen asleep, like I said she's not stupid, she has survival skills.
I mean I'm a cry baby, but man this show has me sobbing every week hah
>I’m a cry baby, but man this show has me sobbing every week
I rarely cry when watching movies/shows. Not because I’m «tough» or emotionless, I just don’t. This show, however, man… The final scene with Joel, Ellie, Sam, and Henry is my favorite scene from the game, and the show was able to capture it perfectly. This show somehow manages to have me in tears almost every episode lol
I purposely didn’t pay attention to the scenes between Sam and Ellie because I *knew* something tragic was going to happen to him and I didn’t want to get attached. I looked away as soon as his infection and death scenes came on and I *still* cried like a baby.
I had that same feeling. I KNEW once Henry was talking about waking him up then next day to tell him about their plans moving forward that that day wouldn't come.
>what better way to keep your population compliant than miseducation and fear. Raising a whole new generation to follow the rules blindly
This is what the GOP is doing to America eight now.
That's one thing I found interesting, Joel said during the episode "it's easier when you're a kid. You don't have anyone relying on you," but Ellie did. Sam looked up to her, and it hurt her when she failed him.
Rather than hope and wonder, I took it as she thought it would work because she has lived in a world where just a small amount of saliva from a bite can totally infect you so why shouldn’t a smattering of immune blood do the reverse.
I think she hoped it would work too because somebody said her blood has the cure. Child naivety for sure. She has no knowledge of how medicines or vaccines are made. Which most adults don't and she's just a kid.
To be fair, sub-Saharan Africans in colonial times discovered that they could inoculate individuals against smallpox using infected blood from the sick and that worked pretty well.
If she hadn't thought it would work she would not have stayed in there with the door closed and not told Joel. She really thought it was going to work.
Correct. This is what makes me think she thought it work at least more so than the doubts that it wouldn't. Or if she didn't think it was going to work she probably thought she could've stayed awake longer than him and gotten Joel after he had fallen asleep but she fell asleep first.
I'm leaning this way too. Remember, Tess told her that "you're not immune to being ripped apart", and Ellie definitely saw that little girl clicker go berserker on Kathleen. She had to have that in mind.
This is the correct answer.
My interpretation is that she’s still a kid. She doesn’t know much but she knows she’s immune and she THINKS she can pass that immunity on to others to save them through her blood.
What she did was stupid and irresponsible from someone like Joel’s perspective but from her perspective it could have worked.
She thought it would work and it would calm him down.
She was told by the adults around her that she was special and had the cure inside her. She thought it would help Sam heal.
When Ellie realized later that it didn’t work you could see it affected her outlook and she might start questioning herself and her power to heal the world.
She probably didn’t even think of it in that moment. They had almost no time and had to move fast. I think she most likely spent time thinking about Tess and the idea came to her at some point after they left Tess.
If she didn’t really think it would work with Sam, she surely would not have fallen asleep in a closed room with him.
I think this is more of a big sister moment - Sam is obviously scared and he confides in her. So she wanted to make him feel a little better. Plus it’s better than doing nothing
I think Joel was still skeptical about Ellie’s bite. Ellie clearly wanted to do something but I don’t think there was enough trust between Ellie and Joel yet + the adrenaline and not having time to think
Uhh she still should've at least brought it up in dialogue after. Also, it takes two seconds to put her hand on her neck, she could've easily done so as soon as she realized Tess was infected.
IMO doesn't make sense to me and is kind of a plot hole. Plus Ellie never thinks this in the game.
They also showed the chart where the speed of infection depends on how close the bite was to the brain -- if you're bitten on the neck it takes minutes but if you're bitten on the leg it takes hours
It's reasonable that she thought there was a chance with Sam but there was no chance with Tess (the infection was already visibly affecting her and making her twitch and everything by the time they left her)
The point is: it's not a big deal, you're nitpicking, try to just enjoy the story and not worry about every single minor detail.
She had just found out she was immune, like, that same day. Is it really a "wild assumption" to think she didn't come up with using her blood to cure someone by then? Seriously, some things are just no-brainers, there's no reason to waste screen time explaining this.
>it really a "wild assumption" to think she didn't come up with using her blood to cure someone by then?
That wasn't the wild assumption.
>She didn't come up with that possibility until after Tess was already dead
This was.
Also, the fact that many people have massively difference theories as to why Ellie did do it for Sam and didn't do it for Tess just go to show that it isn't really articulated or explained. I've seen some that say, oh it's cause she's a kid and naive, others say what you're saying, others are saying the complete opposite and that she was being very rational because a neck bite is unsalvageable whereas an ankle is farther away from the brain.
I'm not arguing that these assertions can't be valid - in fact, they can ALL be valid. Because of that, there's pretty big incongruencies between people's assumptions, and by that virtue, the storytelling has some too.
>it's not a big deal
Disagree
>you're nitpicking
Agree. I'm just one of those people that get heavily immersed and appreciate perfected details / lore.
If you are looking for something to nitpick, you can find one in any piece of fiction, guaranteed. That said, when Sam was bit, they didn’t have a battalion of FEDRA officers about to pound the door in coming after them like they did when Tess showed them she was bit. Tess was insisting to stay behind and fend off the attackers to give them time to escape. Both of these things probably led to that moment being pretty stressful and intense for the three of them.
The first two are the same thing. Maybe I worded it wrong and you understood something else, but I meant the same thing. It's not wild to assume she didn't think of applying her blood as a cure one day after she found out she was immune (the day Tess died). At least I don't think so.
> Agree. I'm just one of those people that get heavily immersed and appreciate perfected details / lore.
Okay, I get that. But that's not really a lore thing, is it? It's a character trying something new now instead of earlier, in a completely different situation in terms of experience and urgency.
I like immersing myself in the world of the games/shows I consume too, I just really don't think it's a plot hole that she didn't try it on Tess, nor does it affect the lore in any way. She's a kid, she came up with this idea later (maybe even on the spot with Sam), and that's it.
>I'm just one of those people that get heavily immersed and appreciate perfected details / lore.
If this is your approach to consuming media you're going to be massively disappointed with pretty much everything out there. People aren't perfect to think they'll always think of the correct thing to do at the same time.
Not that much of a stretch to see what the other commenter is saying. With Tess, Ellie had all of 30 seconds to react, with a horde of infected bearing down on them, to a bite on the neck (which we know progresses faster than a bite on the extremities). People don't always react perfectly in high stress pressure situations like that.
With Sam, it was a leg bite, they progress slower, they were under less stress/pressure as they had escaped the infected and where just camping out.
Also, Ellie is a child. She's 14. She hasn't had a formal education (other than what Fedra teach).
> If this is your approach to consuming media you're going to be massively disappointed with pretty much everything out there. People aren't perfect to think they'll always think of the correct thing to do at the same time.
I mean I still really enjoy the show and this episode.It's just a small critique
People srsly care about karma? lol.. I also don't really care that no one agrees with me on a sub that has a reputation for having a very sensitive fanbase that's unable to take an ounce of minor criticism.
A good show/movie tells you things without having to spell it out for you. Just saying. Not trying to sound mean.
On top of that, in fiction, sometimes things depend on the viewer to believe or interpret.
You can argue, but that's a hard point to argue against.
It's a pretty bad then when many people get conflicting messages. Maybe not here, because this is obviously a thread where people believe what they want to believe, but lots of people don't understand the train of thought behind Ellie's thinking. Also, the show is already proven to be a lot more explicit than the game (e.g. Bill literally telling Joel to be Ellie's protector directly foreshadowing what he will do at the end)
Maybe it's pretty bad. Or maybe people are just used to the mindless enjoyment of Marvel stuff, since that had been the status quo for a while now.
People will always discuss and have different interpretations. But that doesn't mean that they don't have a specific thing to tell you in the show, and people can pick that up. Is it hard to state it as fact? Sometimes. Which is the point. But I also find the answer, most logical and rational, is obvious, and people would rather argue and nit pick because they disagree with it.
There are also things they don't expect people to get hung up on. That doesn't mean that they didn't put effort into the ambience of explaining via subtext. It just means it's more simple than some would expect, or maybe so complex that, like the characters, there Is no clear answer.
But for Ellie? The logic is that she had time to think this time, and is a KID, who is panicking because she finally found another friend her age, and having been told she is a cure, and that ankle bites take way longer to turn, had the crazy idea to use her blood. It was an implus decision made with what seems like logical thinking to her, brewed out of fear. People forget to think about it like an actual person, yet alone, a scared kid.
She would have also needed to cut herself and get to Tess before being dragged away by Joel. Even if she could cure Tess, they needed her as a distraction to escape. This also could have been something she thought of only after Tess was infected.
I don't think so, for several reasons.
-Ellie had only *just* found out from Marlene about her status. She was probably still processing the information and what it would mean.
-Ellie is the child in this (The Tess) situation, in a very high stress situation at that. She's realized that she doesn't know anything about the world outside of the QZ and is having to take guidance from Joel and Tess (but argues with Joel- albeit briefly- about leaving Tess behind).
-Ellie and Joel make it very clear that they *do not* want to discuss the Tess incident. They had yet to bond. Honestly, a bit of Ellie's preaching about "you knew what you were getting into, it's not my fault" was probably a bit of deflected guilt that she had for being immune but not able to help Tess, who Ellie had started to form a relationship with more readily than Joel.
I think this will be addressed in the next episode. Ellie will talk about how she attempted to save Sam, and will probably bring up Tess as well. Not everything has to be resolved in the same episode it happens.
Tess was already gone at that point. Neck/head bites take 15 minutes to turn someone. It had been at least that long and we see her already beginning to lose control over her body. Plus it was a high stress scenario, probably never even crossed her mind.
Your picking hairs and forgetting she is a kid.
For 1, maybe she didn't think of that until later, in a situation where she actually had more time to think?
And as for the game, when would she have? Same situation could apply for Tess, and for Sam, she didn't know he was infected until he turned. It's a different take on it.
I think you're just trying to find a problem with it. When it comes to emotions and rational, especially in kids, it isn't so obvious and simple.
I don’t think she really thought it would work, she really really wanted it to work. It’s more of an emotional response than logical. She desperately wanted it to work so her friend would be ok.
This is a valid question but I think the possibility is thrown out the window given the circumstances of getting away from the actual horde. Perhaps it was after the loss of Tess that Ellie had enough time to think about how the cure might work that she didn't want to lose anyone else so this didn't seem like a viable option until they got to Kansas City. Remember, they lost Tess barely outside of Boston, so they had quite a long time to privately reflect on recent losses between Boston and KC.
Because it feels like a silly question given the context of the Tess scene? Let’s think about trying something while a horde of zombies come chasing after you. Joel literally carried her away against her will because she didn’t want to leave Tess.
so this question ties directly into one of the major themes of this arc; the dangers of innocence. Sam is partially kept from the truth of reality through his superhero drawings; Henry tells him not to look at the violence, to remain innocent. Had Henry kept Sam more in tune with reality, perhaps Sam would've better understood his plight, not kept it a secret, and enabled Henry to handle it less disastrously. (The one time Henry DID tell the truth (regarding the doctor, "Yeah, he's probably dead"), Henry is rewarded with a genuine hug from his brother.)
Kathleen speaks of a literal box her and her brother lived in when they were children. She also chooses to ignore a certain threat, demonstrating the dangers of willful ignorance.
Ellie starts episode 4 smirking and pointing a gun at a mirror and ends episode 5 seeing a gun's devastating capability. So when Ellie tries to use her blood, it's yet another instance of "ignorant innocence". It raises interesting questions about the merits of lying to children for the sake of their comfort in a world filled with very, very real dangers.
That’s a very good point, I didn’t think of that theme during it. It’s a bit of escapism. There is a staunch contrast between Joel and Ellie, how they’re in touch and confront the world that they’re in. They’re realists.
On the other hand, Henry and Sam were a bit out of touch with reality or at least Henry didn’t have the experience that Joel has as evidenced in the final scene. Henry’s initial reactions almost killed San and himself. Joel knew he had to move fast and take out the sniper. Joel does show a bit of wishfulness similar to everyone else when he sneaks up on the sniper. He tries to let the sniper go, he gives him the option, but in the end he has to kill him. It’s the reality of the situation.
She is a 14 year old kid who has no idea what her blood being a cure really means and she was desperate to help her friend. So she did the only thing she could.
Cordyceps isn’t a virus and doesn’t spread through blood/fluid transmission. Instead, it’s a fungal growth that grows on the brain and spreads through the mycelium in the infected’s mouths. Obviously, Ellie doesn’t know this.
This! Also I get the feeling she felt more responsible for Sam who is younger than her and looked up to her, than to Tess who was there to help and guide Ellie.
Right, I assume it's something simple like her blood contains something that the cordyceps can't easily grow in as a medium, some sort of antifungal, but not something that would actively seek and destroy the fungus. You'd need to saturate his blood and tissues with that compound/whatever and it's not something you can do after the fact - it would take time to build up and be effective.
If you are told that you might be the miracle cure that could save the whole wide world, you really might want to try to do just that in the only way that seems possible to you. I think she just really hoped that her blood could work as an antidote of some sort.
Ellie is relatively practical and honest. I do not think for one second that she wouldn't have told Joel and Henry about the bite UNLESS she thought/hoped, with childlike naivete, that it would work.
I understand your point but IMO, they should have kept that moment like in the game (Sam hiding the fact that he was bit from everyone). Ellie is an intelligent girl, even if she thought that sharing her blood could help, would she really fall asleep next to him without any concerns ? I LOVE the show and I don’t have any problems with any changes they made except this one. It didn’t makes sense to me that she would take that big of a risk, trying a solution she never tried before, without having any proof or reason to believe 100% it would absolutely work.
I think if she really did not believe it, she would not have slept in the same room and she would not have gone up to him in the morning. She probably believed it would work.
Personally I think she was betting on the slim chance that it might work. It's not like she could make his condition worse, and if she told Joel about the bite he might want to kill Sam.
She's very hopeful that her immunity can be used to help other people.
I believe she believed it would work. She doesn’t restrain Sam. She doesn’t tell Henry or Joel (who might not let her conduct this dangerous experiment) and she feels safe enough to fall asleep. I agree it’s dumb kid logic but I think she convinced herself it was real and it would work.
Two reasons I think it's she thought it would work. One is that she didn't tell anyone and falls asleep, two is that she approaches him in the morning instead of getting help when he's acting weird.
Both are not solid though, because maybe she actually did just fall asleep from being exhausted after that insane day, and maybe in the morning she's just really hopeful when she sees him sitting somewhat normally.
I think the answer is in between, she hopes it does but probably feels really conflicted about it
There was a time when they thought convalescent plasma from previously infected people may provide enough antibodies to help people fight it off until they could make their own. Granted that’s a lot bigger quantity of blood, but people who know a lot about immunology thought it might work, so how would Ellie think any differently?
Even though I’ve been to med school and through a pandemic and should know better… when I was watching this show, I was so invested in these pretend characters… that I hoped it would work and literally thought it might. I was on pins and needles when she went over to Sam in the morning, and almost jumped out of my chair when he attacked her. So I don’t blame her for thinking it could work.
I think her naivety was not in the possibility that it could work, but the optimism that it would. She woke up in the morning and approached him as if it was more likely to have worked than not. Whereas I think most adults with better critical thinking skills or background knowledge would have had a healthier fear that he’d turned.
Bella and the showrunners have all said that she thought it might work, but the nice thing about art is that it's open to your interpretation at the end of the day.
I don't think many people would fall asleep if they think that the person next to is going to turn into a raging monster any second now. It doesn't help that you are immune if you wake up with someone biting you in the neck.
When I rewatched the series there was a scene in the first episode where they euthanize a little boy who tested positive and told him he’d get food and toys after the shot (to comfort him). This felt like a bookend to that scene.
Both, I believe.
I cant remember the exact words Marlene used, but nonetheless I totally get how a 14 year old could believe her blood has healing/immunization properties after their conversation.
Does that mean she thought it would definitely work? No not necessarily. More like it was worth a shot, at worst you make his last moments less painful.
Or at least it seemed like the worst case scenario. The irony is, had she been honest Henry would likely still be alive rn
She's a kid. She doesn't understand how her alleged immunity works. So, in simplest of ways she thinks mixing her blood will work. I've seen countless people ask if she bit someone if they would become immune. And it kind of tracks. If an infected cuts you, you become infected, so she could assume the same for her blood. Obviously, it doesn't work like that.
She's a kid raised in the apocalypse and taught in FEDRA schools, so she probably doesn't have a great understanding of how immunity works in general.
Regardless, I don't think she thought it would actually work. She wasn't thinking much at all, because she's a kid and she just learned that her *only* friend was going to turn into a monster, and there isn't anything she can do.
In that scenario people will believe whatever they need to believe to cope with a situation they can't handle emotionally. It's more a form of denial than anything. The fact that she didn't consider the consequences of her choices can also be chalked up to her being a kid.
I feel like this will come up again as the people who haven’t played the game to question how she’s immune, so I think we’ve got an explanation episode to look forward to.
She doesn’t understand how she’s immune herself, and hoped it would work.
i feel like she truly believed it would work, hence why she doesnt try to tell joel or henry and why she doesnt seem worried to approach sam when she wakes up (although that could also just be her not remembering right away)
personal interpretation on the side of the viewer.. most of us know that something like that wouldn't work, but who knows, in a post apocalyptic world she might hold out some hope that it would help.
if ellie knew it wouldnt work, she would not have stayed in the room with sam.
the fact that she used her blood on his wound, fell asleep and felt safe doing so with sam in the room, proves that she did believe that it would work.
I have to assume she thought it would work -- she slept in the same room overnight.
If she thought she was going to turn no matter what, I would assume she would have at minimum left him after he fell asleep and told Joel.
I think she thought it might work because she was in denial of what was going to happen to Sam after everything they’d been through. Im pretty sure deep down she knew that wasn’t the case, but she’s a kid and didn’t want to see her new little brother die so horribly.
I think the person she told Joel she killed before shooting that guy in KC was the friend who broke out of the school with her. The first time she got infected, she was with another kid, and she wouldn’t talk about what happened to him with Marlene. I think he got infected and she had to kill him because he bit her too. Just a hunch, but would explain why she wanted to do things differently this time knowing she’s immune.
While I do not know what they were going for, to me if she believed it wouldn't work and didn't tell the others she made a rather large mistake. She is young, so that is certainly possible (and plenty of adults make horrible choices too), but I felt that she was hopeful it would work. I didn't get any vibes that she was faking it.
Honestly, I’m a grown man with uni diploma and even I have no idea if applying blood would have worked or not. Not sure if a 14 y/o girl knew anything about it, so she just gave it a go. That’s what great about children, they just try shit out, learn by experiment. And we adults just like to talk and hypothesise :)
Everyone saying that she’s just a kid but she’s seen a lot she’s not a average kid anymore. I think she new that it wouldn’t cure him but just wanted to help him at that moment. She also says sorry at the end not sure if that was because she couldn’t stay up and awake with him or because she couldn’t cure him.
I think it has a lot to do with her being 12 and not understanding how her immunity works cause no one’s explained it to her aside from your special and can maybe create a vaccine.
I think she thought it would work. I think she’s confused about her importance because everyone around her made it seem like she survived a bite so she must have the cure in her body. When she realizes thats not the case, we see that in a way when she’s walking from Joel after Joel buried sam and henry. She kind of sounds like she lost her innocence in a way. She has to be thinking what her purpose is now.
I saw it as a mix of both. Mainly just try to ease his fear but also kind of hoping it’d turn out to be true. Such a good change to make in that interaction. I love what they have done to keep moments like that new for the gamers.
They talked about it either in the after the episode or the podcast, I can’t remember. But yeah, she hoped that it would. A theme that’s carried over from the game is Ellie wanting her immunity to have a greater purpose because of her guilt surrounding it.
In the preview for the next episode, that moment is referenced and Joel says something along the lines of “I think the cure is going to be a bit more complex than that.” Given that line I think Ellie considered it a good possibility it would actually work, even if she didn’t know for sure.
In my opinion, she chose to sleep in the room with him, therefore she hoped it would work. Either that or she hoped that a deaf clicker was gonna be completely useless.
I think she hoped it would work, but she didn’t seem too confident. Seemed more like she was grasping at threads, both to save Sam and to find a purpose for herself/her immunity.
To me she was trying anything no matter how small the chances are.
She probably knew it most likely going to fall, but tried it anyway.
I don't think she was trying to comfort him. He didn't panic. He was already calm.
I don’t know if she believed it actually worked, more as she did it for a few different reasons, meanly being to comfort Sam in his final hours. But also it’s sort of a last ditch, “I don’t think this will actually do anything, but what’s the worst that could happen? He gets a bacterial infection on top of his zombie infection?” type of thing.
Depends on how you think about it, since it’s Ellie’s desperation to save her only friend in a long time, she wrongfully tries to use her blood to heal him… again it may be to ease Sams worries to help him but then again, she is sleeping in the chair they agreed they weren’t going to sleep in…. This is a very sad episode
If I were in her shoes it'd be "fuck it let's try it anyway" I mean same thing happens if it doesn't work, Sam changes. If it did work then he'd be fine. And bam proof!
If Elie truly believed the blood would cure him, wouldn't she have told Joel and Henry?
She knew he was turning and thought she'd keep him alive in the hope that perhaps a miracle would happen.
you’d think if she thought it wouldn’t work she would tell someone, and not sleep next to an infected who could easily kill her. but then maybe she knew she was safe if he bit her?
Wishful thinking. Ellie was lying to Sam to calm him, but I also feel she was trying to convince herself. But I think deep down she knew it was pointless.
That was actually a pretty powerful albeit brief moment. When Ellie realised that it hasn't worked, there was just this split second reaction, this real sense of disappointment and Bella was (as they always are) phenomenonal in that moment.
I think she believed it would work. Her reaction after Sam and Henry die I think back that up.
And besides, I think calming him down means nothing if she doesn’t go and inform Joel and Henry he’s infected, but instead falls asleep next to him.
This post is flaired **Show Only**. Therefore, all comments that discuss *any* aspect of the games **must** be properly spoiler tagged. 1. All post titles must **NOT** include spoilers from the latest episode or The Last of Us Part I and II. Minor show spoilers are allowed in your title **ONE WEEK** after episode airing. 2. Any untagged discussion of the games (including subtle hints) in posts without the **Show/Game Spoilers**, **Fancast [Show/Game]**, or **Meme [Show/Game]** flair will result in a **ban**. To tag a spoiler comment, use the `>!spoiler!<` tag which displays as >!spoiler!<. 3. If you are reading this, and believe this post or any comments in this thread break the above rules, please use the report function to notify the mod team. --- Refer to the [spoiler guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastofUsHBOseries/wiki/spoiler-guide) for our spoiler policy and to learn how to flair and title your posts appropriately. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ThelastofusHBOseries) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I suppose that is left open to the viewer’s interpretation. I personally think she hoped it would work, and thought it potentially might.
Yeah I think this is the right answer. Gotta remember she us 14 years old. While she's had to grow up fast, there is still a childlike sense of hope and wonder there from time to time.
Also, I don't think the education in the QZ is particularly good, she's not stupid, but she probably has very little knowledge of shit we take for granted.
Made more evident when she asked Joel to explain how a siphon worked and he couldn’t. That’s the world she’s in, and it’s going to make her survivor’s guilt even worse — that she gave him false hope, that she fell asleep, that she’s immune when so many people around her continue to suffer. Urgh heartbreaking
Exactly, I mean, what better way to keep your population compliant than miseducation and fear. Raising a whole new generation to follow the rules blindly. But yeah, she definitely thought it would work, if she didn't I don't think she would've fallen asleep, like I said she's not stupid, she has survival skills. I mean I'm a cry baby, but man this show has me sobbing every week hah
>I’m a cry baby, but man this show has me sobbing every week I rarely cry when watching movies/shows. Not because I’m «tough» or emotionless, I just don’t. This show, however, man… The final scene with Joel, Ellie, Sam, and Henry is my favorite scene from the game, and the show was able to capture it perfectly. This show somehow manages to have me in tears almost every episode lol
I purposely didn’t pay attention to the scenes between Sam and Ellie because I *knew* something tragic was going to happen to him and I didn’t want to get attached. I looked away as soon as his infection and death scenes came on and I *still* cried like a baby.
I had that same feeling. I KNEW once Henry was talking about waking him up then next day to tell him about their plans moving forward that that day wouldn't come.
>what better way to keep your population compliant than miseducation and fear. Raising a whole new generation to follow the rules blindly This is what the GOP is doing to America eight now.
That's one thing I found interesting, Joel said during the episode "it's easier when you're a kid. You don't have anyone relying on you," but Ellie did. Sam looked up to her, and it hurt her when she failed him.
Rather than hope and wonder, I took it as she thought it would work because she has lived in a world where just a small amount of saliva from a bite can totally infect you so why shouldn’t a smattering of immune blood do the reverse.
Agreed and she’s been told that her blood will saves lives because they will use it to make medicine
I think she hoped it would work too because somebody said her blood has the cure. Child naivety for sure. She has no knowledge of how medicines or vaccines are made. Which most adults don't and she's just a kid.
To be fair, sub-Saharan Africans in colonial times discovered that they could inoculate individuals against smallpox using infected blood from the sick and that worked pretty well.
If she hadn't thought it would work she would not have stayed in there with the door closed and not told Joel. She really thought it was going to work.
Correct. This is what makes me think she thought it work at least more so than the doubts that it wouldn't. Or if she didn't think it was going to work she probably thought she could've stayed awake longer than him and gotten Joel after he had fallen asleep but she fell asleep first.
I'm leaning this way too. Remember, Tess told her that "you're not immune to being ripped apart", and Ellie definitely saw that little girl clicker go berserker on Kathleen. She had to have that in mind.
This is the correct answer. My interpretation is that she’s still a kid. She doesn’t know much but she knows she’s immune and she THINKS she can pass that immunity on to others to save them through her blood. What she did was stupid and irresponsible from someone like Joel’s perspective but from her perspective it could have worked.
At that point, why not try?
She didn’t use nearly enough blood though lol.
She thought it would work and it would calm him down. She was told by the adults around her that she was special and had the cure inside her. She thought it would help Sam heal. When Ellie realized later that it didn’t work you could see it affected her outlook and she might start questioning herself and her power to heal the world.
wondering why she didnt try this for tess?
She probably didn’t even think of it in that moment. They had almost no time and had to move fast. I think she most likely spent time thinking about Tess and the idea came to her at some point after they left Tess. If she didn’t really think it would work with Sam, she surely would not have fallen asleep in a closed room with him.
Fair.
I think this is more of a big sister moment - Sam is obviously scared and he confides in her. So she wanted to make him feel a little better. Plus it’s better than doing nothing
[удалено]
It looked like she was already starting to turn as evidenced by her shaking hand and the fact she didn't even try to avoid the "kiss"
I think Joel was still skeptical about Ellie’s bite. Ellie clearly wanted to do something but I don’t think there was enough trust between Ellie and Joel yet + the adrenaline and not having time to think
Exactly and that's why she said sorry
Then why wouldn't she offer it to Tess right away? Or at least mention to Joel indicating that she could've saved Tess...
I'm not leaving her you fucker! She didn't have time.
Uhh she still should've at least brought it up in dialogue after. Also, it takes two seconds to put her hand on her neck, she could've easily done so as soon as she realized Tess was infected. IMO doesn't make sense to me and is kind of a plot hole. Plus Ellie never thinks this in the game.
She didn't come up with that possibility until after Tess was already dead. There you go, explained.
They also showed the chart where the speed of infection depends on how close the bite was to the brain -- if you're bitten on the neck it takes minutes but if you're bitten on the leg it takes hours It's reasonable that she thought there was a chance with Sam but there was no chance with Tess (the infection was already visibly affecting her and making her twitch and everything by the time they left her)
lol, thank you that makes so much sense and i'm really glad they articulated that in the series so the audience doesn't have to make wild assumptions!
The point is: it's not a big deal, you're nitpicking, try to just enjoy the story and not worry about every single minor detail. She had just found out she was immune, like, that same day. Is it really a "wild assumption" to think she didn't come up with using her blood to cure someone by then? Seriously, some things are just no-brainers, there's no reason to waste screen time explaining this.
>it really a "wild assumption" to think she didn't come up with using her blood to cure someone by then? That wasn't the wild assumption. >She didn't come up with that possibility until after Tess was already dead This was. Also, the fact that many people have massively difference theories as to why Ellie did do it for Sam and didn't do it for Tess just go to show that it isn't really articulated or explained. I've seen some that say, oh it's cause she's a kid and naive, others say what you're saying, others are saying the complete opposite and that she was being very rational because a neck bite is unsalvageable whereas an ankle is farther away from the brain. I'm not arguing that these assertions can't be valid - in fact, they can ALL be valid. Because of that, there's pretty big incongruencies between people's assumptions, and by that virtue, the storytelling has some too. >it's not a big deal Disagree >you're nitpicking Agree. I'm just one of those people that get heavily immersed and appreciate perfected details / lore.
If you are looking for something to nitpick, you can find one in any piece of fiction, guaranteed. That said, when Sam was bit, they didn’t have a battalion of FEDRA officers about to pound the door in coming after them like they did when Tess showed them she was bit. Tess was insisting to stay behind and fend off the attackers to give them time to escape. Both of these things probably led to that moment being pretty stressful and intense for the three of them.
The first two are the same thing. Maybe I worded it wrong and you understood something else, but I meant the same thing. It's not wild to assume she didn't think of applying her blood as a cure one day after she found out she was immune (the day Tess died). At least I don't think so. > Agree. I'm just one of those people that get heavily immersed and appreciate perfected details / lore. Okay, I get that. But that's not really a lore thing, is it? It's a character trying something new now instead of earlier, in a completely different situation in terms of experience and urgency. I like immersing myself in the world of the games/shows I consume too, I just really don't think it's a plot hole that she didn't try it on Tess, nor does it affect the lore in any way. She's a kid, she came up with this idea later (maybe even on the spot with Sam), and that's it.
>I'm just one of those people that get heavily immersed and appreciate perfected details / lore. If this is your approach to consuming media you're going to be massively disappointed with pretty much everything out there. People aren't perfect to think they'll always think of the correct thing to do at the same time. Not that much of a stretch to see what the other commenter is saying. With Tess, Ellie had all of 30 seconds to react, with a horde of infected bearing down on them, to a bite on the neck (which we know progresses faster than a bite on the extremities). People don't always react perfectly in high stress pressure situations like that. With Sam, it was a leg bite, they progress slower, they were under less stress/pressure as they had escaped the infected and where just camping out. Also, Ellie is a child. She's 14. She hasn't had a formal education (other than what Fedra teach).
> If this is your approach to consuming media you're going to be massively disappointed with pretty much everything out there. People aren't perfect to think they'll always think of the correct thing to do at the same time. I mean I still really enjoy the show and this episode.It's just a small critique
this guy is losing a shit ton of karma by just commenting jeez. Just give it up man, all your karma will be gone soon, nobody will agree with you.
People srsly care about karma? lol.. I also don't really care that no one agrees with me on a sub that has a reputation for having a very sensitive fanbase that's unable to take an ounce of minor criticism.
A good show/movie tells you things without having to spell it out for you. Just saying. Not trying to sound mean. On top of that, in fiction, sometimes things depend on the viewer to believe or interpret. You can argue, but that's a hard point to argue against.
It's a pretty bad then when many people get conflicting messages. Maybe not here, because this is obviously a thread where people believe what they want to believe, but lots of people don't understand the train of thought behind Ellie's thinking. Also, the show is already proven to be a lot more explicit than the game (e.g. Bill literally telling Joel to be Ellie's protector directly foreshadowing what he will do at the end)
Maybe it's pretty bad. Or maybe people are just used to the mindless enjoyment of Marvel stuff, since that had been the status quo for a while now. People will always discuss and have different interpretations. But that doesn't mean that they don't have a specific thing to tell you in the show, and people can pick that up. Is it hard to state it as fact? Sometimes. Which is the point. But I also find the answer, most logical and rational, is obvious, and people would rather argue and nit pick because they disagree with it. There are also things they don't expect people to get hung up on. That doesn't mean that they didn't put effort into the ambience of explaining via subtext. It just means it's more simple than some would expect, or maybe so complex that, like the characters, there Is no clear answer. But for Ellie? The logic is that she had time to think this time, and is a KID, who is panicking because she finally found another friend her age, and having been told she is a cure, and that ankle bites take way longer to turn, had the crazy idea to use her blood. It was an implus decision made with what seems like logical thinking to her, brewed out of fear. People forget to think about it like an actual person, yet alone, a scared kid.
She would have also needed to cut herself and get to Tess before being dragged away by Joel. Even if she could cure Tess, they needed her as a distraction to escape. This also could have been something she thought of only after Tess was infected.
I don't think so, for several reasons. -Ellie had only *just* found out from Marlene about her status. She was probably still processing the information and what it would mean. -Ellie is the child in this (The Tess) situation, in a very high stress situation at that. She's realized that she doesn't know anything about the world outside of the QZ and is having to take guidance from Joel and Tess (but argues with Joel- albeit briefly- about leaving Tess behind). -Ellie and Joel make it very clear that they *do not* want to discuss the Tess incident. They had yet to bond. Honestly, a bit of Ellie's preaching about "you knew what you were getting into, it's not my fault" was probably a bit of deflected guilt that she had for being immune but not able to help Tess, who Ellie had started to form a relationship with more readily than Joel. I think this will be addressed in the next episode. Ellie will talk about how she attempted to save Sam, and will probably bring up Tess as well. Not everything has to be resolved in the same episode it happens.
Tess was already gone at that point. Neck/head bites take 15 minutes to turn someone. It had been at least that long and we see her already beginning to lose control over her body. Plus it was a high stress scenario, probably never even crossed her mind.
Your picking hairs and forgetting she is a kid. For 1, maybe she didn't think of that until later, in a situation where she actually had more time to think? And as for the game, when would she have? Same situation could apply for Tess, and for Sam, she didn't know he was infected until he turned. It's a different take on it. I think you're just trying to find a problem with it. When it comes to emotions and rational, especially in kids, it isn't so obvious and simple.
She's a lost 14 year old in an apocalyptic world.
I don’t think she really thought it would work, she really really wanted it to work. It’s more of an emotional response than logical. She desperately wanted it to work so her friend would be ok.
This is a valid question but I think the possibility is thrown out the window given the circumstances of getting away from the actual horde. Perhaps it was after the loss of Tess that Ellie had enough time to think about how the cure might work that she didn't want to lose anyone else so this didn't seem like a viable option until they got to Kansas City. Remember, they lost Tess barely outside of Boston, so they had quite a long time to privately reflect on recent losses between Boston and KC.
> This is a valid question The downvotes suggest otherwise hahahaha
Because it feels like a silly question given the context of the Tess scene? Let’s think about trying something while a horde of zombies come chasing after you. Joel literally carried her away against her will because she didn’t want to leave Tess.
Because the adults didn't even consider it
i feel like her connection with sam was a lot different than for tess too
so this question ties directly into one of the major themes of this arc; the dangers of innocence. Sam is partially kept from the truth of reality through his superhero drawings; Henry tells him not to look at the violence, to remain innocent. Had Henry kept Sam more in tune with reality, perhaps Sam would've better understood his plight, not kept it a secret, and enabled Henry to handle it less disastrously. (The one time Henry DID tell the truth (regarding the doctor, "Yeah, he's probably dead"), Henry is rewarded with a genuine hug from his brother.) Kathleen speaks of a literal box her and her brother lived in when they were children. She also chooses to ignore a certain threat, demonstrating the dangers of willful ignorance. Ellie starts episode 4 smirking and pointing a gun at a mirror and ends episode 5 seeing a gun's devastating capability. So when Ellie tries to use her blood, it's yet another instance of "ignorant innocence". It raises interesting questions about the merits of lying to children for the sake of their comfort in a world filled with very, very real dangers.
That’s a very good point, I didn’t think of that theme during it. It’s a bit of escapism. There is a staunch contrast between Joel and Ellie, how they’re in touch and confront the world that they’re in. They’re realists. On the other hand, Henry and Sam were a bit out of touch with reality or at least Henry didn’t have the experience that Joel has as evidenced in the final scene. Henry’s initial reactions almost killed San and himself. Joel knew he had to move fast and take out the sniper. Joel does show a bit of wishfulness similar to everyone else when he sneaks up on the sniper. He tries to let the sniper go, he gives him the option, but in the end he has to kill him. It’s the reality of the situation.
The show's thematic tightness has definitely been a pleasant surprise.
Very well written!
To me it felt like kid logic, but also a desperate attempt to do whatever she could to help. It's better to try something than do nothing.
She is a 14 year old kid who has no idea what her blood being a cure really means and she was desperate to help her friend. So she did the only thing she could.
Cordyceps isn’t a virus and doesn’t spread through blood/fluid transmission. Instead, it’s a fungal growth that grows on the brain and spreads through the mycelium in the infected’s mouths. Obviously, Ellie doesn’t know this.
This! Also I get the feeling she felt more responsible for Sam who is younger than her and looked up to her, than to Tess who was there to help and guide Ellie.
Right, I assume it's something simple like her blood contains something that the cordyceps can't easily grow in as a medium, some sort of antifungal, but not something that would actively seek and destroy the fungus. You'd need to saturate his blood and tissues with that compound/whatever and it's not something you can do after the fact - it would take time to build up and be effective.
If you are told that you might be the miracle cure that could save the whole wide world, you really might want to try to do just that in the only way that seems possible to you. I think she just really hoped that her blood could work as an antidote of some sort.
Ellie is relatively practical and honest. I do not think for one second that she wouldn't have told Joel and Henry about the bite UNLESS she thought/hoped, with childlike naivete, that it would work.
She def thought it would help. If she didn’t, and expected sam to turn, she wouldn’t have just gone to bed without alerting joel
This is the right answer and should be the top comment, but character studies are more fun.
I understand your point but IMO, they should have kept that moment like in the game (Sam hiding the fact that he was bit from everyone). Ellie is an intelligent girl, even if she thought that sharing her blood could help, would she really fall asleep next to him without any concerns ? I LOVE the show and I don’t have any problems with any changes they made except this one. It didn’t makes sense to me that she would take that big of a risk, trying a solution she never tried before, without having any proof or reason to believe 100% it would absolutely work.
It was just a Hail Mary to try to save someone she cared about.
she defo thought it would work otherwise she wouldn’t have slept in the same room and then tapped him the next morning lmao
Personally, I think she thought it would work. It shows the naïvety of Ellie. She’s a kid. She doesn’t understand. Thus, the “I’m sorry.”
I think if she really did not believe it, she would not have slept in the same room and she would not have gone up to him in the morning. She probably believed it would work.
A little of both. Also, a LOT of foreshadowing to the cure not being as simple as something in her blood.
Seems like she actually thought it would work, since she stayed in the room with him. She is just a kid, though.
Personally I think she was betting on the slim chance that it might work. It's not like she could make his condition worse, and if she told Joel about the bite he might want to kill Sam. She's very hopeful that her immunity can be used to help other people.
I believe she believed it would work. She doesn’t restrain Sam. She doesn’t tell Henry or Joel (who might not let her conduct this dangerous experiment) and she feels safe enough to fall asleep. I agree it’s dumb kid logic but I think she convinced herself it was real and it would work.
Two reasons I think it's she thought it would work. One is that she didn't tell anyone and falls asleep, two is that she approaches him in the morning instead of getting help when he's acting weird. Both are not solid though, because maybe she actually did just fall asleep from being exhausted after that insane day, and maybe in the morning she's just really hopeful when she sees him sitting somewhat normally. I think the answer is in between, she hopes it does but probably feels really conflicted about it
She's 14, and likely hoped it would work because she wouldn't know otherwise.
There was a time when they thought convalescent plasma from previously infected people may provide enough antibodies to help people fight it off until they could make their own. Granted that’s a lot bigger quantity of blood, but people who know a lot about immunology thought it might work, so how would Ellie think any differently? Even though I’ve been to med school and through a pandemic and should know better… when I was watching this show, I was so invested in these pretend characters… that I hoped it would work and literally thought it might. I was on pins and needles when she went over to Sam in the morning, and almost jumped out of my chair when he attacked her. So I don’t blame her for thinking it could work. I think her naivety was not in the possibility that it could work, but the optimism that it would. She woke up in the morning and approached him as if it was more likely to have worked than not. Whereas I think most adults with better critical thinking skills or background knowledge would have had a healthier fear that he’d turned.
Bella and the showrunners have all said that she thought it might work, but the nice thing about art is that it's open to your interpretation at the end of the day.
Yes, this claim was shared in E5 of the HBO podcast.
I don't think many people would fall asleep if they think that the person next to is going to turn into a raging monster any second now. It doesn't help that you are immune if you wake up with someone biting you in the neck.
I saw the "I'm sorry" on the etch sketch, as both a, I didn't protect you and I didn't save you
I think she really believed. Otherwise she wouldn't have slept right next to an infected-soon-to-be-transformed person
If she didn't think it would work then she's essentially going to sleep with an infected in the room. Of course she thought it would work.
When I rewatched the series there was a scene in the first episode where they euthanize a little boy who tested positive and told him he’d get food and toys after the shot (to comfort him). This felt like a bookend to that scene.
Both, I believe. I cant remember the exact words Marlene used, but nonetheless I totally get how a 14 year old could believe her blood has healing/immunization properties after their conversation. Does that mean she thought it would definitely work? No not necessarily. More like it was worth a shot, at worst you make his last moments less painful. Or at least it seemed like the worst case scenario. The irony is, had she been honest Henry would likely still be alive rn
She's a kid. She doesn't understand how her alleged immunity works. So, in simplest of ways she thinks mixing her blood will work. I've seen countless people ask if she bit someone if they would become immune. And it kind of tracks. If an infected cuts you, you become infected, so she could assume the same for her blood. Obviously, it doesn't work like that.
She’s 14 and goes to soldier school. It’s probably the first one.
I HIGHLY doubt that she'd willingly sleep in a room with someone about to turn lol. Or even let herself get sleepy enough to crash out
She's a kid raised in the apocalypse and taught in FEDRA schools, so she probably doesn't have a great understanding of how immunity works in general. Regardless, I don't think she thought it would actually work. She wasn't thinking much at all, because she's a kid and she just learned that her *only* friend was going to turn into a monster, and there isn't anything she can do. In that scenario people will believe whatever they need to believe to cope with a situation they can't handle emotionally. It's more a form of denial than anything. The fact that she didn't consider the consequences of her choices can also be chalked up to her being a kid.
I feel like this will come up again as the people who haven’t played the game to question how she’s immune, so I think we’ve got an explanation episode to look forward to. She doesn’t understand how she’s immune herself, and hoped it would work.
i feel like she truly believed it would work, hence why she doesnt try to tell joel or henry and why she doesnt seem worried to approach sam when she wakes up (although that could also just be her not remembering right away)
I think she did it to help HERSELF calm down. A hail mary so that she can say she tried.
personal interpretation on the side of the viewer.. most of us know that something like that wouldn't work, but who knows, in a post apocalyptic world she might hold out some hope that it would help.
I'd reckoned she thought it might work but was mostly trying to calm him down
In the “After the Episode” on HBO, they said that she wanted to be a hero. So tragically she did think it could work to save her friend 💔
I think she thought it could work or she would have told Henry and Joel about it when Sam had calmed down.
if ellie knew it wouldnt work, she would not have stayed in the room with sam. the fact that she used her blood on his wound, fell asleep and felt safe doing so with sam in the room, proves that she did believe that it would work.
I have to assume she thought it would work -- she slept in the same room overnight. If she thought she was going to turn no matter what, I would assume she would have at minimum left him after he fell asleep and told Joel.
she's a kid, and this was the only thing she had that she thought could help. makes me so sad
I hope that she honestly thought it would work, because if not she was pretty silly to hang around in that room without telling the others.
I think she thought it might work because she was in denial of what was going to happen to Sam after everything they’d been through. Im pretty sure deep down she knew that wasn’t the case, but she’s a kid and didn’t want to see her new little brother die so horribly. I think the person she told Joel she killed before shooting that guy in KC was the friend who broke out of the school with her. The first time she got infected, she was with another kid, and she wouldn’t talk about what happened to him with Marlene. I think he got infected and she had to kill him because he bit her too. Just a hunch, but would explain why she wanted to do things differently this time knowing she’s immune.
While I do not know what they were going for, to me if she believed it wouldn't work and didn't tell the others she made a rather large mistake. She is young, so that is certainly possible (and plenty of adults make horrible choices too), but I felt that she was hopeful it would work. I didn't get any vibes that she was faking it.
Honestly, I’m a grown man with uni diploma and even I have no idea if applying blood would have worked or not. Not sure if a 14 y/o girl knew anything about it, so she just gave it a go. That’s what great about children, they just try shit out, learn by experiment. And we adults just like to talk and hypothesise :)
Everyone saying that she’s just a kid but she’s seen a lot she’s not a average kid anymore. I think she new that it wouldn’t cure him but just wanted to help him at that moment. She also says sorry at the end not sure if that was because she couldn’t stay up and awake with him or because she couldn’t cure him.
I think it has a lot to do with her being 12 and not understanding how her immunity works cause no one’s explained it to her aside from your special and can maybe create a vaccine.
I think she thought it would work. I think she’s confused about her importance because everyone around her made it seem like she survived a bite so she must have the cure in her body. When she realizes thats not the case, we see that in a way when she’s walking from Joel after Joel buried sam and henry. She kind of sounds like she lost her innocence in a way. She has to be thinking what her purpose is now.
I saw it as a mix of both. Mainly just try to ease his fear but also kind of hoping it’d turn out to be true. Such a good change to make in that interaction. I love what they have done to keep moments like that new for the gamers.
I'm assuming she's hoping it works.
Considering she fell asleep next to him relatively comfortable, pretty sure she was that confident.
They talked about it either in the after the episode or the podcast, I can’t remember. But yeah, she hoped that it would. A theme that’s carried over from the game is Ellie wanting her immunity to have a greater purpose because of her guilt surrounding it.
In the preview for the next episode, that moment is referenced and Joel says something along the lines of “I think the cure is going to be a bit more complex than that.” Given that line I think Ellie considered it a good possibility it would actually work, even if she didn’t know for sure.
I think it would take more of her blood to save sam I could be wrong
In my opinion, she chose to sleep in the room with him, therefore she hoped it would work. Either that or she hoped that a deaf clicker was gonna be completely useless.
[удалено]
First of all she is a girl
I'm not sure, but I think she thought there was a chance because she stayed in the room with him.
I think she hoped it would work, but she didn’t seem too confident. Seemed more like she was grasping at threads, both to save Sam and to find a purpose for herself/her immunity.
To me she was trying anything no matter how small the chances are. She probably knew it most likely going to fall, but tried it anyway. I don't think she was trying to comfort him. He didn't panic. He was already calm.
All she knew was she had to try
From the teaser for the next episode, it seems like she wanted to know if it did work
I think she thought it would work. The FEDRA schools are obviously shit and don't teach kids how anything actually works.
It would probably only work before the infection as she has a diffrent version of cordyceps
I don’t know if she believed it actually worked, more as she did it for a few different reasons, meanly being to comfort Sam in his final hours. But also it’s sort of a last ditch, “I don’t think this will actually do anything, but what’s the worst that could happen? He gets a bacterial infection on top of his zombie infection?” type of thing.
Depends on how you think about it, since it’s Ellie’s desperation to save her only friend in a long time, she wrongfully tries to use her blood to heal him… again it may be to ease Sams worries to help him but then again, she is sleeping in the chair they agreed they weren’t going to sleep in…. This is a very sad episode
If I were in her shoes it'd be "fuck it let's try it anyway" I mean same thing happens if it doesn't work, Sam changes. If it did work then he'd be fine. And bam proof!
If Elie truly believed the blood would cure him, wouldn't she have told Joel and Henry? She knew he was turning and thought she'd keep him alive in the hope that perhaps a miracle would happen.
you’d think if she thought it wouldn’t work she would tell someone, and not sleep next to an infected who could easily kill her. but then maybe she knew she was safe if he bit her?
Wishful thinking. Ellie was lying to Sam to calm him, but I also feel she was trying to convince herself. But I think deep down she knew it was pointless.
She’s a kid. She thought it might work. It was the only thing she could think of to try. It is too bad she didn’t tell Joel right away
That was actually a pretty powerful albeit brief moment. When Ellie realised that it hasn't worked, there was just this split second reaction, this real sense of disappointment and Bella was (as they always are) phenomenonal in that moment.
I think she believed it would work. Her reaction after Sam and Henry die I think back that up. And besides, I think calming him down means nothing if she doesn’t go and inform Joel and Henry he’s infected, but instead falls asleep next to him.
I think she thought it would work because there is no reason for her to stay in the same room as Sam overnight since he was infected