The Last of Us Part 2 centers almost exclusively on the paralleled heartache endured by Ellie and Abby. It may initially be easier to side and sympathize with Ellie because players have spent so much time with her and Joel in The Last of Us Part 1, especially in the years between Part 1 and Part 2’s releases. Joel isn’t in much of The Last of Us Part 2 aside from his death scene and intermittent flashbacks, but his actions at the end of the first game are the catalytic root of every retaliatory act carried out in the sequel. That doesn’t make his death any less devastating, to be fair, but Ellie’s compulsion to avenge Joel and quiet her nightmares does go a long way in helping to understand Abby’s rage.
Ellie and Tommy end up slaying a lot more Wolves than Abby and the Wolves slayed Jackson people, even if Ellie’s kills were almost all via self-defense, and she was visibly traumatized by them. Not unlike the Avengers’ actions leading them back to Thanos in Avengers: Endgame, Abby’s friends’ deaths lead her back to Ellie for a climactic duel that results in Jesse’s death and nearly has Ellie, Dina, and Tommy killed, too. If a Last of Us Part 3 is ever born from the franchise’s present ambiguity, though, it cannot touch base on the same characters and refuse to address Tommy, who is debatably more distressed than either Ellie or Abby and has lost just as much.
The Last of Us Part 3 Should Floor It, Not Brake
The Last of Us is mired in tragedy, loss, and death, and so a happy ending in a possible Part 3 already seems like nothing more than a fairy tale.
The Last of Us Part 2: Ellie Loses a Father Figure, But Tommy Loses a Brother
Tommy and Joel’s relationship as brothers in The Last of Us has obviously had its hardships, culminating in their meeting at Jackson’s power plant being quite confrontational. Their grueling past together was rehashed, for instance, and yet as family they have an unspoken bond of trust.
It’s that bond that then allows Joel to confide in Tommy about what he did to ‘save’ Ellie, with Tommy saying that he doesn’t know if he would’ve done differently and will take Joel’s secret to the grave if he has to. Tommy may not be the nougaty center of The Last of Us or its sequel, but Part 2 definitely paints a clear portrait of how distraught and at wits’ end he is after his brother was murdered.
Plus, Tommy was there with Joel when they came across Abby, and there’s a high likelihood that he felt somewhat responsible for his brother being ambushed in a den of Wolves, or at least for not being able to save him. Interestingly, a grieving Tommy seems initially cautious and pragmatic about dishing out revenge but leaves Maria a note and departs on his own, apparently in an attempt to spare Ellie of that duty.
Tommy’s string of dead Washington Liberation Front bodies is fairly long in Seattle with Ellie and Dina hot on his trail, concluding with Manny—Abby may have died, too, if it wasn’t for Yara saving her. At the end of Day 3, Ellie and Tommy are begrudgingly willing to accept that Abby would live in order to take a pregnant Dina back to Jackson and put everything behind them, but the bill had come due for them yet again as Abby arrives to retaliate for the deaths of Jordan, Leah, Manny, Mel, and Owen (a pattern made plain in the cyclical nature of violence).
Tommy miraculously makes it out of this encounter alive, though Abby killing Jesse and nearly killing Ellie and Dina renews his desire for vengeance. Because of injuries sustained in Seattle, Tommy goads and guilts Ellie into continuing to pursue Abby, paralleling how Ellie likely made him feel back in Jackson when the two initially discussed plans of retaliation for Joel’s death.
This character development for Tommy is quite disappointing considering that Ellie and Dina were then living a peaceful farmhouse life as a family with Dina and Jesse’s baby, JJ, but it enables Ellie to seek closure.
Ellie and Tommy Can Hopefully Reunite and Mend Wounds in The Last of Us Part 3
Ironically, Abby might not be alive still if Tommy hadn’t pointed Ellie toward her, which is the only reason Ellie was able to reach her at Santa Barbara’s pillars and inadvertently incited a slave uprising against The Last of Us Part 2’s Rattlers. But, since we don’t see Tommy again after he appears at the farmhouse and it’s unknown if Ellie would simply walk back to Jackson, a Last of Us Part 3 will hopefully show Tommy and Ellie seeing each other again and addressing the result of Ellie and Abby’s conflict.
Ellie chose not to kill Abby after all, whether that would’ve silenced her nightmares of Joel’s cries or not, and it would be interesting to hear if Tommy greets her with shame for that. Tommy’s revenge cost him his marriage with Maria, basically allowing him to be solely focused on Abby, but it would be deeply upsetting if he was unable to move on.
He may not be able to take on the whole WLF anymore, thankfully, and yet he and Ellie can hopefully rekindle the familial bond they had, much less have Tommy come to his own closure somehow and maybe even live a peaceful life again. This is all predicated on there being a Last of Us Part 3, let alone one that features Ellie and the Jackson residents, but it is a loose thread worth unraveling as it may bring an end to the distress and heartache of The Last of Us Part 2.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 89 /100 Critics Rec: 90%
- Released
- January 19, 2024
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
- Developer(s)
- Naughty Dog
- Publisher(s)
- Sony Interactive Entertainment
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- Proprietary Engine
- Franchise
- The Last of Us
- PC Release Date
- April 3, 2025
- PS5 Release Date
- January 19, 2024
- Genre(s)
- Action-Adventure
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
- PS Plus Availability
- N/A
