History Recap / TheLastOfUs2023S1E7LeftBehind

** Ellie asks Riley if she got her a dinosaur, which is among the guesses Ellie asks Joel while they're on their way to the Wyoming museum in ''Part II''.

* BlindfoldedTrip: Bethany asks Ellie to close her eyes while leading her to the second wonder, the Merry-Go-Round.

** Ellie and Bethany play ''VideoGame/MortalKombatII'', something she commented on in episode 3 after discovering a game machine at the abandoned convenience store.

* ConscienceMakesYouGoBack: Badly injured Joel asks Ellie to leave and as she is about to walk through the door, a memory of a similar situation of her walking away from Bethany in the mall triggers a WholeEpisodeFlashback and the subsequent decision to return and stitch up Joel instead.

* InternalReformist: Ellie suggests to Bethany that they could change the system from the inside instead of joining LaResistance.

** Ellie and Bethany's FirstKiss doesn't have much time to resonate with them because a Clicker makes his entrance.

* RoofHopping: In order to evade capture, Ellie and Bethany cross the stretch to the mall by hopping from rooftop to rooftop.

* VideoArcade: Wonder 4 at the mall. Ellie and Beth spend some quality time together playing ''VideoGame/MortalKombatII''.

* PunishmentBox: Discussed. It's being brought up repeatedly that Ellie was put in "the hole" after misconduct at FEDRA school. Kwong admits that this measure doesn't work on her and suggests a different approach.

* CompanyCameo: Captain Kwong's keychain has the Naughty Dog logo on it.

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* BeforeMyTime: Neither Ellie nor Riley get the screenshot pun, given that they were both born after the last computers were made and likely never had access to any surviving ones.

* BornAfterTheEnd: Ellie was born in 2009, six years after the outbreak began. As a result, her attitude is largely one of TheWorldIsJustAwesome when Riley takes her to the mall, being incredibly amused by mundane things like escalators, Merry-Go-Rounds, and photo booths. And when the punchline of a pun involves computers and screenshots, neither Ellie nor Riley understand what that means.

* CallForward:
** Riley gives Ellie a copy of No Pun Intended Volume Too, the source of the jokes Ellie tells Joel in Episode 4.
** Ellie is reading a Savage Starlight comic before she goes to bed.

* FirstKiss: After Ellie confesses that she doesn't want Riley to go, they share a brief kiss.

* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Downplayed. Ellie is implied to have administered a mild one to Bethany offscreen, after Captain Kwong mentioned that she needed 15 stitches.

* DrivenToSuicide:
** Ellie and Riley come across the corpse of a man who overdosed on pills, then drank a ton of pre-outbreak alcohol. While Riley believes he may not have realized the danger, Ellie speculates that he knew what he was doing.
** Discussed at the end of the mall flashback, when Ellie and Riley talk about what they will do upon being bit. Riley says that, while it's quick and painless to commit suicide, she'd prefer to spend whatever time she has left with Ellie.

* BuryYourGays: Downplayed. Ellie and Riley are both bitten by a Stalker that was attracted by the noise they were making. [[SavedByCanon Ellie survives]], but while it's unknown what happened to Riley, Ellie's comments in the fourth episode imply that she was the one to kill her, as a MercyKill or otherwise.

* ADayInTheLimelight: Ellie is the protagonist of the episode, with Joel only featuring very briefly in the beginning and end.

* ShoutOut: Ellie is listening to [[Music/PearlJam Riot Act]] on her Walkman before Bethany bullies her.

* HopeSpot: Ellie briefly celebrates taking down the Stalker before she and Riley both realize that they've been bitten.

* MundaneMadeAwesome: Having never seen a working escalator before, Ellie expresses her joy and amusement as she runs up and down the escalator and slides along the moving railing.

* ShoutOut:
** Captain Kwong's keychain has the Naughty Dog logo on it.
** Ellie is listening to [[Music/PearlJam Riot Act]] on her Walkman before Bethany bullies her.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: With the amount of noise Ellie and Riley were making at the arcade and the Halloween store, they were bound to attract some hostile attention, either infected or human.

* ShoutOut: Captain Kwong's keychain has the Naughty Dog logo on it.

* AdaptationInducedPlotHole: Potentially; in the game, it's explained that the reason Ellie is immune is because her Cordyceps is a mutated strain that became benign. Here, unlike in the game, Ellie and Riley are both bitten by the same Stalker. So why didn't Riley become immune too?

* BullyingADragon: Bethany ''severely'' underestimates Ellie. She ends up with 15 stitches, and Ellie comes out of it with nothing more than a black eye.

* WorthlessYellowRocks: Ellie calls paper money worthless when she sees a bunch of it on the floor of an arcade.

* OhCrap: A nonverbal one from Bethany after she taunts Ellie about Riley not being around anymore.

* DrivenToSuicide: Ellie and Riley come across the corpse of a man who overdosed on pills, then drank a ton of pre-outbreak alcohol. While Riley believes he may not have realized the danger, Ellie speculates that he knew what he was doing.

* TooDumbToLive: Riley and Ellie are having the time of their lives but they are ignoring every safety precaution they have been taught. They awaken a Stalker and are so preoccupied that they fail to spot it until it is almost on them. In addition, there are dozens of ways they could have been hurt given how run down the mall is.

** Riley gives Ellie a copy of No Pun Intended Volume 2, the source of the jokes Ellie tells Joel in Episode 4.

After Joel collapsed from his injury in the previous episode, Ellie has managed to hide them both in the basement of an abandoned house. As she struggles to do something about Joel's wound, he grabs Ellie by the shirt and gives her a command; go back to Jackson and find Tommy, leaving Joel behind. Ellie hesitates, but makes her way up the stairs and opens the door.

That night, a young woman sneaks into Ellie's dorm room, and they struggle for a moment before Ellie realizes who it is; her friend, Riley, who ran away from the FEDRA compound three weeks prior. Riley, upon revealing that she left FEDRA for the Fireflies, is able to convince Ellie to come along with her to see something amazing, and the two head out into the night.

However, she does not get far before turning back, unable to stay mad at Riley. She finds her in a Halloween store, still populated with old Halloween decorations. The two talk, affirming their friendship and coming to terms with their imminent separation, before Riley reveals that she took Ellie's Walkman, plugging it into the store's audio system. The two dance to the loud music together, sharing the moment before Ellie pleads for Riley to stay in Boston. Riley says that she'll stay, and the two share their first kiss together.

Before the two can figure out what to do next, the Stalker from before barges into the store and attacks. The two put up a fight and eventually manage to kill the Stalker, but at a heavy cost- both of them have been bitten.

** Discussed at the end of the mall flashback, when Ellie and Riley talk about what they will do upon being bit. Riley says that, while it's quick and painless, she'd prefer to spend whatever time she has left with Ellie.

** Riley stares at Ellie's Walkman in the dorm room, before it's revealed she stole it later in the episode.

* TakeAThirdOption: After they've been bitten, Riley states she and Ellie can either commit suicide or allow themselves to slowly turn, getting to spend a few more hours together. When Ellie asks about option three, Riley can only tearfully apologize.

Once Ellie has gotten Joel to a safe place after his injury during a fight with some scavengers, she and him hide in the basement of an abandoned house. As Ellie struggles to do something about Joel's wound, he grabs Ellie by the shirt and gives her a command; go back to Jackson and find Tommy, leaving Joel behind. Ellie hesitates, but makes her way up the stairs and opens the door.

The clock ticks back to before Ellie was bitten. Back in Boston, Ellie is training in the FEDRA compound alongside other teenagers, listening to her Walkman as she does. When one of them, Bethany, bullies her about her friend who left, Ellie beats her up and sends her to the infirmary, which gets her sent to be chewed out by a FEDRA officer, who says that Ellie has two paths before her. One, she is reduced to a grunt, and is treated like a grunt, or works her way up to become an officer. She says she'll work to be an officer, and heads back to her dorm room, where her bed sits opposite of an empty one.

Later, after Ellie is given another pun book by Riley, the former discovers a stash of pipe bombs made by Riley. Realizing that Riley's group of Fireflies would likely kill Ellie in a bombing, Ellie confronts Riley about the Fireflies and why she brought her to the mall in the first place. Riley reveals that she will be leaving the QZ, and that despite her best efforts, was unable to convince Marlene, the leader of the Fireflies, to allow Ellie to come along. She brought Ellie to the mall to say goodbye. Ellie, furious, storms off to head back to her dorm.

Before the two can figure out what to do next, the Stalker from before barges into the store and attacks. The two put up a fight and eventually manage to kill the Stalker, but at a heavy cost; both of them have been bitten.

Back in the past, Ellie angrily smashes the glass panes in the store's display cases before sitting beside Riley. Riley suggests that the two take the easy way our by committing suicide before rejecting that option, instead suggesting that the two simply keep going and spend whatever time the two have left with one another and "poetically lose our minds together". The two, silently weeping, share an embrace as they sit together.

While tending to Joel, Ellie reminisces about the day she was bitten.