History Recap / TheLastOfUs2023S1E7LeftBehind

* BornAfterTheEnd: Ellie was born in 2019, 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.

* 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.

* CompanyCrossReferences: The mall Ellie and Riley visit has a "Macho Nacho" in its food court, where Elena mentioned having worked in high school in ''VideoGame/Uncharted4AThiefsEnd''.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: Riley thinks it will be fun to play-attack Ellie in her sleep, not expecting that a traumatized orphan in a post-apocalyptic world would immediately start fighting for her life. After the debacle, Riley admits that the idea went a lot better in her head.

* HopeSpot: Ellie has just won the lesbian lottery after she impulsively kisses her best friend and Riley responds positively. So of course right afterwards a clicker stumbles in and ruins everything.

* OutsideManInsideMan: Set up with Ellie and Riley, with both growing up in the same FEDRA military school for orphans, Riley choosing to join the fireflies and Ellie refusing, but instead [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] when [[spoiler: Riley ends up infected.]]

** Both this episode and Part II involve a main character listening to the closer of the final Pearl Jam album released before the pandemic. ''All or None'' from ''Riot Act'' in the episode and Future Days from ''Lightning Bolt'' in Part II, though it's a slight goof in Part II, as the album was released before the outbreak.

* DrivenToSuicide: Ellie and Riley come across the corpse of a man who [[SuicideByPills: 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.

* MortalWoundReveal: Both Ellie and Riley realize only after the Stalker attack, that they have been bitten.

* 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.

* ForegoneConclusion: Ellie's dialogue with Marlene in the first episode and with other characters later implies that Riley died before the start of the main plot. This episode shows an extended flashback of Riley and Ellie exploring an abandoned shopping mall and taking absolutely no precautions to hide their presence or avoid drawing attention to themselves. Predictably, a Stalker is roused by the noise and light and eventually attacks, leading to both girls becoming infected. Ellie, being immune, survives. Riley doesn't.

* DramaticIrony: The entire date in the mall is heartrendingly beautiful. We know it can't end well, because at least Ellie will get bit and she won't get to stay with Riley. We just don't know ''how'' it will end in tragedy.

* AdaptationalAngst: In the game, Joel is either passed out or in too much pain from the wound to speak at all to Ellie while she cares for him. In the show, Joel is awake and tells Ellie to leave him and go back to Jackson, which Ellie briefly considers doing before her memory of Riley's words makes her determined to try and save him after all.

* 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 understands what that means.

* CallForward: A couple.
** Riley gives Ellie a copy of ''No Pun Intended Volume Too'', the source of the jokes Ellie tells Joel in Episode 4.

* QueerEstablishingMoment: Within the show (obviously it's no surprise if someone's familiar with [[VideoGame/TheLastOfUs the game]]) Ellie kissing Riley, her female best friend, shows she's attracted to girls.[[note]]Although this was foreshadowed based on Ellie's reaction to Tess asking her if she had a boyfriend waiting for her back in the second episode[[/note]] Riley is also fine with the kiss, implying she's had the same feelings.

* BothSidesHaveAPoint: Ellie and Riley's 'FEDRA vs. Fireflies' debates ultimately boil down to this. Ellie, having been groomed by Captain Kwong to become an officer material, initially buys into Kwong's reasoning that the [=QZs=] under FEDRA's rule, while brutal, is necessary if humanity is to survive and that people like her can make the world a better place if she could be the person in command. Riley argues that while FEDRA ''might'' care for potentially useful people like Ellie, it wouldn't bat an eye to people like Riley who would just be assigned to dreadful tasks that pose a very high risk of being killed in action. Ellie doesn't take kindly on the Fireflies' anarchist methods which involve blowing places that may or may not hold innocent peoples up to achieve their goals, while Riley despises FEDRA for its tyrannical rule over its subjects and believe everyone would be better without it. Neither side is portrayed as being in the right, and they both even come to the same conclusion that what they believe might not even be true and they're all just propaganda being fed to them by their respective factions. In the end, both of them renounced their commitment to their causes and just decide to stick together...until everything goes to hell.

* OrderVersusChaos: Captain Kwong's opinion is that FEDRA's harsh rule is the only thing stopping the [=QZs=] from devolving into chaos and slaughter. In fairness to him, and given how a good chunk of survivors could best be described as "feral," he might have a point.

* QueerEstablishingMoment: Within the show (obviously it's no surprise if someone's familiar with [[VideoGame/TheLastOfUs the game]]) Ellie kissing Riley, her female best friend, shows she's attracted to girls. Riley is fine also fine with, implying she's had the same feelings.

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.

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, She ends up being chewed out by a FEDRA officer, Captain Kwong, who give her two options: either follow her current path and be a grunt for her whole life or work 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.

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.

After leaping across rooftops and avoiding patrols, the two find their way into the place that Riley wanted to show Ellie, the abandoned mall. Turning the power back on, Ellie and Riley explore the mall and marvel at things such as escalators, carousels, and photo booths, before making their way into an arcade. There, the two share a match of ''Mortal Kombat II'', unaware that their antics have caught the attention of a Stalker...

Later, after Riley gives Ellie a gift of a pun book (the same one she would later use on Joel), Ellie discovers a stash of pipe bombs in Riley's shelter. 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, she was unable to convince Marlene to bring Ellie with her. She brought Ellie to the mall to say goodbye. Ellie, furious, storms off to head back to her dorm.

Before they 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.

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

* CompanyCrossReferences: The mall Ellie and Riley visit has a "Macho Nacho" in its food court where Elena mentioned having worked in high school in ''VideoGame/Uncharted4AThiefsEnd''.
* 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 Riley in the mall triggers a WholeEpisodeFlashback and the subsequent decision to return and stitch up Joel instead.

* DidNotThinkThisThrough: Riley thinks it will be fun to play-attack Ellie in her sleep, not expecting that a traumatized orphan in a post-apocalyptic world would immediately start fighting for her life. After the debacle, Riley admits that the idea went a lot better in her head.

** Ellie and Riley'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 Riley cross the stretch to the mall by hopping from rooftop to rooftop.

** Captain Kwong reveals that Bethany needed 15 stitches after her fight with Ellie. Near the Ellie Ellie stitches up Joel's stab wound.

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, She ends up being chewed out by a FEDRA officer, who give her two options: either follow her current path and be a grunt for her whole life or work 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.

* BothSidesHaveAPoint: Ellie and Riley's 'FEDRA vs. Fireflies' debates ultimately boil down to this. Ellie, having been groomed by Commander Kwong to become an officer material, initially buys into Kwong's reasoning that the QZs under FEDRA's rule, while brutal, is necessary if humanity is to survive and that people like her can make the world a better place if she could be the person in command. Riley argues that while FEDRA ''might'' care for potentially useful people like Ellie, it wouldn't bat an eye to people like Riley who would just be assigned to dreadful tasks that pose a very high risk of being killed in action. Ellie doesn't take kindly on the Fireflies' anarchist methods which involve blowing places that may or may not hold innocent peoples up to achieve their goals, while Riley despises FEDRA for its tyrannical rule over its subjects and believe everyone would be better without it. Neither side is portrayed as being in the right, and they both even come to the same conclusion that what they believe might not even be true and they're all just propaganda being fed to them by their respective factions. In the end, both of them renounced their commitment to their causes and just decide to stick together...until everything goes to hell.

** First, Ellie's excitement about discovering volume 2 of ''No Pun Intended'' comes to an abrupt halt when she sees Bethany's [[BombThrowingAnarchists bombs]] on the shelf.