The Last of Us S2 E6 Finally Answers The Major Ellie Cure Mystery Fans Have Debated Since 2013

After years of waiting, HBO's The Last of Us finally answered a major mystery for the franchise that fans have debated since 2013. Since the first Last of Us game was released (the hit PlayStation video game franchise the acclaimed HBO series is based on), fans have questioned whether Ellie (played by Bella Ramsey in the show) could have provided a cure to the universe's central fungal infection after her and Joel (Pedro Pascal) met with the mysterious Fireflies in Salt Lake City. 

Thankfully, fans got the closest thing they have ever gotten to an answer to this question in The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 6. Pascal's Joel offered the first bit of conclusive evidence leaning either way on this debate in an emotionally devastating conversation with Ramsey's Ellie. Whether Joel's word is to be believed remains to be seen, but it is all fans have to go off of for now. 

In a heated exchange on Joel's front stoop during Season 2's penultimate episode, Ramsey's teenage survivor finally confronted her adopted father figure about the events that led to them moving into the relative safety of the Jackson, Wyoming, settlement. 

In Season 2, Episode 6 (subtitled "The Price"), when Ellie asked if a cure could have been found had Joel not intervened at the Salt Lake City hospital from the end of the show's first season, Joel responded definitively, "Yes."

Fans will remember that Season 1 of the hit series (and the game it was based on) was primarily centered on Ellie's immunity to the world's fungal zombie-creating virus and potential role as the key to a cure. 

This epic cross-country journey came to a head in Salt Lake City, Utah, when Joel handed Ellie off to the insurgent group the Fireflies. However, after learning that the operation that would extract the valuable DNA from Ellie, assumedly needed to develop some vaccine, would almost surely kill her, Joel took matters into his own hands. 

From there, he went on a killing spree, taking out every one of the Firefly scientists, including the father of Season 2 addition Abby Anderson, grabbing Ellie off the operating table and fleeing from the scene of the crime. Joel then lies to Ellie about what happened, telling her that the Fireflies abandoned all hope of a cure and that they can do nothing. 

This moral dilemma left fans wondering if a cure could have been extracted from Ellie at all. Some thought Joel was justified in his actions, given the lack of a guarantee that Ellie's giving up her life would actually yield any meaningful results. 

Coming from Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin and game director Neil Druckmann, The Last of Us Season 2 recounts the events of 2020's The Last of Us Part II video game. It follows Pedro Pascal's Joel Miller and Bella Ramsey's Ellie Williams as they are confronted with the consequences of Joel's Season 1 actions. The series will end on May 25, 2025, concluding Ellie's side of The Last of Us story for now. A third season of the hit HBO series has already been greenlit, but no public release information has been announced.

Was Ellie Really Going To Provide the Cure in The Last of Us?

The Last of Us Season 2 seemingly ended the argument about whether a cure could have been pulled from Ellie; however, that has not stopped fans from arguing over the particularly prickly story beat. 

While Joel provides Ellie with a fairly conclusive "yes" in Season 2, Episode 6 (which also recounts the origins of Ellie's stunning moth tattoo), who is to say he definitively knows that himself? 

Joel's only source of information on the Fireflies' research into a potential vaccine was Marlene, and, as seen at the end of Season 1, she was willing to do anything to get Joel to hand Ellie over to undergo the extraction procedure. 

Before this latest episode, the closest thing fans had to an answer about The Last of Us' cure question came from a recording found during the first Last of Us game. 

In searching around the hospital level from the 2013 PlayStation hit, the player can find a surgeon's recorder saying that they are "about to hit a milestone in human history equal to the discovery of penicillin," suggesting that the Fireflies felt confident that Ellie was the missing key to their cure-based research:

"We must find a way to replicate this state under laboratory conditions. We're about to hit a milestone in human history equal to the discovery of penicillin. After years of wandering in circles, we're about to come home, make a difference, and bring the human race back into control of its own destiny. All of our sacrifices and the hundreds of men and women who've bled for this cause, or worse, will not be in vain."

While this does not confirm that 100% Ellie would be the ingredient that led the Fireflies to a vaccine, it seems the scientists working at the Salt Lake hospital assumed that Ellie was.

Even if this was a guarantee, it seems there is nothing anyone can do now. In The Last of Us Part II, Ellie discovers another recording from the Fireflies, saying that " the only person who could develop a vaccine is dead." 

This admission suggests that Joel not only prevented the Fireflies from extracting a cure from Ellie by pulling her out of that operating room from Season 1, but he also killed the only people with the knowledge to make it happen, dooming the entire endeavor.