The Subtle Way Ellie Called Back to Season 1 in Her Emotional Goodbye to Joel in The Last of Us
Warning. Major spoilers for The Last of Us Season 2. The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 3, titled “The Path,” picks up in the aftermath of Joel’s death and takes us through the journey of Ellie’s grief in a devastating fashion. Of course, Ellie is not the only one grieving Joel, as we get to see Tommy, Dina, and, in some ways, the town mourn him as well. But most of the focus is on Bella Ramsey’s Ellie, now the sole lead of this tale, as she and Dina lead a revenge mission to Seattle.
The entire show has been, in many ways, leading up to this. Joel lost his daughter Sarah, found a surrogate daughter in Ellie, a girl he was only hired to deliver to the Fireflies because she was immune to the virus, and they hoped to make a cure out of her. When he found out that making that cure involved killing her, Joel cared about Ellie so much, he wasn’t willing to make that sacrifice. So, he killed all the Fireflies and saved Ellie, taking her to the town of Jackson, where the two lived for five years. That is, until revenge came for Joel in the form of Abby, the daughter of one of the men Joel killed to save Ellie.
Related: Who dies in The Last of Us Season 2?
And now, Ellie is going to Seattle to get revenge on not just Abby, but every one of the people who were present when Joel was killed. It’s a circular story, but one that goes back to Joel and Ellie. Before leaving Jackson on her revenge quest, Ellie even goes to visit Joel’s grave. She’s been in the hospital for three months recuperating, so this is presumably the first time she’s gone to see the grave, and she is, at the same time, saying goodbye. As she does, she deposits some coffee beans on the ground, and we see her smile for perhaps the first time since she lost Joel. But what do the coffee beans mean in The Last of Us? Why did Ellie take some to Joel’s grave?
What do the coffee beans mean in The Last of Us?
There’s nothing too big about the coffee beans, and yet at the same time, there is. In many ways, it starts in Season 1, with an innocuous conversation the two have about the beverage and Joel’s preference for it. “Smells like…burned shit,” is Ellie’s blunt assessment, but Joel enjoys it and keeps drinking it. At the time, it can perhaps be dismissed as one of those things adults like and teenagers just don’t.
But considering we’re living in a post-apocalyptic world, and something like coffee could not be that easy to come by, then it takes on a different meaning. This is especially true for the Joel Ellie meets, someone who doesn’t exactly allow himself many comforts, because he doesn’t really seem to be living like he deserves any of them. At that point, Joel is just going through the motions. Later, he confides in Ellie that meeting her is what changes things. So, the fact that coffee is still a simple comfort he allowed himself even at his worst moments, and that Ellie remembers, is a sign of how well she knows him.
We know Ellie and Joel didn’t exactly got to have the conversations Ellie would have wanted to. She didn’t get to put into words how much she cared for him, and she isn’t the kind of person who can stand in front of his grave and tell him that she loves him and she’s going to miss him. But she can bring him coffee beans, something she knows he enjoyed, something that brought him comfort and joy in the horrible world they lived in, and through that showed that she knew him and loved him.
It’s a small gesture, but it speaks volumes about the Ellie and Joel connection, and about how alive Joel still is—even when he’s gone.
