⚠️ SPOILERS ahead for The Last of Us Season 2 finale and The Last of Us Part II game.
At first glance, one of the most debated scenes from The Last of Us Season 2 — Ellie’s near-death encounter with the Seraphites — seemed like a strange detour. Fans of the video game quickly noticed the scene wasn’t lifted from The Last of Us Part II, sparking questions about its purpose. Why include a storyline that never made it into the original game, and what did it add to Ellie’s already painful arc?
In the Season 2 finale, Ellie (played by Bella Ramsey) finds herself washed ashore on the Seraphites’ island during her pursuit of Abby. She’s immediately captured and sentenced to death by hanging. The noose is already around her neck when WLF explosions interrupt the ritual, sparing her life by chance. Critics initially labeled this moment as filler — a suspenseful but ultimately meaningless addition to an already emotionally dense story.
But was it really meaningless?
Showrunner Neil Druckmann revealed the Seraphite Island encounter was originally conceived for the game before being scrapped. By restoring it in the series, the scene gains renewed importance — not just as added drama, but as a mirror to a pivotal moment in Abby’s journey. In the game, Abby is the one nearly hanged by the Seraphites. Now, both women share an eerily similar brush with death, suggesting that their paths are more alike than fans may want to admit.
Both Abby and Ellie are consumed by vengeance. Despite barely surviving brutal, traumatic experiences, neither uses their second chance as an opportunity to walk away. Instead, they double down. That shared stubbornness — or obsession — is the heart of The Last of Us’ exploration of revenge. The show doesn’t just tell us vengeance is a cycle; it forces us to feel how close these women come to dying for it, and how tragically unwilling they are to stop.
The inclusion of Ellie’s hanging scene isn’t just a dramatic flourish. It underlines the show's haunting thesis: revenge doesn’t save anyone — it only takes. With Season 3 likely to depict Abby’s version of this same harrowing experience, the symmetry will become even more striking.
In the end, the scene many fans thought was pointless may be one of the most profound — forcing Ellie and the audience alike to confront how far down the path of vengeance she’s really gone.
