'Tha Last Of Us' season 1 almost had a different ending

Joel and Ellie’s final scene in the post-apocalyptic drama The Last Of Us could have played out differently, series co-creator Craig Mazin has revealed.

The scene at the end of the show is one where Joel (Pedro Pascal) undoes an entire hospital to save Ellie (Bella Ramsey) from impending death.

Arising in the back of a jeep, Ellie then demands that Joel tell her what happened. Joel lies, telling her that there is no cure for her condition. After some silence, she accepts his words, and the pair drive off.

"[Episode director Ali Abbasi] had this thought of just playing out this slightly longer, sadder version where Ellie says, 'okay,' and then she turns and walks away. And Joel looks after her," Mazin told GQ.

"We see the two of them walking, not really together but apart, down towards Jackson. It lingers and then fades. There was something beautiful about it."

The writer adds that honouring the first video game's ending was in the end the best choice.

"Everybody was like 'what do we do?'" Mazin explained. "And there was that meta-discussion of, are the people that played the game going to be more annoyed that they didn't get it just the way it's supposed to be, or are they gonna be more annoyed that they only got what they had before? And then how will everybody else feel?"

Mazin continued: "In the end, there's something very specific about ending on that close-up of Ellie. Not knowing what comes next. Not knowing what she does. Does she walk away from him, does she walk with him, how does she feel?

"That moment gets suspended permanently."

The Last of Us is based on the 2013 video game developed by Naughty Dog. The series is set in 2023, two decades into a pandemic caused by a mass fungal infection, which forces its hosts to metamorphose into zombie-like creatures.