The Last of Us finally paid off its giraffe tease

polygon.com:

Fitting a giraffe into the first season of The Last of Us may have seemed like a tall order, at least to those unfamiliar with the game. Before that, the only place you could imagine seeing such an animal is as a plushie, probably cast aside and abandoned to the elements (as we actually did see, in an episode 2 Easter egg). But that was all setting the stage for the big — or, at least, a big — scene in the season 1 finale, where Ellie gets to pet a giraffe.

Like so much of the show, it’s a moment pulled almost directly from the game. Ellie (Bella Ramsey) is still recovering from battling her way out of a fundamentalist cannibal cult in episode 8. Joel (Pedro Pascal) can see she’s distant and not super excited — at least, until they’re exploring Salt Lake City. Here the scene plays out almost identically to the game, complete with Ellie passing Joel the ladder only to let it fall when she first spots the animal. The two look on in wonder as a giraffe grazes on the plants overtaking the abandoned structure they’re in.

The scene might seem bright, cheery, and even out of place in an otherwise overwhelmingly bleak post-apocalyptic narrative. But like so much of The Last of Us, the giraffe scene resonates on a more heartbreaking level, a final quiet moment between Joel and Ellie sealing in the violence to come later.

[Ed. note: The rest of this post contains spoilers for the finale of The Last of Us season 1.]

The whole of The Last of Us, as both a first game and a first season, builds toward Joel’s rampage: After so many chapters of Joel easily justifying violence — against infected or ruthless humans — the Fireflies’ hospital feels less clear cut. On the one hand, he understands that Ellie’s immunity might be the best