Henry, Sam, Joel, and Ellie make it to a nearly abandoned cul-de-sac before Kathleen and her soldiers catch up to them. However, their vehicles accidentally release a swarm of infected that had been driven underground by FEDRA and the rebels are quickly overrun by the horde. Even though Henry, Sam, Joel, and Ellie escape to a motel, it’s revealed that Sam was bitten during the ambush. Ellie tries to save him with her blood, but it doesn’t work. Sam turns the next morning and attacks Ellie. Henry shoots Sam to save Ellie, but appalled by what he’s done, he then turns the gun on himself and commits suicide.
Ellie and Joel bury the brothers before setting off for Wyoming on foot. They eventually make it and find that Tommy isn’t in danger, but has instead been living in an almost utopian settlement with his wife Maria (Rutina Wesley). Tommy tells Joel that he’s heard of some Fireflies setting up a lab in Colorado, and Joel begs Tommy to take Ellie there. After losing Sarah, and now Tess, Joel is worried that he won’t be able to keep Ellie safe. Ellie overhears their conversation and gets angry with Joel, thinking that she’s going to lose him just like she’s lost everyone else in her life. In the end, Joel decides to let Ellie choose who she goes with, and of course she chooses Joel.
With a horse borrowed from the Jackson, Wyoming settlement, Joel and Ellie arrive at the University of Eastern Colorado to find it abandoned by the Fireflies. They find a map that indicates they fled to Salt Lake City, but before Joel and Ellie can head that way, they’re attacked by a small group of raiders. Joel kills one of them, but is stabbed in the process. His injury is critical, and Ellie does her best to take care of him in the unforgiving winter they find themselves in.
As he fades in and out of consciousness, Joel begs Ellie to leave him behind. In a flashback to the night Ellie was bitten, we see her reconnect with her best friend and first crush Riley in an abandoned mall in Boston. Riley has planned one last night for Ellie before leaving for Atlanta with the Fireflies. The two have an emotional but fun reunion before they are attacked by infected. Back in the present, remembering all that she’s lost, Ellie stays and does what she can to take care of Joel.
Running out of food, Ellie tries to hunt on her own while Joel slowly heals. After she shoots a deer, she runs into two men from a nearby community, David and James (played by original Joel voice actor Troy Baker). David offers to trade Ellie for half of the deer, and sends James back to the town for some antibiotics to treat Joel’s infection. While James is gone, David reveals that the man that attacked Joel at the University was from their community, and they all want Joel dead for killing him. Ellie takes the medicine and runs back to Joel, giving him a couple of injections before David and his men track her down.
Ellie tries to lead them away from Joel, but gets captured in the process. David tries to convince her to join him and lead this community (in a super creepy way), but Ellie rightfully refuses. David, who’s been secretly feeding his starving group the flesh of their dead family members, then turns violent, threatening to chop Ellie up and feed her to them too, just as he did to Alec, the man Joel killed. Ellie fights back, killing James and setting the lodge she’s been held in on fire in the process. David finds Ellie again and tries to assault her before she brutally kills him with the same cleaver he threatened to chop her up with. In the meantime, a weak but determined Joel is fighting his way through David’s men and the harsh weather to find Ellie. At the end of episode 8, the two share a tearful reunion that definitively proves that the pair are so much more than just a smuggler and his cargo.
