Apr 16
A Sweet Romantic Dance Taken Straight from the Video Game Delights Gay Twitter's 'The Last of Us' Fans
Kilian Melloy READ TIME: 2 MIN.
A dance between main character Ellie and another female character is a sweet moment in "The Last of Us" video game. Its note-perfect adaptation to the post-apocalyptic TV series, in which vast swaths of the population have been reduced to zombies by a fungal infection, delighted Gay Twitter.
The moment took place during Season 2's premiere episode, "Future Days," showing Ellie (Bella Ramsey) getting closer with a young woman named Dina (Isabela Merced), "a warrior who patrols the infected," The Daily Beast recapped.
After eyeing each other at a dance, "a tipsy Dina pulls Ellie to the dance floor, where the two begin to slow dance, softly swaying to a quiet song," the Beast recounted. After some seductive dialogue, "they kiss, publicly solidifying their desire for each other," the writeup added.
"The kiss between them just felt like a really tender moment and a complicated one for Ellie, because I think there's an element of self-protection there," Ramsey – who in real life identifies as non-binary – told Mashable.
"Obviously she feels a certain way about Dina, and she's not sure how Dina feels about her, and whether it's just for fun or whether she has deeper feelings like Ellie has," Ramsey went on to add.
In the dance scene, Ellie notes that the men seem to be taking note of Dina, but Dina replies that if they are watching anyone, it's Ellie. "I think they should be terrified of you," Dina tells her.
"The sweet dance-and-kiss scene between the two women is an iconic moment from the game, so fans' expectations for the live-action version were sky-high," the Beast said. "Luckily, it seems like the show not only met those expectations but far exceeded them."
The dance was not without a little anti-queer content, though; as in the game, a man who felt insulted at his attentions not being welcomed tried to impose himself on the nascent couple and was summarily dealt with by Joel, who has become Ellie's surrogate father at this point.
Perhaps the crowd's homophobes should also be terrified of Joel.
The scene is part of "The Last of Us Part II," the 2018 game that furthered the adventures that the original game began, and, Mashable noted, the game footage shown in advance of the game's release "confirmed [Ellie] as a lesbian in a AAA game (though Ellie was really first confirmed as canonically gay in 2014's 'The Last of Us' DLC 'Left Behind,' which Season 1, episode 7 is based on)."
In that episode, a flashback revealed a romance between Ellie and another young woman had taken place prior to Ellie meeting Joel.
Even before that episode, and very early in the run of the HBO show, Season 1, Episode 3, "Long, Long Time" recounted a years-long relationship between two gay male characters, played with award-worthy tenderness by Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett.
Gay Twitter was eager to talk about the way the show adapted the lesbian dance scene as part of its Season 2 opener.
What are you hoping to see this season on "The Last of Us?"
Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.
