Last night came episode six of The Last Of Us on HBO. As many suspected, it was a compelling episode that featured teases of the future, connections to the past, and the arrival of a scene that had been shown since the first trailers of the show. In it, Joel and Ellie made it to a small town called Jackson, where Joel finally found his brother Tommy. But that was just the start, as Joel and Ellie would eventually seek out a Firefly base, only to come under attack. An attack that would leave Joel heavily wounded.
The episode ended with Joel, still wounded, falling off a horse and Ellie watching over him and begging him not to die. When that happened, a song played over the scene that was eerily like the situation that the two were in. That was by design, as showrunner Craig Mazin noted in the newest episode of the companion podcast.
The song was “Never Let Me Down Again” by Depeche Mode, and Mazin knew that he had to have this song reflect the mood of the scene, but he also needed the right person to sing it.
“I had this idea that, at the end of this episode, when Ellie is looking down at Joel, and this is the person — she was taking a ride with him, and he has let her down, even though it’s ‘never let me down again.’ This is how it comes around,” Mazin explained. “I wanted to re-present that song, but in this point of view of just sadness and loss. And I also wanted to hear a female voice singing it to echo Ellie. You can spend months reaching out to various people of all levels of fame trying to do it, but the problem I had was that there was this kid down the hall from me in my house who I knew could crush it. So I sent her the song and I said, ‘Jessie, can you do a cover of this that is haunting and slow and about a daughter mourning the loss of her father? Just have that in your mind as you do it.'”
Who is Jessie? Mazin’s daughter. Later in the podcast, he said he wanted the song to feel like an “echo” of Ellie. So having his daughter sing the song in a way to portray his “adopted daughter” in Bella Ramsay felt perfect for him.
As many people will tell you, sometimes you go with someone you trust.
