Editor’s Note: The following contains MAJOR spoilers from Episode 7 of The Last of Us, The Last of Us Part I, and The Last of Us Part II games.The Last of Usknows how to make a needle drop pack a punch. Nearly every episode has included not just the game’s original score but music from Depeche Mode to Hank Williams that help make this extraordinary apocalypse feel connected to our world. The music of this series creates powerful through-lines that illustrate character growth and relationships and the show uses these real world pieces of music in the same way. Episode 7 takes this idea and pushes it even further by connecting itself to the events ofThe Last Of Us Part II.The episode gives usan extended flashback to the night Ellie (Bella Ramsey) got infected. Her best friend and first love, Riley (Storm Reid), takes Ellie to an abandoned mall where Riley shows Ellie some of the wonders of yesteryear. She lights up the mall for Ellie, shows her the wonders of the escalator, they ride a carousel, take cheesy pictures in a photo booth, play Mortal Kombat, and share their first kiss on a sweet but ultimately doomed first date. The whole sequence kicks off when Riley turns on the power and a-Ha’s 1985 hit “Take On Me” starts playing. And as we’ve already learned by this point, the ‘80s means danger.
“Take On Me” was used in some of the first promotional materials for the show butThe Last Of Us’s relationship with the a-Ha classic goes even deeper. And it leads into just one of many intentional subtle references toThe Last Of Us Part IIthat seek to make the story of the show more cohesive and heart-breaking than ever. There have been a handful of little references toPart IIsprinkled in so far like Ellie’s interest in space andthe brief glimpse of who we can assume to be Dina(Ellie’s friend and love interest inPart II) during their time in Jackson. But most of these allusions have existed to help tie the two stories more closely together and ease the transition fromPart ItoPart II. Some, however, exist to make events inPart IIeven more devastating and this “Take On Me” needle drop is doing just that.
“Take On Me” and Its Role in The Last Of Us Part II (Major Spoilers)
The use of the song comes at a perfect moment inThe Last Of Us Part II.Ellie and Dina are heading to Seattle hoping to track down and kill the group responsible for Joel’s death. Throughout the journey, there are a few little reprieves the characters get to be quiet and reminisce despite the chaos and sadness surrounding them. And in them, we’ve gotten to see Ellie and Dina’s romance slowly grow and how strong their bond is. One such moment is in an old music store where Ellie finds an acoustic guitar and takes a moment toplay “Take On Me” by a-Ha for Dina(Shannon Woodward). It’s a short and sweet interaction between the two, something of a romantic serenade amid the otherwise grim journey they are on.
This moment already held quite a bit of significance as we saw in earlier scenes that Joel was the one who taught Ellie to play the guitar. And the guitar itself becomes something of a sad through-line regarding the losses in Ellie’s life. The show does with “Take On Me” what the game does with “Future Days” by Pearl Jam, having the song show up in different contexts that tie the narrative together and demonstrate how things have changed. Just as “Future Days” goes from a sweet piece of joy and connection between Joel and Ellie to a devastating reminder of how much Ellie has lost, so too does “Take On Me” go from an irreverent bit of fun to a somber reminder of a love lost.
Using this songin Episode 7retroactively ties her loss of Riley into this long line of tragedies in her life. Not only is Ellie singing this to her lover now, but it also serves as a tether back to her first love that ended so tragically. It transforms the scene from a quiet and cute reprieve into a devastating show of vulnerability on Ellie’s part by reminiscing on this terrible loss she suffered with the woman she’s come to love since then. It creates deliberate parallels between Ellie’s two love interests and also helps to (again retroactively) foreshadow how this love too will fall apart.
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80s Means Danger
There’s a special kind of irony to using such an upbeat song for these quiet moments. This irony is almost too much to bear when you start taking the lyrics themselves into account with lines like “I’ll be gone in a day or two” taking on significant weight in the context of how quickly the infections spread once one has been bitten. Not just the literal implications of the song but also the more general sense of not having much time and losing love too soon are themes that are found countless times across the two games. And it’s given an even more ominous tone with the lingering reminder of the musical codes Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Bill (Nick Offerman)exchanged with 80s musicin particular serving as a sign of danger only for “Take On Me” to, in two different instances, take on a role foreshadowing a coming danger and an end to these upbeat, peaceful times.
And the song being used with Riley gives it new meaning when it comes up with Dina. Now, this is Ellie directly connecting her lost love to her present one, but it also hints that there is trouble on the horizon. “Take On Me” plays at the start of Ellie’s date with Riley and Ellie later plays it for Dina pretty early into their romance and both romances eventually fall apart. For Ellie and Riley, their love is cut short by a terrible coincidence and their own naïveté. For Ellie and Dina, it’s Ellie’s own actions that cause them to fall apart.
Either way this new use of “Take On Me” transforms the song from a love theme to a lost love theme drawing a straight line from where Ellie’s romantic exploits begin to where they tragically end years later.The Last Of Us Part IIwas already emotionally devastating to the extreme as we seeEllie slowly lose everythingshe cares about and this new connection to the very start of her story only makes her fate seem that much more tragic and inevitable.
