Story Summary

Joel is a single father living in Austin, Texas with his 12-year-old daughter, Sarah. On the night of his birthday in 2013, there is an outbreak of a severe brain infection. The infection has been spreading throughout the United States. Joel and Sarah, along with Joel’s younger brother Tommy, prepare to flee the area. When Joel and Sarah are separated from Tommy, a soldier protecting the perimeter of the area opens fire. Tommy returns and shoots the man, but it is too late for Sarah who tragically dies in Joel’s arms.

20 years have passed and Joel is now living in the post-apocalyptic Boston as a smuggler. He resides in a quarantine zone with his friend and partner, Tess. After she returns from a recent deal, she explains that some men jumped her. They go out to find a man named Robert, who recently stole guns from them. When they find him, he confesses to giving the guns to the Fireflies, a militia group using military tactics to restore the government. After Tess shoots him, they find Marlene, the leader of the Fireflies. When she explains she needs the guns, she tells them that she will exchange them if they smuggle something out of the city. That something is a 14-year-old girl named Ellie.

Their job is to take Ellie to the Capitol building. Along the way, they are confronted by some soldiers who test them to see if they are infected. When they manage to kill the soldiers, Joel sees that Ellie tested positive. Ellie explains that she was bitten three weeks ago and the infected usually takes two days to take over the brain. She is immune.

After escaping more soldiers, Ellie tells them that Marlene believes that Ellie could be the key for finding a cure. The three of them make their way to the Capitol building, fighting numerous infected along the way. Upon getting there, they realize the Fireflies they were supposed to meet have been killed and Tess reveals a bit she received just hours ago. Joel doesn’t want to continue this mission but Tess says he should take Ellie to Tommy if it means finding a cure. Tommy used to be a Firefly and may know where Ellie should be taken. Some more soldiers are outside and Tess tells Joel and Ellie to run. She would rather die than become infected.

Joel and Ellie make their way to Bill, a paranoid man living on his own who may have access to a running car that will get them out of the city. After confronting some more infected, they get a car running and say goodbye to Bill. As they are passing through Pittsburgh, a group of hunters attacks them. Joel and Ellie try to escape and run into two other travelers named Sam and Henry, brothers. When Henry tells Joel that they are looking to find the Fireflies, they decide to travel together at nightfall to a radio tower. When more hunters confront them, Sam and Henry desert Joel and Ellie. They run onto a bridge and are chased by a Humvee. Their only choice is to jump into the turbulent water.

Joel then wakes up on a beach. Sam and Henry rescue them from the water. Joel points his gun at Henry but Ellie reminds Joel that they saved them from drowning. The group continues into the sewers and find it was once a safe home for some people. Joel and Sam are then separated from Ellie and Henry. They eventually find their way back to each other, fighting hordes of infected until they escape the sewers into a residential neighborhood. But more danger lurks as a sniper shoots at them. Joel, continuously using cover, runs to the house where the shots are coming from and kills the man. Infected try to attack Ellie, Sam, and Henry but Joel shoots them from the window. They flee to safety.

That night, Ellie and Sam talk about what happens after someone is infected. Sam wonders if the person is still in their body, cognizant. Ellie assures him that the person is long gone from their body when they become infected. Sam says Ellie isn’t afraid of anything and she corrects him, revealing she is afraid of ending up alone. Leaving Sam for the night, Sam pulls up his pant leg to reveal he was bitten back in the neighborhood. In the morning, he attacks Ellie. Henry shoots his brother and in his grief, shoots himself.

Ellie and Joel continue their journey to find Tommy. They find he is living at a power plant with his new wife Maria. Joel pulls Tommy aside and reveals Ellie’s condition and that he wants Tommy to finish the job. Tommy reluctantly agrees before Ellie overhears the plan and runs off on one of Tommy’s horses. Joel and Tommy go after her, and find her at an abandoned house in the woods. Joel confronts Ellie and she brings up Sarah. Maria told her what had happened. Joel angrily tells Ellie that she is not his daughter and he is not her dad. Just as Ellie goes to retort, Tommy appears that they are under attack by some bandits. After fighting them off, Joel reflects and realizes and decides he will take Ellie to the Fireflies himself.

They head to the University of Eastern Colorado where Tommy said a Firefly lab is located. The place is abandoned. They find a recorder that tells them the Fireflies are in Salt Lake City, Utah. They then see other survivors in the building who attack them. One pushes Joel over the railing and he is impaled through the stomach by a metal beam. Ellie manages to get them out of there.

Joel is unwell and barely hanging on. Ellie has him hidden in the basement of an abandoned house. While hunting one afternoon, she meets two strangers. They make a deal that she will trade her catch, a buck, for some antibiotics. One man goes to get the medicine, and Ellie is left with David. They fight off many infected before David reveals that it was his men who attacked her and Joel at the university. Ellie raises her weapon at him as the other man arrives with the medicine. Ellie takes it and leaves. She gives Joel the medicine but soon hears people outside. They tracked her back to her location. Wanting to lead them away from Joel, Ellie runs but is soon stopped by David who knocks her unconscious.

Ellie wakes up in a cage and angers David at her refusal to cooperate. Meanwhile, Joel has also woken up. He quickly realizes Ellie is in danger and violently interrogates two men about her location before killing them. David brings Ellie out of the cage and raises a knife to her when she bites him and reveals she is infected. She gets away but David catches up with her in a restaurant. Ellie stabs him multiple times before they are both knocked unconscious in a struggle with one another. Ellie wakes and after another struggle with David, she gets ahold of his machete and violently hacks him to death. Just then, Joel arrives and they leave together.

They continue toward Saint Mary’s hospital when Ellie spots a group of escaped giraffe’s from a local zoo. Joel says they could turn back and forget all of this, but Ellie says she wants to finish the job. They make their way through an underground tunnel and come to a flooded area where Ellie is knocked unconscious. Joel swims to her and tries to revive her but is knocked out by oncoming soldiers. He wakes in the hospital and learns the soldiers were Fireflies. With him is Marlene.

He asks after Ellie and Marlene says she is being prepped for surgery. This surgery will reverse engineer a vaccine from the infection on Ellie’s brain, killing her in the process. Upon this realization, Joel finds out where the operating room is and fights his way to Ellie. After killing the doctor, Joel grabs Ellie and runs out of the hospital. He carries her to the parking garage where Marlene begs him to do the right thing. He shoots her and drives off with Ellie. When she wakes, he lies and tells her that there are many immune people like her and it hasn’t done a bit of good. The Fireflies are no longer looking for a cure.

They return to Tommy’s community and Ellie confronts Joel about the events that transpired at the hospital. She talks of survivors guilt, reflecting on the night she was bitten, and then asks Joel to swear to her that what he said was true. Joel swears and Ellie uncertainly believes him.