The Last of Us actor Bella Ramsey reveals why Ellie cut the infected before killing it. The moment in question happens during The Last of Us season 1, episode 3, “Long Long Time.” As Ellie and Joel travel to meet with Bill and Frank, they stop by an abandoned convenience store to look for supplies. Ellie slips past Joel and jumps into the store’s basement, where an infected is trapped under a heap of debris. Ellie kills this infected, but only after slowly slicing its head open and watching the black blood ooze out of it.

Speaking with Vanity Fair, Ramsey explains Ellie’s decision to cut the infected before killing it. According to Ramsey, Ellie is thinking of people close to her in that scene. To Ellie, it is as if this infected person killed Riley and Tess, even if it wasn’t the same infected. Check out the full quote from Ramsey below:

“I think that this, Ellie cutting the zombie with her knife, that scene, she’s thinking of like Riley and Tess and being like you killed Riley and Tess, essentially, like the infected guy. It’s like, even though it wasn’t you, it was you. It’s like you’re evil, you killed them. It’s like her first moment of real violence and like revenge. Yeah, she’s kind of evil in that moment and I’m kind of into it.”

Why The Last Of Us Scene Is Crucial for Ellie’s Development

Ramsey’s interpretation provides an interesting spin on The Last of Us episode 3 sequence. While Ramsey describes Ellie as a “kind of evil” at that moment, there is also a childlike aspect to this reading of the scene. The wounds of her friend and mother figure’s deaths are still so fresh in Ellie’s young mind that she cannot separate one infected from another.

Ellie’s cutting and eventual stabbing of this infected is a critical moment for her character development. First, Ellie does not tell Joel about this encounter with the infected in the store’s basement. That omission marks the first of Ellie withholding knowledge from Joel, an aspect of her character that will become more critical in episodes like episode 5, “Endure and Survive,” when Ellie fails to tell Joel and Henry that Sam has been bitten.

The episode 3 scene also foreshadows Ellie’s violent tendencies in The Last of Us. Invigorated by Riley and now Tess’s deaths, Ellie’s capacity to kill is not merely an utilitarian survival skill. Instead, Ellie can use sadistic and gratuitous methods of attack, as she inflicts upon Scott Shepard’s character David in season 1, episode 8, “When We Are in Need.” Between this foreshadowing and Ramsey’s explanation of Ellie’s motivation, Ellie’s episode 3 interaction with the infected proves to be critical in The Last of Us.