Nature, Published online: 04 June 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-01456-7In mice, a lack of maternal iron impairs an iron-dependent enzyme that activates the male sex-determining gene, causing some XY embryos to develop ovaries.

If you wanted to get a COVID vaccine during pregnancy, to protect yourself and your future baby from the virus, that may soon be difficult to impossible. According to a short video posted on X, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, who is also a noted anti-vaccine activist, said that the COVID-19 vaccine “has been removed” from the list of vaccines recommended in pregnancy, as well as the list of vaccines recommended for healthy children. This announcement sidesteps the usual regulatory process, and it’s not clear exactly what will happen next—but here’s what we know. The announcement may not be entirely validRFK, Jr made the announcement in a video where he stood alongside the NIH director Jay Bhattacharya and FDA commissioner Marty Makary. Notably, nobody from the CDC was present. The FDA approves vaccines, but it’s the CDC that is in charge of recommendations. (It is not clear who the CDC’s acting director actually is, or whether there is one.) Normally, the CDC has an advisory panel called ACIP (the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices) that reviews scientific evidence to make recommendations for vaccines. They’ll vote on whether a given vaccine should be recommended for everybody in a group of people. Their decisions are then passed to CDC leadership, who make the final call as to whether the vaccine gets officially recommended for that group. Vaccines are not usually added or removed to the recommended list by the CDC without consulting with ACIP, and they definitely aren’t usually added or removed by tweeting a video. Dorit Reiss, a law professor who specializes in vaccine policy, posted on LinkedIn that the announcement may not be legally valid if it’s not immediately followed by supporting documentation. She says: “Under administrative law, to avoid being found arbitrary and capricious, an agency's decision has to meet certain criteria, including explaining the agency's fact finding, a connection between the facts and the decisions, etc. A one minute video on Twitter doesn't quite get you there.” So far, the CDC’s web page on vaccines recommended in pregnancy still says that “A pregnant woman should get vaccinated against whooping cough, flu, COVID-19, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).” The adult and child vaccine schedules still include COVID vaccines.Strangely, this move on behalf of the CDC contradicts the one we reported about recently from the FDA. The FDA plans to require extra steps (possibly unethical and/or impractical ones) to approve new COVID vaccines for healthy children and adults. But these steps don’t apply to people who are at high risk for complications of COVID. The FDA’s policy announcement included a list of those high risk health conditions—which includes pregnancy.Why it matters which vaccines are “recommended”Recommending a vaccine doesn’t just mean expressing an opinion; the Affordable Care Act requires that vaccines recommended by ACIP must be covered by most private insurance and Medicaid expansion plans without any cost sharing. That means no deductible and no copay—so these vaccines must be free to you out of pocket if you fall into a group of people for whom they are recommended. The recommended vaccines include all the standard childhood vaccines, plus your seasonal flu shot, and other vaccines that are recommended for adults, for people who are pregnant, and so on. The full schedules are here. If you’ve gotten a COVID shot, a flu shot, a tetanus shot, a shingles shot—the shot’s inclusion on this list is why you were able to (probably) get it for free.So taking a vaccine off the recommended list means that it could be prohibitively expensive. GoodRX, which keeps tabs on pharmacy prices, reports that COVID shots may cost $200 or more out of pocket, plus any applicable administration fee that the provider might charge.Taking a vaccine off the recommended list may also mean it won’t be covered by the Vaccines for Children program, which provides free vaccines to children who don’t have coverage for them through health insurance.Whether or not the vaccine actually gets taken off the list, the recent HHS announcement has another impact: The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said in a statement that “Following this announcement, we are worried about our patients in the future, who may be less likely to choose vaccination during pregnancy despite the clear and definitive evidence demonstrating its benefit.” The ACOG statement also pointed out a few ways in which removing the vaccines from the recommended list is not “common sense and good science,” as the HHS announcement claimed. ACOG writes: “As ob-gyns who treat patients every day, we have seen firsthand how dangerous COVID infection can be during pregnancy and for newborns who depend on maternal antibodies from the vaccine for protection. We also understand that despite the change in recommendations from HHS, the science has not changed. It is very clear that COVID infection during pregnancy can be catastrophic and lead to major disability, and it can cause devastating consequences for families.”

More chaos CDC updates COVID vaccine recommendations, but not how RFK Jr. wanted Mixed messages only add to uncertainty about vaccine access for kids, pregnant individuals. Beth Mole – May 30, 2025 4:28 pm | 74 A nurse gives a 16-year-old a COVID-19 vaccine. Credit: Getty | Sopa images A nurse gives a 16-year-old a COVID-19 vaccine. Credit: Getty | Sopa images Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday updated its immunization schedules for children and adults to partially reflect the abrupt changes announced by health secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this week. In a 58-second video posted on social media on Tuesday, May 27, Kennedy said he was unilaterally revoking the CDC's recommendations that healthy children and pregnant people get COVID-19 vaccines. "I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that, as of today, the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule," Kennedy said in the video. The health agency's immunization schedules were not, in fact, updated at the time of the announcement, though. The Washington Post subsequently reported that the CDC was blindsided by the announcement. Five hours went by after the video was posted before CDC officials said they received a one-page "secretarial directive" about the changes, which was signed by Kennedy and puzzlingly dated May 19, according to the Post. Late Thursday, the CDC updated the immunization schedules. Contradicting what Kennedy said in the video, the CDC did not remove its recommendation for COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children in the child and adolescent immunization schedule. Instead, it added a stipulation that if a child's doctor agrees with the vaccination and parents "desire for their child to be vaccinated," healthy children can get vaccinated. In practice, it is unclear how this change will affect access to the vaccines. Health insurers are required to cover vaccines on the CDC schedules. But, it's yet to be seen if children will only be able to get vaccinated at their doctor's office (rather than a pharmacy or vaccine clinic) or if additional consent forms would be required, etc. Uncertainty about the changes and requirements alone may lead to fewer children getting vaccinated. In the adult immunization schedule, when viewed "by medical condition or other indication" (table 2), the COVID-19 vaccination recommendation for pregnancy is now shaded gray, meaning "no guidance/not applicable." Hovering a cursor over the box brings up the recommendation to "Delay vaccination until after pregnancy if vaccine is indicated." Previously, COVID-19 vaccines were recommended during pregnancy. The change makes it less likely that health insurers will cover the cost of vaccination during pregnancy. The change is at odds with Trump's Food and Drug Administration, which just last week confirmed that pregnancy puts people at increased risk of severe COVID-19 and, therefore, vaccination is recommended. Medical experts have decried the loss of the recommendation, which is also at odds with clear data showing the risks of COVID-19 during pregnancy and the benefits of vaccination. The President of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) put out a statement shortly after the Tuesday video, saying that the organization was "extremely disappointed" with Kennedy's announcement. "It is very clear that COVID-19 infection during pregnancy can be catastrophic and lead to major disability, and it can cause devastating consequences for families," ACOG President Steven Fleischman said. Beth Mole Senior Health Reporter Beth Mole Senior Health Reporter Beth is Ars Technica’s Senior Health Reporter. Beth has a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attended the Science Communication program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specializes in covering infectious diseases, public health, and microbes. 74 Comments

This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us season 2. Season 2 of The Last of Us was undeniably a huge swing, as was the video game it’s based on. The Last of Us Part II features the death of the first game’s protagonist early on and forces the player to play as his killer not only before the deed is done, but for about half of the game part way through the story. It’s a narrative about cycles of violence and the lengths that people will go to protect who they love, but it’s also an exercise in empathy. There’s a difference between embodying a character for hours at a time in a video game and watching a character do the same actions in a TV show. When you spend hours living and breathing and fighting for your life as a character, it’s easy to form an attachment to them, to prescribe our own ideas onto them as our morals inform theirs. Even though there’s not really anything the player can do to affect the overall outcome of the story in The Last of Us Part II, your playstyle is going to affect your experience. One player may try to sneak by the W.L.F. and Seraphite adversaries as Ellie, trying to kill as few people as possible. Another may go in knives and guns blazing, leaving an even larger trail of bodies in their wake. Neither method is “wrong,” but it is going to affect how you interpret the story and the characters as a player. Translating this story and its structure to television was never going to be easy. The first season of The Last of Us had the luxury of adapting a beginning, middle, and end from the story of the first game. Season 1 also had nine episodes to tell the story of a roughly 10-hour (give or take) game and its approximately two-hour DLC meaning that we got to spend close to the same amount of time with the characters in the show as players do in the game. Season 2, on the other hand, is only adapting part of a game that can take upwards of 24 hours to play through, and only had seven episodes to tell this part of the story.  A lot of criticisms people have shared surrounding season 2 of the show are valid. There are parts of the story, especially when Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Dina (Isabela Merced) get to Seattle, that feel rushed. There are some character choices that are or may seem different from those that are made in the game. But arguably, the heart of The Last of Us Part II’s story is still here, even if this season missed the mark with some aspects. Of course Ellie’s Seattle arc is going to feel rushed when we only get three approximately hour-long episodes to cover it versus the close to eleven hours of gameplay Ellie’s Seattle arc gets in the game. We’re not going to be able to see how Ellie got all of the cuts and bruises that Dina is tending to in the season finale or watch her traverse Seattle in-depth – there’s simply not enough time.  It would have been great to get more time with Ellie and Dina in Seattle. But unfortunately, 13 or even 10 episodes for one season is a luxury that most studios don’t seem to want to afford in the streaming era. Even though The Last of Us co-showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have said that they chose to end the season at this specific point in the story and felt like seven episodes was enough to do so, I still don’t fault them entirely. Trying to do more with less feels more like a symptom of the state of TV and the industry as a whole than something to only blame The Last of Us writers for doing. At some point you get used to doing more with less and less. With the structure of season 2, Mazin says that they “considered everything.” They thought about interlacing the stories of Ellie and Abby, but ultimately realized that switching perspectives halfway through the story is “part of the genetics of how this story functions.” But now that means “we have to take risks as a television show, and HBO is backing us taking risks. But then again, we just did kill Pedro Pascal. Like [HBO] understands that this show is going to be a different show every season, which is a tricky thing to do when you’re a hit show. You keep asking people like, ‘I know you love this, we’re taking it away and giving you this now.’” Understandably not everyone has been on board with these changes. Season 2 of The Last of Us has a consistently lower IMDb score than season 1, and it’s hard to look through any form of social media without finding a mix of reactions from fans who are enjoying the story as it is and others who think that the writers have massacred their favorite characters. But at the same time, Mazin, Druckmann, and TLOU Part II co-writer Halley Gross clearly have a deep love for this story, even if their interpretation of certain character’s decisions doesn’t always align with the audience’s. The characters in the TV show are different than the characters in the game because they experience these events differently. In the show, Ellie has to sit in a hospital recovering for three months before she can even think about chasing Abby and her crew to Seattle. Setting aside that time for recovery is not necessarily something that a video game has to think about – a physical therapy level isn’t exactly something that players of a game like this are going to be excited about.  Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! It’s not that this version of Ellie is less angry than she is in the game. She’s just had three months to practice burying her anger so it’s more palatable for others. She has to convince the hospital, and Gail (Catherine O’Hara), that she’s fit enough to be released. She has to try and convince the council that she’s fit enough to lead a group to Seattle for justice. She has to convince a pregnant Dina that no matter what happens while they’re in Seattle, that this is the morally right thing for them to do. Because we don’t spend 11-plus hours literally in Ellie’s shoes while watching the TV show, her grief has to be explored in different ways. It’s shown in the brief moment she plays the guitar while waiting for Dina to triangulate a route. Even though Ellie may not be throwing the guitar across the room, there’s still clearly anger mixed with the grief on her face as she plays her and Joel’s song. We see it when she lashes out at Jesse and chooses to go to the aquarium instead of following him to find Tommy. We see it when she screams out in pain in a hospital bed in Jackson. And we see it when Dina tends to her wounds. It’s not that she’s not angry or grieving, we just don’t get to see every single moment of it that we do in the game. And of course Ellie is going to tell Abby that she didn’t mean to hurt her friends and beg her to spare their lives. Abby just shot Jesse dead in front of her and is standing over Tommy with his life in her hands just as she did with Joel. Even if this isn’t exactly how Ellie reacts in the game, it’s a logical trauma response to finally seeing Abby again. Abby was able to kill Joel – someone Ellie looked up to and probably thought was unstoppable as most kids do with their parents in their youth. It makes sense that seeing her again would trigger this kind of response in Ellie too. It’s not that she doesn’t want to kill Abby in this moment – she’s just trying to keep her and her loved ones alive for as long as she can.  We saw her do something similar with David (Scott Shepherd) in season 1. She made herself as non-threatening as possible to get him to let his guard down and then proceeded to viciously attack him. Ellie isn’t a stranger to lying and manipulating to get what she wants, even in stressful circumstances. Why should this be any different? Mazin doesn’t deny that they took some risks with season 2, admitting to The Hollywood Reporter that “I don’t think television is supposed to work like this. We’re clearly breaking quite a few rules, and I love that. And I love it because that is the point. This is not something we’re doing as a gimmick.” Mazin argues that The Last of Us forces us to interrogate what we believe about heroes and villains and see the flaws in that kind of black and white thinking, and he knows that this is “a challenging thing to keep track of emotionally” and that people are going to feel provoked by it. “But part of this story,” he says, “is about examining why we’re so comfortable with following one person’s point of view about everything.” The Last of Us season 2 was never going to be exactly like the game, and that’s okay! When you’ve already made a story that resonates with so many people, it’s not going to be easy to recreate that story in another medium – especially in the streaming era when shows don’t always know if they’re going to be able to get all the seasons they want to tell the story. Time is a luxury that television doesn’t always have. The show may not have hit a home run with every swing they took, but overall the story still lands. The heart of the game and its story of grief and loss and love and violence are still there. Hopefully fans won’t give up on the show just yet and trust that the show’s writers really do care about this story enough to do it justice.

Let’s start with one unambiguous fact: More children are diagnosed with autism today than in the early 1990s. According to a sweeping 2000 analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a range of 2–7 per 1,000, or roughly 0.5 percent of US children, were diagnosed with autism in the 1990s. That figure has risen to 1 in 35 kids, or roughly 3 percent.The apparent rapid increase caught the attention of people like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who assumed that something had to be changing in the environment to drive it. In 2005, Kennedy, a lawyer and environmental activist at the time, authored an infamous essay in Rolling Stone that primarily placed the blame for the increased prevalence of autism on vaccines. (The article was retracted in 2011 as more studies debunked the vaccine-autism connection.) More recently, he has theorized that a mysterious toxin introduced in the late 1980s must be responsible. Now, as the nation’s top health official leading the Department of Health and Human Services, Kennedy has declared autism an “epidemic.” And, in April, he launched a massive federal effort to find the culprit for the rise in autism rates, calling for researchers to examine a range of suspects: chemicals, molds, vaccines, and perhaps even ultrasounds given to pregnant mothers. “Genes don’t cause epidemics. You need an environmental toxin,” Kennedy said in April when announcing his department’s new autism research project. He argued that too much money had been put into genetic research — “a dead end,” in his words — and his project would be a correction to focus on environmental causes. “That’s where we’re going to find an answer.”But according to many autism scientists I spoke to for this story, Kennedy is looking in exactly the wrong place. Three takeaways from this storyExperts say the increase in US autism rates is mostly explained by the expanding definitions of the condition, as well as more awareness and more screening for it.Scientists have identified hundreds of genes that are associated with autism, building a convincing case that genetics are the most important driver of autism’s development — not, as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has argued, a single environmental toxin.Researchers fear Kennedy’s fixation on outside toxins could distract from genetic research that has facilitated the development of exciting new therapies that could help those with profound autism.Autism is a complex disorder with a range of manifestations that has long defied simple explanations, and it’s unlikely that we will ever identify a single “cause” of autism.But scientists have learned a lot in the past 50 years, including identifying some of the most important risk factors. They are not, as Kennedy suggests, out in our environment. They are written into our genetics. What appeared to be a massive increase in autism was actually a byproduct of better screening and more awareness. “The way the HHS secretary has been walking about his plans, his goals, he starts out with this basic assumption that nothing worthwhile has been done,” Helen Tager-Flusberg, a psychologist at Boston University who has worked with and studied children with autism for years, said. “Genes play a significant role. We know now that autism runs in families… There is no single underlying factor. Looking for that holy grail is not the best approach.”Doctors who treat children with autism often talk about how they wish they could provide easy answers to the families. The answers being uncovered through genetics research may not be simple per se, but they are answers supported by science.Kennedy is muddying the story, pledging to find a silver-bullet answer where likely none exists. It’s a false promise — one that could cause more anxiety and confusion for the very families Kennedy says he wants to help. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a news conference at the Department of Health and Human Services in mid-April to discuss this agency’s efforts to determine the cause of autism. Alex Wong/Getty ImagesThe autism “epidemic” that wasn’tAutism was first described in 1911, and for many decades, researchers and clinicians confused the social challenges and language development difficulties common among those with the condition for a psychological issue. Some child therapists even blamed the condition on bad parenting. But in 1977, a study discovered that identical twins, who share all of their DNA, were much more likely to both be autistic than fraternal twins, who share no more DNA than ordinary siblings. It marked a major breakthrough in autism research, and pushed scientists to begin coalescing around a different theory: There was a biological factor.At the time, this was just a theory — scientists lacked the technology to prove those suspicions at the genetic level. And clinicians were also still trying to work out an even more fundamental question: What exactly was autism? For a long time, the criteria for diagnosing a person with autism was strictly based on speech development. But clinicians were increasingly observing children who could acquire basic language skills but still struggled with social communication — things like misunderstanding nonverbal cues or taking figurative language literally. Psychologists gradually broadened their definition of autism from a strict and narrow focus on language, culminating in a 2013 criteria that included a wide range of social and emotional symptoms with three subtypes — the autism spectrum disorder we’re familiar with today.Along the way, autism had evolved from a niche diagnosis for the severely impaired to something that encompassed far more children. It makes sense then, that as the broad criteria for autism expanded, more and more children would meet it, and autism rates would rise. That’s precisely what happened. And it means that the “epidemic” that Kennedy and other activists have been fixated on is mostly a diagnostic mirage. Historical autism data is spotty and subject to these same historical biases, but if you look at the prevalence of profound autism alone — those who need the highest levels of support — a clearer picture emerges. (There is an ongoing debate in the autism community about whether to use the terminology of “profound autism” or “high support needs” for those who have the most severe form of the condition.) In the ’80s and ’90s, low-support needs individuals would have been less likely to receive an autism diagnosis given the more restrictive criteria and less overall awareness of the disorder, meaning that people with severe autism likely represented most of the roughly 0.5 percent of children diagnosed with autism in the 1990s. (One large analysis from Atlanta examining data from 1996 found that 68 percent of kids ages 3 to 10 diagnosed with autism had an IQ below 70, the typical cutoff for intellectual disability.)By 2025, when about 3 percent of children are being diagnosed with autism, about one in four of those diagnosed are considered to have high-support needs autism, those with most severe manifestation of the condition. That would equal about 0.8 percent of all US children — which would be a fairly marginal increase from autism rates 30 years ago. Or look at it another way: In 2000, as many as 60 percent of the people being diagnosed with autism had an intellectual disability, one of the best indicators of high-support needs autism. In 2022, that percentage was less than 40 percent.As a recently published CDC report on autism prevalence among young children concluded, the increase in autism rates can largely be accounted for by stronger surveillance and more awareness among providers and parents, rather than a novel toxin or some other external factor driving an increase in cases.Other known risk factors — like more people now having babies later in their life, given that parental age is linked to a higher likelihood of autism — are more likely to be a factor than anything Kennedy is pointing at, experts say. “It’s very clear it’s not going to be one environmental toxin,” said Alison Singer, founder of the Autism Science Foundation and parent of a child with profound autism. “If there were a smoking gun, I think they would have found it.”While Kennedy has fixated on vaccines and environmental influences, scientists have gained more precision in mapping human genetics and identifying the biological mechanisms that appear to be a primary cause of autism. And that not only helps us understand why autism develops, but potentially puts long-elusive therapies within reach. It began with an accident in the 1990s. Steven Scherer, now director of the Center for Applied Genomics at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, began his career in the late 1980s trying to identify the gene that caused cystic fibrosis — in collaboration with Francis Collins, who went on to lead the Human Genome Project that successfully sequenced all of the DNA in the human genome in the early 2000s. Scherer and Collins’s teams focused on chromosome 7, identified as a likely target by the primitive genetic research available at the time, a coincidence that would reorient Scherer’s career just a few years later, putting him on the trail of autism’s genetic roots.After four years, the researchers concluded that one gene within chromosome 7 caused cystic fibrosis. Soon after Scherer helped crack the code on cystic fibrosis in the mid-1990s, two parents from California called him: He was the world’s leading expert on chromosome 7, and recent tests had revealed that their children with autism had a problem within that particular chromosome.That very same week, Scherer says, he read the findings of a study by a group at Oxford University, which had looked at the chromosomes of families with two or more kids with autism. They, too, had identified problems within chromosome 7.“So I said, ‘Okay, we’re going to work on autism,’” Scherer told me. He helped coordinate a global research project, uniting his Canadian lab with the Oxford team and groups in the US to run a database that became the Autism Genome Project, still the world’s largest repository of genetic information of people with autism.They had a starting point — one chromosome — but a given chromosome contains hundreds of genes. And humans have, of course, 45 other chromosomes, any of which conceivably might play a role. So over the years, they collected DNA samples from thousands upon thousands of people with autism, sequenced their genes, and then searched for patterns. If the same gene is mutated or missing across a high percentage of autistic people, it goes on the list as potentially associated with the condition. Scientists discovered that autism has not one genetic factor, but many — further evidence that this is a condition of complex origin, in which multiple variables likely play a role in its development, rather than one caused by a single genetic error like sickle-cell anemia.Here is one way to think about how far we have come: Joseph Buxbaum, the director of the Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, entered autism genetics research 35 years ago. He recalls scientists being hopeful that they might identify a half dozen or so genes linked to autism.They have now found 500 genes — and Buxbaum told me he believed they might find a thousand before they are through. These genetic factors continue to prove their value in predicting the onset of autism: Scherer pointed to one recent study in which the researchers identified people who all shared a mutation in the SHANK3 gene, one of the first to be associated with autism, but who were otherwise unalike: They were not related and came from different demographic backgrounds. Nevertheless, they had all been diagnosed with autism.Researchers analyze the brain activity of a 14-year-old boy with autism as part of a University of California San Francisco study that involves intensive brain imaging of kids and their parents who have a rare chromosome disruption connected to autism. The study, the Simons Variation in Individuals Project, is a genetics-first approach to studying autism spectrum and related neurodevelopmental disorders. Michael Macor/San Francisco Chronicle via The Associated PressPrecisely how much genetics contributes to the development of autism remains the subject of ongoing study. By analyzing millions of children with autism and their parents for patterns in diagnoses, multiple studies have attributed about 80 percent of a person’s risk of developing autism to their inherited genetic factors. But of course 80 percent is not 100 percent. We don’t yet have the full picture of how or why autism develops. Among identical twins, for example, studies have found that in most cases, if one twin has high-support needs autism, the other does as well, affirming the genetic effect. But there are consistently a small minority of cases — 5 and 10 percent of twin pairs, Scherer told me — in which one twin has relatively low-support needs while the one requires a a high degree of support for their autism.Kennedy is not wholly incorrect to look at environmental factors — researchers theorize that autism may be the result of a complex interaction between a person’s genetics and something they experience in utero. Scientists in autism research are exploring the possible influence when, for example, a person’s mother develops maternal diabetes, high blood sugar that persists throughout pregnancy. And yet even if these other factors do play some role, the researchers I spoke to agree that genetics is, based on what we know now, far and away the most important driver.“We need to figure out how other types of genetics and also environmental factors affect autism’s development,” Scherer said. “There could be environmental changes…involved in some people, but it’s going to be based on their genetics and the pathways that lead them to be susceptible.”While the precise contours of Health Department’s new autism research project is still taking shape, Kennedy has that researchers at the National Institutes of Health will collect data from federal programs such as Medicare and Medicaid and somehow use that information to identify possible environmental exposures that lead to autism. He initially pledged results by September, a timeline that, as outside experts pointed out, may be too fast to allow for a thorough and thoughtful review of the research literature. Kennedy has since backed off on that deadline, promising some initial findings in the fall but with more to come next year.RFK Jr.’s autism commission research risks the accessibility of groundbreaking autism treatmentsIf Kennedy were serious about moving autism science forward, he would be talking more about genetics, not dismissing them. That’s because genetics is where all of the exciting drug development is currently happening.A biotech firm called Jaguar Gene Therapy has received FDA approval to conduct the first clinical trial of a gene therapy for autism, focused on SHANK3. The treatment, developed in part by one of Buxbaum’s colleagues, is a one-time injection that would replace a mutated or missing SHANK3 gene with a functional one. The hope is that the therapy would improve speech and other symptoms among people with high-needs autism who have also been diagnosed with a rare chromosomal deletion disorder called Phelan-McDermid syndrome; many people with this condition also have Autism spectrum disorder.The trial will begin this year with a few infant patients, 2 years old and younger, who have been diagnosed with autism. Jaguar eventually aims to test the therapy on adults over 18 with autism in the future. Patients are supposed to start enrolling this year in the trial, which is focused on first establishing the treatment’s safety; if it proves safe, another round of trials would start to rigorously evaluate its effectiveness.“This is the stuff that three or four years ago sounded like science fiction,” Singer said. “The conversation has really changed from Is this possible? to What are the best methods to do it? And that’s based on genetics.”Researchers at Mount Sinai have also experimented with delivering lithium to patients and seeing if it improves their SHANK3 function. Other gene therapies targeting other genes are in earlier stages of development. Some investigators are experimenting with CRISPR technology, the revolutionary new platform for gene editing, to target the problematic genes that correspond to the onset of autism.But these scientists fear that their work could be slowed by Kennedy’s insistence on hunting for environmental toxins, if federal dollars are instead shifted into his new project. They are already trying to subsist amid deep budget cuts across the many funding streams that support the institutions where they work. “Now we have this massive disruption where instead of doing really key experiments, people are worrying about paying their bills and laying off their staff and things,” Scherer said. “It’s horrible.” For the families of people with high-needs autism, Kennedy’s crusade has stirred conflicting emotions. Alison Singer, the leader of the Autism Science Foundation, is also the parent of a child with profound autism. When I spoke with her, I was struck by the bind that Kennedy’s rhetoric has put people like her and her family in. Singer told me profound autism has not received enough federal support in the past, as more emphasis was placed on individuals who have low support needs included in the expanding definitions of the disorder, and so she appreciates Kennedy giving voice to those families. She believes that he is sincerely empathetic toward their predicament and their feeling that the mainstream discussion about autism has for too long ignored their experiences in favor of patients with lower support needs. But she worries that his obsession with environmental factors will stymie the research that could yield breakthroughs for people like her child.“He feels for those families and genuinely wants to help them,” Singer said. “The problem is he is a data denier. You can’t be so entrenched in your beliefs that you can’t see the data right in front of you. That’s not science.”See More:

This review contains spoilers for The Last of Us season 2 episode 7. It’s hard to follow the heartbreakingly beautiful and emotional performances we saw in last week’s flashback episode of The Last of Us. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey brought their A+ game as this episode revealed the ups and downs of Joel and Ellie’s relationship over the last few years, right up until the night before Joel died. And yet, despite this episode arguably being the best of the season, the season finale still manages to take us on a devastating wild ride. Back in Seattle, Dina (Isabela Merced) and Jesse (Young Mazino) deal with the aftermath of getting caught up in the war between the W.L.F. and the Seraphites. While they wait for Ellie to catch back up with them, they deal with Dina’s arrow to the leg and Jesse gets her all patched up. Even though emotions are high, they are still able to have a touching moment together, and it’s clear that the two still care about each other, even if their feelings are no longer romantic. We get to see another moment of care amidst the chaos once Ellie returns to the theater. She goes to check on Dina, who almost immediately starts taking care of Ellie and her battered and bruised body. Ellie is clearly still processing what she did to Nora (Tati Gabrielle) and what she learned about Abby’s (Kaitlyn Dever) location (which isn’t much). In this vulnerable moment, as Ellie verbally grapples with what she did to Nora, she tells Dina about Salt Lake City, including the fact that Joel killed Abby’s dad. Dina seems surprised by this, realizing that Abby may have been more justified in her revenge than she thought. At this point, it seems like everyone but Ellie is ready to put an end to this revenge mission and head back home to Jackson. Jesse is focused on finding Tommy (Gabriel Luna), especially after finding out that he’s going to be a father. But Ellie can’t let her vengeance go. While they’re looking for Tommy, she realizes that Nora’s clues “whale” and “wheel” probably mean that Abby’s at the aquarium – so she ditches Jesse and sets off in that direction. Ellie has so many close calls – if the W.L.F. weren’t planning an invasion of Seraphite territory at the same time, she would have been hung and fileted like the guy they saw in the park. She finds Owen (Spencer Lord) and Mel (Ariela Barer) seemingly arguing over Abby and whether or not to chase after her. When they spot Ellie, she tries to get them to tell her where Abby is, like we’ve seen Joel do before.  Owen moves for a gun, and Ellie reacts, shooting him in the neck and accidentally nicking an artery in Mel’s. Barer gives a devastating performance in Mel’s last moments as she begs Ellie to cut her open and try to save her baby. Ellie just kind of sits there holding her knife in shock over the fact that Mel was pregnant and she just killed her until Jesse and Tommy come rushing in. Tommy immediately goes to her, holding her and helping her up, while Jesse stares at the carnage for a moment after they leave. Even though he doesn’t say anything, it seems like he’s shaken up too – like he’s staring at himself and Dina if they don’t get out of Seattle soon. They get back to the theater and Ellie finally seems ready to leave. Whether it’s the shock of what she just did to Owen and Mel, her near death experience with the Seraphites, or the fact that her leads to find Abby have simply dried up isn’t fully clear, but at least she’s starting to recognize how dangerous it is for everyone else she cares about if they stay. Tommy tries to calm Ellie’s fears, he reassures her that Owen and Mel were still complicit in Joel’s death even if they didn’t hold the golf club themselves, and then leaves her and Jesse to try and reconcile. Ellie thanks Jesse for coming back for her and the two have a heart to heart. Despite their differences, Jesse knows that Ellie would set the world on fire to save him. Their moment is unfortunately short-lived when they hear a commotion in the lobby. They rush out and Jesse is immediately shot dead. We then see Abby for the first time since she killed Joel, now standing over Tommy pointing a gun at his head. Ellie pleads with her, telling her that she’s the one that she wants. There’s true fear in Ellie’s eyes as she worries that Abby will kill more people that she loves, more of her community. Abby then says to Ellie with an intense ferocity, “I let you live. I let you live, and you wasted it,” before turning her gun to Ellie. The screen goes black as we hear a gunshot in the background, not knowing who fired the gun nor who was potentially hit. The episode then goes back in time, taking us to the start of Abby’s journey these last few days. Some may feel like this ending is odd or abrupt, but given how The Last of Us Part II’s story is split up between the two protagonists, Ellie and Abby, and the fact that this season only had seven episodes, this is arguably the best place to end season 2 and a great way to tease what’s to come in season 3. It may not feel as concise as season 1’s ending, but that’s because season 1 had a clear beginning and end to the story. The source material for season 2 is a lot heftier and there’s plenty more of The Last of Us Part II left to be adapted for the show. This episode is a great way to effectively end Ellie’s Seattle arc and this chapter of the story while preparing the audience for next season to shift gears, and protagonists. Hopefully fans of the show will keep an open mind as we prepare to see Abby’s side of the story next season. I know I’ll be seated and ready whenever that time comes. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! All seven episodes of The Last of Us season 2 are available to stream on (soon-to-be HBO) Max now. Learn more about Den of Geek’s review process and why you can trust our recommendations here.

The Last of Us just wrapped up its second season, and the finale ends in a way that sets up a major change for the show. It’s one that reflects a similar shift in perspective that fans of the game it’s adapting will remember well: one designed to make viewers see the story in a whole new way.This story contains spoilers for the first two seasons of The Last of Us, as well as both games.After the relative peace and respite of season 2’s penultimate episode, which tracked Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) shifting relationship over the course of several years, the finale gets back to the dark stuff. Namely, Ellie’s quest to find and kill Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), who murdered Joel as revenge for killing her own father.Despite being caught in a literal warzone in Seattle, and having a pregnant girlfriend who just suffered a grievous injury, and listening to a speech from Jesse (Young Mazino) about the importance of thinking about the good of their community as a whole, it seems nothing can stop Ellie in her own quest for revenge. So when she learns Abby might be in a nearby aquarium, she abandons everything to go there, only to accidentally kill two of Abby’s friends, one of whom is pregnant herself.This moment is pivotal in that it really drives home just how determined Ellie is, and how much violence she’s willing to create and endure in pursuit of revenge. But it’s also not the end of the episode. The last two minutes suddenly shift to Abby in a massive settlement inside of a baseball stadium. After following Ellie’s three-day-long quest, we see Abby alongside the words “Seattle: Day One.”Image: HBOFor those who have played The Last of Us Part II, this mirrors the structure of the game. In the first half of the game, Abby is a villain to be chased, before players take control of her to see the same period of time through her eyes, turning her into a character that you can both hate and sympathize with, much as Ellie steadily becomes. According to co-showrunner Craig Mazin, one of the challenges of re-creating this moment came down to the differences between games and television. The team wanted to get a similar feeling across, even knowing that it wouldn’t hit quite as hard.“We can’t reproduce the shock of becoming a person,” Mazin said during a press Q&A ahead of the finale. “In the games you are Joel, you are Ellie, you are Abby. When that shift happens it’s jarring because you have been someone. But here we’re watching everybody equally on a screen.” He added, “What we’re doing is honoring the notion that there’s a time period where one person experiences it one way, and another is experiencing it so wildly different, and yet they converge.”The suggestion is that season 3 will largely follow Abby’s side of the story, something that Neil Druckmann, co-showrunner and also creative director of the games, alluded to. “Had we ended this season somewhere else, like a few moments before, I think we wouldn’t be making the right promise of what this is about,” Druckmann said. “We’re telling you that next season, one, there is just an epic nature to what’s about to happen, and two, this other story is going to be really important.”This doesn’t mean there won’t be Ellie in season 3 — or Joel, for that matter — as the TV show has been fairly liberal with shifting moments around to better suit its own style of storytelling. So it’s very unlikely that season 3 will be solely, or even primarily, from Abby’s perspective. But learning her side of the story will be important, particularly for how it both mirrors and differs from Ellie’s perspective and makes viewers root for or against both parties.“We understand that both Ellie and Abby are moving forward in trouble,” explained Mazin. “They are in moral trouble, because their certainty is beginning to fail them, and we can see it here with Ellie for sure. Because faced with the consequences of the thing she’s done, and the people that didn’t deserve to die dying, she’s starting to feel maybe a swing of the pendulum.”Even still, adding in a third major character to sympathize with will mark a major shift for the show going forward, much as killing off Joel was for season 2. And Mazin believes this is a core part of the structure of the series. “This show is going to be a different show every season,” he said.See More:

The Last of Us season two wraps with episode seven, but was it a satisfying finale? Fun-gal and games. Image credit: HBO Feature by Victoria Phillips Kennedy News Reporter Published on May 26, 2025 The Last of Us' second season has now come to an end, with a gritty episode which delved further into the themes of grief and revenge. Please note, there will be spoilers for The Last of Us - both the show and the game - below. Image credit: HBO I never thought this last episode of The Last of Us season two was going to be easy to pull off. The showrunners delivered a moving episode last week, which, while a great watch, staggered the current day's momentum. And, unfortunately, I don't feel the series gained enough of that momentum back in season two's seventh episode to make for a truly great finale. The finale is not quite 50 minutes long, picking up after the main events of episode five. Jesse is with a wounded Dina in the theatre, where he proceeds to remove the arrow from her leg. Dina tells him she can't die, and also refuses to drink any alcohol, rousing his suspicions that there is something more she isn't telling him. A short time later, Ellie arrives back at the theatre, following her confrontation with Nora. It is clear that this Ellie is a very different person from the Ellie we saw in season one, who after beating David to death was unable to contain her emotions despite her actions in that moment saving her life. She was distressed, crying and shaking. After Ellie beats Nora in Seattle, though, she is almost numb. She does not lash out, but rather stares vacantly as Dina tends to her wounds, calmly saying how she made Nora talk. The Ellie we once knew is fading away. Image credit: HBO The dynamic between Ellie, Dina, and Jesse during the season two finale is a high point of the episode. The three young actors each show an earnestness in their performances. When Ellie tells Isabela Merced's Dina what Joel did at the Firefly hospital, Dina firmly says they need to leave Seattle. They need to go home (this does water down her speach about revenge from earlier in the season, though, it has to be said). Young Mazino's Jesse, meanwhile, serves as the level-headed, parental voice of reason, taking on a role well beyond his years as he rallies the team to find Tommy before they leave Seattle. Lastly, Bella Ramsey continues to deliver a tenacious performance as Ellie. I particularly liked the scene between Ellie and Jesse in the bookshop. Here, Jesse admits that he not only once considered leaving Jackson to be with a woman he had fallen in love with, but that he had voted not to go after Abby during the council meeting several episodes earlier. Jesse does not patronise Ellie here. Instead, he is calm and collected. He explains his reasons, stating that Jackson's community is what's important to him. He acts for the greater good, even if that means sacrificing his personal happiness. He is a natural and capable leader, something that highlights Ellie's increasingly warped sense of reality and scrappiness. Unfortunately though, Jesse's sound words are not enough to get through to Ellie, who sees an opportunity to find Abby, and takes it, even though she promised to go home. And, from here on, the season finale begins to struggle. Image credit: HBO Ellie separates from Dina and Jesse to find Abby, and on her way comes across Seraphites, as well as Mel and Owen. But, while these scenes do pack a punch - seeing Ellie getting hoisted by the neck by the Seraphites is certainly not an easy watch - they don't get enough time to stand on their own and really make an impact on the viewer. The confrontation with the Serphites in the woods is a footnote on Ellie's way to the aquarium. Did it really need to be there? For Ellie's story, I really don't think it did. I appreciate there is the war between the WLF and the Serpaphites ticking along in the background of this episode, but I have played the games. I know what the showrunners are building up to with the WLF and the Seraphites in the background, but if someone doesn't know the source material already, I wonder if these moments - including the one between Isaac and Park at a WLF camp - may fall a little flat due to their lack of clear direction. The Last of Us season two's finale teased events beyond Ellie and Dina, but given viewers will have to wait (potentially) a couple of years to find out what these story scraps all mean, are they actually worth it? | Image credit: HBO Then there is that confrontation between Ellie, Mel and Owen. I say confrontation, but actually the show changes some narrative points here, and I think this is to the detriment of the story. In the show, Ellie shoots Owen in the throat, killing him. Meanwhile, a rogue piece of detritus from the shot lodges itself in Mel's neck, wounding her enough that her death is inevitable. So, Mel's death was accidental. I don't think it should have been. In the game, Ellie knows what she is doing as she kills Mel, and I wish the series had committed to making Ellie's killing spree, which continues to show her downward spiral on her quest for revenge, intentional. I will say this, though. The moment it is revealed that Mel is pregnant is certainly a harrowing one, and Ariela Barer does a brilliant job bringing emotion to Mel's death as she reaches out to Ellie in a bid to save her unborn child. I wish Ellie had been stronger here. Ellie is clearly upset by the accident which led to Mel's death, and is deeply affected at the realisation that Mel is pregnant. Of course, it reflects Dina's pregnancy. And yet, when in her dying moments Mel asks Ellie if her baby is OK, Ellie can't even muster a small lie to ease her passing. She just stays silent. Changes like making Mel's death accidental dilute the impact of The Last of Us Part 2's story. I feel the show made Ellie seem quite infantile here, when really by this moment in the game we are starting to see the real darkness in Ellie, which makes the player further question if her bloody quest for revenge is actually justifiable any more. Meanwhile, although I can not fault the actors who continue to deliver some truly outstanding performances, any impact this moment may have had on viewers is over too quickly. Jesse and Tommy arrive to see Ellie looking distressed, and swiftly remove both her and, by extension, the viewers from the scene. It's uncomfortable, but it would have benefited the story to let us all sit in that moment for longer, to allow the reality of it all to nestle in. Image credit: HBO The rest of the episode continues to happen at breakneck speed, and while she doesn't get much screen time, Kaitlyn Dever steals the scene with Abby's return, making a big impression very quickly. Prior to the season two's debut, there was much chatter about Dever being physically very different from her in-game counterpart. But, while smaller in build, there is no doubting Abby's capabilities in the show. She means business, and while Ellie's kills have often been messy and lacking finesse, it is clear Abby has military training and a steady resolve. The show ends with a cliffhanger, with Jesse dead Abby shoots at Ellie before we cut back to Abby at the WLF base in Seattle. "Day One," the screen teases. Now, we are going to hear Abby's side of the story. It is an interesting set up, for sure. But, again, I worry how those who have not played the games will feel about season two ending this way. Has the show done enough to pull viewers back for season three, which is still potentially several years away, where the focus will be on a character we have actually spent very little time with? Image credit: HBO The second season of The Last of Us has been uneven. There is no doubting the production value behind the season, and the actors have all done a phenomenal job bringing Naughty Dog's characters to life for TV. Merced's Dina has been a particular highlight this season and, along with Mazino, has been a brilliant addition to the cast. But, despite these great performances, the story has felt both too slow and too rushed. Episodes such as the series' second instalment offered plenty of action, but then episodes such as the fifth and today's finale felt more like a patchwork of convenient and sometimes rather dull moments, all dashing to an all-too-quick conclusion. Spores, for example, only showed up once to serve Nora's death. It would have been good to have seen them at least one more during the season to make their introduction feel less contrived. Image credit: HBO Saying that, though, I am genuinely looking forward to season three, which was confirmed earlier this year. Showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have an interesting journey ahead of them, and I am curious to see how they will continue to evolve and adapt The Last of Us Part 2 for TV. Before I go, I will give season two credit for something extra, though - I am so glad we didn't have to see Ellie kill a dog (also, thank you Jesse for confirming Shimmer is actually OK, despite seemingly being forgotten about Ellie and Dina). She lives! | Image credit: HBO And with that, that's a wrap on The Last of Us season two. Thank you for joining me each week to discuss the episodes as they happen. Until next time, keep looking for the light!

This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us season 2 episode 7. With its season 2 finale, The Last of Us, the show takes viewers back to Seattle, delivering an epic final episode that ends Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) arc of the story, for now, and sets up Abby’s (Kaitlyn Dever). Ellie and Dina’s (Isabela Merced) journey has only gotten more and more dangerous with violence between the W.L.F. and Seraphites continuing to ramp up. Now that Jesse (Young Mazino) and Tommy (Gabriel Luna) are in the picture, the stakes are even higher to make sure that everyone makes it back to Jackson alive. But just because more of her chosen family is in danger doesn’t mean that Ellie will give up the hunt for Abby so easily. Here’s everything that goes down in the season 2 finale of The Last of Us. Ellie’s Return The episode begins with Dina and Jesse back in the theater. Jesse is tending to Dina’s wound and realizes he has to push the arrow through her leg to avoid further damage to her arteries. Even though tensions are high, it’s clear that the two still care about each other, even if their feelings are no longer romantic. Not long after Jesse sends Dina off to rest, Ellie returns, and immediately starts looking for Dina. She finds her resting in the dressing room, and the two share a tender moment taking care of each other. Ellie checks on Dina’s wound and Dina starts to dress Ellie’s scrapes and bruises. Dina reassures Ellie that the baby is okay and asks Ellie what happened after they got separated. Ellie tells her that she found Nora, but only got two words from her to indicate where Abby is “whale” and “wheel.”  Ellie also confesses that she left Nora to die and succumb to the Cordyceps infection, and that it was easier to hurt her than she thought it was going to be. Dina tries to reassure Ellie that maybe Nora got what she deserved – Nora was the one who held Ellie down and forced her to watch Joel die after all. But Ellie isn’t so sure. She tells Dina about Salt Lake City and what she learned about that day from Nora, that Abby’s father was among the Fireflies that Joel killed. Dina is surprised by this and seems to be realizing that maybe they aren’t so different from Abby and her crew after all. She tells Ellie that they need to go home. Finding Tommy The next morning, Jesse and Ellie head off into Seattle to try and find Tommy. Jesse asks Ellie what’s up with Dina after she declined a drink the night before and insisted that she can’t die. He guesses that she’s pregnant, and Ellie accidentally confirms it, not realizing that Jesse is just guessing. This makes Jesse’s desire to go back to Jackson even stronger, and tells Ellie that now he can’t die for her revenge quest either. As the rain starts to pour, Ellie and Jesse seek refuge in a parking garage, only to nearly be caught in the crossfire between the W.L.F. and the Seraphites. The W.L.F. chase a young Seraphite into the garage, stripping him down and dragging him off. Ellie wants to intervene, stop the W.L.F. from killing the kid, but Jesse holds her back because he doesn’t want to die for a war they have no stake in.  They make it to Jesse and Tommy’s rendezvous point, a bookstore, but Tommy is nowhere to be found. Ellie picks up a children’s book to give to Dina while they wait and tries to have a heart to heart with Jesse about her and Dina’s feelings for each other. Jesse tells Ellie that he fell for a girl who came through Jackson a while back, but that he let her go to fulfill his duty to Jackson. He emphasizes the fact that he was taught to put other people first, and this sets Ellie off. But their argument is interrupted by chatter on the walkie talkie. The W.L.F. are talking about a sniper that sounds an awful lot like Tommy. The Search for Abby Ellie and Jesse go to higher ground to find a way to where Tommy might be, but Ellie gets distracted when she sees the aquarium in the distance. She sees a ferris wheel and realizes that that is likely what Nora was talking about. Jesse insists that they need to go save Tommy from the W.L.F., but Ellie argues that he’d want her to follow this lead. She becomes singularly focused, pushing Jesse to let her follow this lead. Jesse tells her that he voted no back in Jackson because he could see the selfishness in Ellie’s plan, and that it wasn’t for the good of the community. Ellie fights back, saying that Jesse isn’t morally superior just because he puts others first. He let a kid die earlier because he wasn’t in their community. She tells him that she had to watch her community beaten to death in front of her, and that Jesse would do the same if he was in her shoes. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! The two part ways, and Ellie makes her way to the aquarium on her own, nearly dying by both the stormy weather and a group of zealous Seraphites along the way. But despite all of the dangers she encounters in her path, she makes it to the aquarium, finding not Abby, but Owen (Spencer Lord) and Mel (Ariela Barer) instead. The two are arguing about whether or not to go after Abby, wherever she’s gone, and don’t notice that Ellie’s there until it’s too late. She tries to get them to point to Abby’s location on the map, as Joel has done before, but Owen reaches for a gun under the table. Ellie reacts, shooting him in the neck. The bullet goes through him and nicks Mel’s neck accidentally. Ellie panics, rushing to Mel’s side as she gives Ellie instructions to try and save her unborn child. Ellie is clearly shaken, sitting there holding her knife as Mel bleeds out. Tommy and Jesse eventually rush in, taking in the carnage. Tommy holds Ellie and tries to comfort her while Jesse is visibly shaken, as though he knows that this could be him and Dina if they stay in Seattle much longer. What Are the W.L.F. Planning? Meanwhile, the W.L.F. seem to be using the cover of the rainstorm to plan an assault on the Seraphites. On top of planning this, Isaac (Jeffrey Wright) is also looking for Abby, confessing to Sergeant Park that he’s been planning for her to take over the W.L.F. after him. He seems ready to die for his crusade against the Seraphites and wants someone he can trust to lead the army after his death.  It’s fortuitous for Ellie that Isaac is planning this raid. On her way to the Aquarium, she gets caught by a group of Seraphites that are ready to hang and gut her like a fish, until they hear alarm bells from their village. Anyone who is familiar with The Last of Us Part II knows that this attack on the Seraphites plays a big role in Abby’s story and will likely be featured more in-depth next season. Theater Showdown Jesse, Tommy, and Ellie make it back to the theater in one piece, the W.L.F. and Seraphites presumably too distracted by their conflict to pay them much mind. Tommy and Jesse start planning the journey back to Jackson, agreeing to leave as soon as the rain lets up enough to transport Dina safely. Tommy tries to reassure Ellie that Owen and Mel made their choice when they helped Abby kill Joel, and leaves for the lobby to pack. Ellie still doesn’t seem quite ready to leave Seattle with Abby still out there, but has seemed to finally realize how much danger she’s putting the others in by staying.  She and Jesse have a heart to heart and Ellie actually apologizes to Jesse for leaving him behind. Jesse accepts her apology, saying that he knows that she would “set the world on fire” to save him too. Their heartfelt moment is unfortunately short-lived, as they both hear a violent commotion out in the lobby. They rush through the doors, and Jesse is immediately shot dead. Realizing that Abby has found them, she tosses her gun to the side and puts her hands in the air. She pleads with Abby to let Tommy go, not wanting to watch Abby kill another person she loves. Abby tells Ellie that she wasted the second chance she gave her and the screen cuts to black as we hear a gunshot in the background. We’ll likely have to wait until next season to see who fired the gun and who or what was shot. Seattle Day One: Abby Edition The episode ends by going back in time a few days. We see Abby wake up to news that Isaac wants to meet with her. She walks around what appears to be a W.L.F. base of some sort, and the final shot of the episode includes Abby looking out into an old stadium that has now been fashioned into a home.  In The Last of Us Part II, this is where players pick up Abby’s story again and get to control her as a true protagonist of the game. The game follows her over the course of the same three days that we’ve been following Ellie in Seattle, and her arc and perspective are just as important to this story as Ellie’s are. Abby has been a controversial character in the games, but hopefully viewers will keep an open mind as the show transitions to Abby’s side of the story next season.

Following last week’s sojourn to the past, the season 2 finale of The Last of Us throws us right back into the aftermath of Ellie killing Nora. If there were any doubt that her innocence has been lost, Ellie’s conversation with Dina this week confirms it. She’s numb, looking blankly into a mirror and not quite recognising who she sees in the reflection. It’s in stark contrast to the last time we saw Ellie commit such violence: in season one, when her emotions burst forth after fighting off David. Back then, she could collapse into Joel’s arms. But now she’s the protector, looking after Dina and the child she’s carrying. At least she’s the protector in theory. Because little of what Ellie decides to do next reflects that outlook.Instead, it's Jesse who must act like the responsible adult, despite barely being older than Ellie or Dina. His words of warning fall on deaf ears, as Ellie refuses to see how her mission is bringing down everyone around her. It culminates in a lesson in selflessness at a Seattle bookstore in which Jesse finally admits that he voted against going after Abby in episode 3. Young Mazino is fantastic in this moment of revelation, bringing a much-needed level of maturity and level-headedness, without ever patronising Ellie. Jesse knows her too well to know she won’t react well to being told what to do, so he gently nudges her in the right direction. Sadly, she chooses a different path.PlayEllie’s choice between avenging those she’s lost or retreating back to Jackson with those who remain echoes her decision way back in episode 2. On that Wyoming mountain, she opted to follow her heart and go after Joel, rather than helping the greater Jackson community fight the flames and infected. You’d think her journey since would’ve been an eye-opening one, but it’s clear she hasn’t learned her lesson, as the ever-strong fuel of love and hate dominate her decision making, and seemingly always will. Bella Ramsey is great in this rooftop confrontation with Jesse, displaying a sternness and personality that far outsize their stature.The dynamic between Ellie, Dina, and Jesse makes for a strong first half to the episode, but I feel the rest of the finale loses its way. We barrel along towards its horrifying centerpiece: the murders of Mel and Owen. The realisation that Mel is pregnant is undoubtedly a real sickener, compounded further by Dina’s situation and Ellie flicking through the pages of a children's book only minutes prior. But I find the choice to make her death accidental a curious one. What’s meant to represent the lowest Ellie will sink in her quest for revenge is reduced to a tragic mishap.Another example of this adaptation pulling its punches when it comes to moments of pure violence, numbing the impact of the story as a result.“We’re made to feel some sympathy for Ellie in the show’s version of this event, when really, it should be the point at which we fear her most. She should feel like a lost cause, not like a lost child stumbling into a horror movie. She can’t lie like Joel could. Not even a little white one to put Mel at ease. This moment acts in fantastic concert with the story of Eugene in last week’s episode, but it’s just nowhere near as effective in its overall execution, and another example of this adaptation pulling its punches when it comes to moments of pure violence, numbing the impact of the story as a result.Bella Ramsey is astonishing in their display of Ellie’s despair, but the scene is harmed by the speed at which their character finds herself in this situation. The episode darts from one location and set of characters to another across its final 20 minutes. We see Isaac’s armada setting off into the night, with their intentions unknown. He fully expects to die tonight, but where are they going? It’s a mystery for another time (unless you’ve played The Last of Us Part 2, of course). The moving pieces and distance covered can be a little disorientating, especially if you’re not already familiar with the game’s plot and narrative devices. We barely know Isaac, and barely know any of the people Ellie will kill. Oh, and we even see her washed up on an island before almost being dispatched with in a uniquely Seraphite manner, only to be saved by a distant alarm. It’s all over in the blink of an eye, and it feels like one too many ingredients have been tossed into the mix as we’re thrown around like Ellie in the choppy Pacific waters.We’re getting scraps of a story here, including that almost-hanging. The problem is, this is TV and viewers will have to wait many months, if not years, to see the gaps filled in, rather than the half dozen hours of game that follow in The Last of Us Part 2. I admire the decision to stick to this structure, although I do feel the main effect of the dual perspectives was to hold the reveal of Abby’s motive until the halfway point – a revelation granted to us only two episodes into this season. I wonder how much impact seeing her perspective will have when our hatred for her hasn’t been built up in quite the same way.Even Jesse’s death is done too quickly, barely giving us a moment to sit with it before the clock rewinds. Ultimately, it’s a tough one, because it’s hard to judge just how successful this part of the story is without a third season for context. A barely half-told story is hard to evaluate, but the decision to let the viewers know that we’re following the same structure as the source material is a smart one. A smash cut to black following Abby’s arrival would’ve been tantilising, but I think even more bewildering for an audience not familiar with where this story goes. Rewinding time teases a whole new side to this story, one seen through the eyes of characters we’re just getting acquainted with – and without the performances of Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey to anchor it. I’m fascinated by the prospect, and eager to see Druckmann and Mazin contend with the challenge it presents.