You’re right. Joel should have just walked home, back to the flat where Tess was gone and dead. Looked at his broken watch and let Ellie get sedated and killed for potentially absolutely nothing. He should have just walked home after he never got the guns he was promised from the fireflies and told to fuck off after months of travelling with this young girl. What exactly do you do in a scenario when someone grabs your surrogate daughter, the same girl who just saved your life after being impaled from a fall, who is going to be killed without negotiation - do you not use force?

The weird thing is if you like the ending and think the ending is correct - Ellie sparing Abby, how can you think that Abby was in the right with torturing Joel? How can you also blame Joel? They aren’t the same. The act is the same, but the motivations aren’t. Joel killed to save, Abby killed for revenge. Abby’s a piece of shit.