The Last of Us recap: season two, episode six – many satisfied returns (of Joel)

This article accommodates spoilers for the The Last of Us season two. Please don’t learn until you have got observed episodes one to 6.

Back in early 2023 The Last of Us introduced to admiring critiques and hundreds of thousands of audience all over the world. When it was once temporarily renewed for a 2nd season there was once hypothesis about how showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann would way the duty. Would they skip directly to adapting the second one (and thus far ultimate) online game, which choices up the motion 5 years after the unique? Or would they take a extra scenic path, inventing new post-apocalyptic adventures for surrogate father-daughter duo Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) to have throughout that really extensive time hole? It would definitely be a very simple option to eke some other profitable season or 3 out of the supply subject matter.

In the tip, Mazin and Druckmann selected to stay devoted to the online game by means of leaping 5 years forward and brutally killing off Joel within the early working. But this night’s prolonged flashback episode shaded in some main points of what came about in the meanwhile. Like a stone skipping over a beautiful Wyoming lake, it jumped forward a 12 months at a time (relatively like the new ultimate season of Andor) to trace the ebb and waft of Joel and Ellie’s courting as she matured from rebellious younger youngster to much more rebellious older youngster.

For those that have been keenly feeling the absence of Joel, an hour within the corporate of Pascal as he attempted to whittle down a few of his persona’s extra anguished edges felt like a considerate, hand made present. There was once additionally an all-too-brief however memorable look from Joe Pantoliano. But first there was once the wonder of seeing Joel himself as a scowling, defiant youngster.

Meet Mr Miller

An opening flashback to Austin, Texas, in 1983 sees younger Joel and Tommy stressing about their father coming house. It’s obtrusive that Tommy has executed one thing very naughty however Joel is made up our minds to take the blame in order that his more youthful brother avoids a beating. The first wonder is that Mr Miller (performed by means of Tony Dalton) is a cop. The 2nd is that his technique to disciplining Joel – whom he instinctively is aware of is protecting for his sibling – comes to providing him a can of beer. As they sip their Buds, Miller Sr tells a tale from his personal youth about being stuck shoplifting. His vengeful father broke his jaw with one punch. He is obviously conscious that elevating his fingers to his personal sons is perpetuating a cycle of violence. But by means of now not sending them to the medical institution he thinks he’s a minimum of managing to do issues “a little better than my father did”.

Happy birthday(s) to Ellie

After the credit, we’re nonetheless in flashback mode however it’s now two months since Joel and Ellie were given again to Jackson Hole on the finish of season one. Joel is getting ready a wonder for Ellie’s 15th birthday, buying and selling salvaged Legos with gruff bartender Seth (Robert John Burke) to safe a cake and a few fabrics he wishes to revive an acoustic guitar. But his Repair Shop-style woodworking reverie is interrupted by means of Tommy (Gabriel Luna) speeding an injured Ellie again to the home.

While running within the agreement’s kitchen she badly burned her forearm on a cooking pot. It’s obtrusive Ellie did this intentionally to difficult to understand the suspicious chunk mark on her arm. The damage does now not put a dampener on her birthday party the following morning, nevertheless it does imply she can not in truth strum the acoustic guitar that Joel has given her. He lets in himself to be cajoled into appearing a coarse quilt of Pearl Jam’s Future Days. It earns him some uncharacteristically top reward from Ellie: “Well … that didn’t suck.”

Space exploration

One 12 months later, Joel and Ellie are on a ramble to mark her 16th birthday. Perhaps impressed by means of being out in nature, Joel makes an attempt to broach the topic of the birds and the bees, which fits about in addition to chances are you’ll believe. (“You mean dicks and vaginas?” is the reaction.) But whilst Ellie has needed to develop up speedy, Joel turns out obsessive about carving out area for some satisfied youth reports. He has deliberate this travel to a ruined Wyoming museum so Ellie can see a real Apollo area pill and, a minimum of for a second, believe what it could be like to go away their compromised global in the back of. Her pleasure is palpable.

Another 12 months later, issues aren’t going reasonably as easily. Joel’s try to wonder Ellie with a 17th birthday cake sees him awkwardly gatecrashing a date that ticks off each worry in an overprotective mum or dad’s nightmare: sexual experimentation, drug use and getting a tattoo. Joel even reveals himself achieving for a hoary previous mantra that can most certainly out survive any apocalypse: “This is my house, and when you’re under my roof …” But after a handy guide a rough session with the city shrink Gail (Catherine O’Hara) Joel turns out to look the sense in giving Ellie her personal area by means of letting her transfer into the storage. He even has some complimentary phrases about her new moth tattoo.

A difficult wreck for Eugene

This time the soar forward is 2 years, to Ellie’s 19th birthday, and by means of now she and her Nirvana posters are absolutely put in within the storage. We eavesdrop as she rehearses asking Joel some awkward questions on what truly came about in Salt Lake City. Five years on, she has begun to understand his tale about how they escaped does now not rise up to scrutiny. She is interrupted by means of Joel, who’s belatedly granting her determined want to cross out on patrol. It will change into a baptism of fireside.

An emergency name over the radio sends Joel and Ellie racing to give protection to some other patrol from an inflamed assault. It is just too overdue for deficient Adam however they see a perplexed Eugene (Joe Pantoliano), who unearths that he has been bitten. All he needs to do is get again to the outskirts of Jackson sooner than he turns so he can say good-bye to his spouse, Gail. Under drive from Ellie, Joel has the same opinion to lend a hand. But after he sends Ellie to retrieve their horses it sort of feels that his plan all alongside was once to escort the doomed Eugene to the shore of a relaxed lake and shoot him there.

As the pair trip again to the agreement, dragging Eugene’s frame, Joel impresses on Ellie that he intends to inform Gail “what she needs to know and nothing more”. She now has stomach-churning affirmation that Joel will flat-out lie if he thinks it serves a better just right. But when confronted with Gail’s grief Ellie refuses to let Joel sugarcoat what came about and tells everybody the reality: Joel shot him within the head.

‘I’ll pay the cost …’

There is one ultimate time soar, to 9 months later and the New Year’s Eve shindig from the outlet episode. We see the dancefloor war of words between homophobic Seth and the canoodling Ellie and Dina from Joel’s perspective as he unwisely wades in. But we additionally see extra of the aftermath, as he and Ellie have a bruising heart-to-heart on their porch. She offers him “one last chance” to inform the reality about what came about in Salt Lake City, however it’s so traumamatic that Joel can not even talk. All he can do is shake his head or nod as Ellie works thru her questions and in spite of everything will get fair solutions. This is the purpose the place their courting may just shatter for ever. But there’s nonetheless room to finish on an not likely glimmer of hope. “I don’t think I can forgive you for this,” says Ellie. “But I would like to try.” Is it uplifting to grasp that our heroes can have rebuilt their courting? Or is it much more heartbreaking to listen to with the foreknowledge that Joel is fated to die the very subsequent day?

Notes and observations

If Dalton and his moustache seemed acquainted, he has gave the impression in Disney+ Marvel presentations Hawkeye and Daredevil: Born Again as New York socialite Jack Duquesne, AKA speeding vigilante Swordsman. Dalton may even superstar in drawing close PlayStation 5 sport Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet from The Last of Us creators Naughty Dog.

Yes, Pearl Jam didn’t unencumber the music Future Days till 2013, which makes it a little bit bizarre to listen to Joel protecting it when the world-wrecking outbreak came about again a decade previous. Maybe 2003 megahit Bring Me to Life by means of Evanescence would were extra becoming?

The precise Apollo 15 command module is on show on the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio relatively than an overgrown museum in Wyoming.

Next week: it’s again to Seattle for the season finale, which turns out to have arise very speedy. Start the countdown …

What did you assume? Was this a becoming sendoff for Joel? Do you’re feeling able for the season to finish? Have your say under, however please steer clear of spoilers from the sport …