'The Last of Us' Season 2, Episode 6 recap: Pedro Pascal and Joe Pantoliano will emotionally wreck you

Yahoo

22-05-2025

The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 6 may in fact be the best episode in the season. But be prepared, because this episode is likely to emotionally wreck you.
We're taking a bit of a pause on Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Dina's (Isabela Merced) journey and we're going back in time, before Joel's (Pedro Pascal) death. We begin by getting a glimpse into Joel's childhood, ahead of seeing the events of Ellie's 15th, 16th, 17th and 19th birthdays.
Where to watch The Last of Us: Crave in Canada, HBO and Max in the U.S.Cast: Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, Gabriel Luna, Rutina Wesley, Kaitlyn Dever, Isabela Merced, Young Mazino, Ariela Barer, Tati Gabrielle, Spencer Lord, Danny Ramirez, Catherine O'Hara, Jeffrey WrightNumber of episodes: 7
The episode begins in Austin, Texas in 1983, with a young Joel trying to console his brother Tommy, who's concerned that their father is going to be so mad that he'll "get the belt" as punishment for an altercation involving Tommy buying drugs. Joel tells his brother he'll take the punishment for what he did.
Tommy's in his room when their father, a police officer played by Tony Dalton, shows up. He demands that Joel tells him what happened with his brother, in the 30 minutes before he has to be back on patrol.
Joel tells his dad he was buying pot from a kid who tried to rip him off, and they got into a fight. But his dad isn't buying it, saying that he knows it was Tommy who was buying the drugs.
Joel and Tommy's dad goes to the fridge and gets a beer for himself, and Joel, telling him a "humiliating" story about how he stole a candy bar as a kid and his father broke his jaw. Stressing that even though he's hit Joel and Tommy, it was "never like that." And just like he's done a "little better" than his father, he hopes Joel does the same when he becomes a father.
Moving forward in the timeline to Ellie's 15th birthday, Joel trades Seth (Robert John Burke) a bag of LEGO pieces for his grandkids for a cake for Ellie's birthday.
Back at home, Joel is painstakingly restoring a guitar for Ellie when Tommy brings her back home. Ellie burned her arm while working kitchen duty alone. She pushed her forearm, where her bite mark is, up against a hot pot.
"I just wanted to wear short sleeves again," Ellie says, as Joel comforts her.
The next day she comes downstairs to see a birthday cake with "Happy Birthday Eli" on it, prompting Joel to say he hopes Seth bakes better than he can spell.
Then Joel gives her the guitar and, after Ellie's insistence that he play her a song, he plays 'Future Days' by Pearl Jam, which we heard Ellie play in Episode 5.
What's appealing about this week's episode is that we're back to the great banter between and Ellie and Joel, particularly true when we get to Ellie's 16th birthday.
As they hike through the forest, Joel and Ellie talk about how Ellie wants to be on patrol, and Joel thinks that she has a crush on Jesse.
But Joel's birthday surprise brings them to the abandoned Wyoming Museum of Science and History. He even went earlier to prep some of the exhibits for her to experience.
Ellie is particularly amazed by the Apollo 15 capsule from the 1971 mission, and breaks the glass that's housing an original helmet, which she puts on her head.
Laying inside the spacecraft, Joel hands Ellie a cassette tape, which has a recording of the audio from the space launch. Ellie has a massive smile on her face as she imagines going to space, and Joel is just as happy to see Ellie happy.
Then we skip ahead one year later, Ellie's 17th birthday. But this time as Joel goes to Ellie's room to bring her a cake, he interrupts her spending some intimate time with Kat (Noah Lamanna). They were also smoking weed and Kat was tattooing Ellie's forearm, where Ellie burnt herself.
That night, Ellie tries to move her mattress into the garage and gives Joel attitude about not "owning anything," because they live in a home he was given. And Joel agrees that she should have her own space, but asks for a few days to fix up the garage.
Joel is curious about Ellie's obsession with moths, and when he asks Gail (Catherine O'Hara) what they mean, Gail says they usually signify death in dreams.
As Ellie is packing up her room to move into the garage, including her moth drawings, we see "You have a greater purpose" written on one of the papers.
Moving to Ellie's 19th birthday, she's on her bed reading out a list of questions for Joel about what happened in Salt Lake, including how they got out of the hospital, how the Fireflies could have been surprised by a group of raiders and why no one has heard of the immune people.
But she's interrupted by Joel who tells her he's agreed to have trained for patrol.
As they go out together, Joel says it would be nice if they could spend more time together, but then he gets a call that Eugene needs back up. While Joel tells Ellie to go home she responds with, "I'm not your f—king kid, Joel. I'm your partner. We stick together."
As they reach Eugene (Joe Pantoliano), they see that he has a bite, but he wants them to bring him to the gate of the Jackson community so he can say goodbye to Gail. Ellie tries to get Joel to agree and he tells her to go get the horses while he walks up with Eugene, promising Ellie they'll all travel back.
But when she leaves, Joel guides Eugene towards the water to shoot him.
"I need her last words, for me!" Eugene cries. "I'm dying. I'm terrified. I don't need a view, I need Gail. To see her face, please. Please let that be the last thing I see."
"If you love someone, you can always see their face," Joel says in response.
"I see her," Eugene says just before he's killed.
When Ellie arrives, Joel tells her he's sorry, and as they ride back, dragging Eugene's covered body, Joel says he'll tell Gail what she needs to know, "nothing more," and the he "had no choice."
Then we see the heartbreaking moment when Gail stands next to Eugene's wrapped up body. Joel says Eugene told him to tell her that he loved her and that he wished he could say goodbye to her in person, but he didn't want to put her in danger. Joel added that Eugene ended it himself.
But Ellie speaks up and says that's not what happened. She tells Gail that Eugene begged to see her and Joel promised them both that he could, but then Joel shot him in the head.
Gail slaps Joel across the face, telling him to get away from her as she cries over Eugene's dead body.
Another time jump to the New Year's Eve party we saw at the beginning of the season, we see what we missed in that first episode.
While Ellie told Gail she didn't speak to Joel that night, that's not true.
After Seth harasses Ellie and Dina who are dancing together and kissing, and Joel pushes him, Ellie goes to talk to Joel, as he's playing the guitar on the porch.
At first, Ellie is adamant that she had Seth under control and she doesn't want to hear about Joel taking her off patrol again. Joel acknowledges what Ellie said and asks if Dina is her girlfriend. Ellie says no, but admits she does like her.
"She'd be lucky to have you," Joel says, as Ellie responds by saying he's an asshole for lying to her about Eugene. But she recognizes that he had the same look in Salt Lake.
"I'm going to give you one last chance, tell me what happened with the Fireflies. If you lie to me again, we're done," Ellie says.
Joel confirms, just by shaking and nodding his head, that there weren't other immune people, or raiders, and they could have made a cure. When Ellie asks if Joel killed the Fireflies, he nods his head yes, and says that a cure would have meant Ellie died.
"That was my purpose. My life would have f—king mattered!" Ellie shouts back. "But you took that from me. You took that from everyone."
"Yes, and I'll pay the price. Because you're going to turn away from me. But somehow if I had a second chance at that moment, I'd do it over again," Joel says.
Ellie calls Joel "selfish," but his response is that he did it because he loves her, in a way that she doesn't understand.
"If you should have one of your own, ... I hope you do a little better than me," Joel says sobbing, echoing what he heard from his own father.
While Ellie admits she's not sure if she can forgive Joel, she says she wants to "try."
And that's the end of the look back at Joel and Ellie's relationship, as we're left with a final image of Ellie walking in the rain, after beating Nora (Tati Gabrielle).