<em>The Last of Us</em> Season 2, Episode 6 Recap

Looking for a recap of season 2, episode 5? We have you covered.

Allow me to reintroduce The Last of Us at its very best. After a frustrating fifth episode, which dove entirely too far into the war between the W.L.F. and Seraphites, the HBO series thrillingly swung back to what made season 1 so special. Yes, the beautiful, pseudo-father-daughter relationship between Joel and Ellie. But also this: Small, contained, resonant storytelling that is merely set within a world devastated by an extinction-level pandemic—and, this is important, is not defined by it.

It starts with the opening scene of season 2, episode 6, which is entirely of series co-creator Craig Mazin's creation—we never meet Joel Miller's father in the video games. (Don't worry: Neil Druckmann, who created The Last of Us video games, directed this episode. This swerve surely has his stamp of approval.) And Mr. Miller is absolutely here for a reason. Played by the actor Tony Dalton, the Miller patriarch sits down a teenage Joel for a beer. But he's not there to shoot the shit with his son. The family's youngest boy, Tommy, ran into some trouble while (allegedly) buying pot. But something went wrong—there was a fight—and Joel jumped in to save the day. Right away, we learn exactly what constitutes punishment in the Miller household: Abuse.

"Okay yeah, I’ve hit you," Joel's father tells him. "And I’ve hit Tommy. But never like that. Not even close. I mean, maybe I go too far. I just… I don’t know. But I’m doing a little better than my father did. And you know, when it’s your turn, I hope you do a little better than me."

Now, I feel okay writing about this particular aspect of the games, because you've likely picked up on it already: After Ellie bashed in Nora's face last episode, you should ask yourself: Has Ellie inherited any of Joel's pain? Especially his violent tendencies, which ultimately led to his death? Yes, reader, Generational Trauma is the Jeopardy! category of the day, and blood runs deep in the Miller clan. In the games, we're meant to infer that Ellie learned how to bludgeon her way through emotions from Joel; thanks to the TV show, we now know that Joel learned it from his father, because Joel's father was abused by his dad. (Who punched his son so hard that he broke his jaw. Gutting.)

Episode 6's opening scene takes me back to a sensation I had all the way through season 1: This doesn't feel like a zombie show! And that's a good thing. We have enough of those over at AMC, which has so many spin-offs into The Walking Dead universe by now that I've lost count. Thankfully, the rest of this week's Last of Us keeps this spirit alive—what we see, later on, with the show's addition to Eugene's storyline is nothing short of extraordinary. Let's dive right into it.

Damn, it feels good to see these two together again.

I just finished my rant about how Andor's release schedule—which dropped three episodes per week, with each drop amounting to a year in the show's universe—made the Star Wars series infinitely better. The Last of Us episode 6 is comprised entirely of flashbacks, which (for the most part) skip ahead one year at a time (racing toward the night of the New Year's Eve party when Bigot Man hit the floor), with each scene taking place during Ellie's birthday.

In the first flashback, life is pretty sweet at Ellie and Joel's new home in Jackson. Joel gives some LEGOs to Bigot Man—the dude clearly had better days before his homophobic moment in episode 1—who bakes him a cake in return! Who knew that a former Milwaukee PD officer could whip up a nice crumb. Get this guy on Great British Bakeoff! Then, we return to Joel and Ellie's house, for another moment that evokes the very DNA of the show: A song. In another moment taken directly from the video game, Joel sings a soft, sweet cover of Pearl Jam's "Future Days" to Ellie. Just take one look at the lyrics to the track and you'll know why Joel, specifically, is crooning this one.

Another year goes by, and the vibes are still pretty damn good. In a touching adaptation of my favorite moment from The Last of Us Part II, Joel takes Ellie to the Wyoming Museum. Everything about Druckmann's direction in this scene, from Ellie climbing the dinosaur to her pretend trip to space, is executed with so much love. Just look at the way Druckmann frames Ellie when she hits the stars—this is one of the last moments before she loses the last shreds of her innocence, and he knows it. It's so good, in fact, that you almost wonder what a Druckmann-helmed take on a space game like Starfield would look like.

One year later, and we've reached Ellie's seventeenth birthday. Joel puts it best here: she's going through all the teenage shit, all at once. Tattoos, smooching her crush behind closed doors, and an uncontrollable impulse to live alone. This particular year in Ellie and Joel's life together is merely a bit of foreshadowing—it's their first sign of trouble. Ellie knows, deep down, that Joel lied about what happened in Salt Lake City. And he's beginning to know that she knows.

Fast-forward another two years, and Ellie is practicing the very moment she confronts Joel about the moment that changed their lives forever. The discussion has to wait, though, because it's Ellie's birthday (again!) and her gift is a promotion to Jackson patrol. Shit goes sideways almost immediately, but Joel wants Ellie to steer away from it. "I’m not your fucking kid, Joel," Ellie retorts. "I’m your partner. We stick together."

Stick together they do. Eventually, they find out what went wrong: Eugene, the husband of Gail (Catherine O'Hara's character) nearly lost a battle with an unseen, cordyceps-infected monster. But he has a gaping bite wound on his ribcage to show for it, which means he's as good as dead. Eugene just has one dying wish—he wants to see his wife before Joel kills him. The only problem: The man who broke every damn moral rule in the book when he murdered an entire hospital's workforce? Well, he wants to follow Jackson's order that any infected individual should die. Immediately. "I got things I gotta tell her," says Eugene, who is played by Joe Pantoliano in a brief, but powerful guest turn. "Things. You don’t understand."

Joel actually does understand—I'm sure he wishes he could speak to his daughter one last time—but he doesn't care. Ellie thinks that she changed Joel's mind, but nonetheless, he leads Eugene to the side of a lake and shoots him in the back of the head. Eugene manages to conjure Gail's face before succumbing to Joel. "If you love someone, you can always see their face," Joel says.

Back at Jackson, it's the beginning of the end for Ellie and Joel's relationship. We've seen Joel lie before, obviously, but what happens next is genuinely hard to watch: Joel tells a reeling Gail that Eugene wanted to say goodbye to her, but he didn't want to put her in danger. And one more thing: Eugene shot himself.

"That’s not what happened," Ellie says. "He begged to see you. He had time. Joel promised to take him to you. He promised us both. And then Joel shot him in the head."

Eugene didn’t deserve this!

Eugene's death transitions into the New Year's Eve party that began season 2. The premiere episode told us that after the party, Ellie walked past Joel's house—and nothing more. Now, we learn that she joined Joel on his porch for a chat. And if this is the last scene we'll see between Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, it's a damn incredible one to go out on. In this moment, both actors deliver what may very well be their best performances of the entire series.

"You’re such an asshole," Ellie seethes. "You lied to me. You looked me in the eyes and you lied, and it was the same face. Same fucking look. But I think I knew already. I knew this whole time. So, I’m gonna give you one last chance. Tell me what happened with the Fireflies. If you lie to me again, we’re done. Were there other immune people?"

Joel, fighting back tears, quietly shakes his head no.

"Then I was supposed to die," Ellie continues. "That was my purpose. My life would have fucking mattered! But you took that from me! You took it from everyone."

"Yes," Joel says. And I’ll pay the price. Because you’re gonna turn away from me. But if somehow I had a second chance at that moment, I would do it all over again. Because I love you. In a way you… you can’t understand. Maybe you never will."

Then, he echoes the words of his own father: "But if that day should come, if you should ever have one of your own, well then… I hope you do a little better than me."

"I don’t think I can forgive you for this," Ellie says. "But I would like to try."

The last we see of Ellie in this episode is in the present day. She's outside, in the Seattle rain, very likely headed toward Abby. In next week's season finale, we'll see whether or not she does a little better than Joel.