If you thought the death of Joel (Pedro Pascal) would be the most heartbreaking part of The Last of Us Season 2, you'd be wrong.
That honor falls to Season 2, episode 6, a flashback episode all about Joel and Ellie's (Bella Ramsey) years in Jackson — and why they grew apart.
The episode's heartbreak comes in waves. Early sequences of Joel and Ellie's happiest memories become tragically bittersweet with the knowledge of what's to come. And of course, watching the two fall out is a surefire recipe for sadness. By the end of the hour, your eyes will be damp and your heart will have shattered into a million tiny pieces. But hey, at least we got Joel back for a bit!
Here, in chronological order, is every time The Last of Us Season 2, episode 6 broke our hearts.
When young Joel's father gets vulnerable about parenting.
Episode 6 opens with a flashback to Austin in 1983, when young Joel (Andrew Diaz) tries to protect Tommy (David Miranda) from a beating from their father (Tony Dalton). But instead of physically punishing either of his sons, Joel's father decides to tell him about the warped blueprint of fatherhood he inherited from his own abusive dad, and how he hopes to improve upon it, bit by bit.
"I'm doing a little better than my father did," he tells Joel. "When it's your turn, I hope you do a little better than me."
That line proves to be the thesis of the episode, with Joel trying to do a little better than his own father during his time with Ellie. Knowing how limited that time is — and how the two ended things — kickstarts episode 6's heartache. And guess what? It's not about to let up anytime soon.
When the opening credits change to bring back Joel.
After Joel's death, The Last of Us' opening credits made a devastating change. Instead of ending on the image of two fungal silhouettes, meant to represent Ellie and Joel, they ended with just the Ellie silhouette, highlighting her new loneliness. In episode 6, however, the Joel silhouette is back! It's both a welcome return and a reminder that we're on borrowed time with this pair. Who knew a shadow of a fungus could make me so emotional?
When Joel sings "Future Days" to Ellie.
So many elements of Ellie's 15th birthday tug at the heartstrings, from Joel's reaction to her burning her arm to hide her bite mark to him customizing a guitar for her. But the moment that opens the floodgates is undoubtedly Joel's rendition of Pearl Jam's "Future Days" (teased by Ellie herself back in episode 5).
The song's lyrics — "If I ever were to lose you / I'd surely lose myself" — are a resounding reminder of how much Ellie and Joel have come to mean to each other. (It's also a dark portent of how Ellie may be losing herself on her revenge quest.) But the performance is also a payoff of a story thread from all the way back in Season 1, when Ellie asked Joel to sing for her and teach her to play guitar. Well, it's finally happened, and I wouldn't blame you for getting teary-eyed.
When Joel and Ellie visit the museum.
After a full season and a half of watching Joel and Ellie run from Infected and human enemies alike (and in Joel's case, you know, dying), any scene where these two can just relax and enjoy themselves is a blessing. And what a blessing Ellie's 16th birthday is!
Joel brings Ellie to a museum, where she spends the day clambering on dinosaur statues and blasting off to space in an old capsule. In one of the season's most poignant moments, her imagined space flight becomes reality, with the light of the real world fading around her until she's drifting in the dark void of space.
The entire sequence is Joel and Ellie at their happiest. She gets to actually be a kid for once, and Joel revels in her joy, knowing he's doing a good job as a father.
Of course, the scene also serves as the calm before the storm. Ellie's insistence that she goes on patrol is a reminder of the dangers Jackson faces, as well as the fateful patrol that will one day rip Joel from her forever. For now, though, we get to enjoy Joel in dad mode, attempting to give Ellie "the talk," all while being clueless about her sexuality. Talk about bittersweet.
When Ellie moves out of their house.
If Ellie's 16th birthday celebration is Joel's dream, then her 17th birthday is his nightmare. He walks in on her smoking pot, getting a tattoo, and hooking up with Kat (Noah Lamanna). "All the teenage shit all at once," as he puts it.
While Joel's exasperated dad act seems funny at first — what's worse, dodging Clickers or teenage rebellion? — it moves into upsetting territory pretty fast. Dismissing Ellie's relationship with Kat as an "experiment" is awful, plain and simple, as is his assertion that Ellie isn't currently herself. No wonder Ellie wants to move into the garage: Having her own father figure refute her identity like that marks a major blow to their bond.
Thankfully, Joel recognizes the error of his ways and tries to help by giving Ellie more space, but this fight and subsequent move mark the beginning of the end for Joel and Ellie. You want to grab them through the screen and yell at them to communicate with each other, that they only have a few years left. Instead, all you can do is watch the tragedy snowball.
When we learn what Ellie's moth tattoo means.
One of Joel's attempts to bond with Ellie post-fight is to ask her about her moth tattoo. It echoes her drawings, which he used as inspiration when decorating her guitar. Ellie says she chose the moths because of what they represent in dreams. Joel mistakenly believes they're symbols for change and metamorphosis, but therapist Gail (Catherine O'Hara) reveals the truth: They represent death.
That means Ellie has been carrying around the deaths of everyone she's lost, like Riley (Storm Reid), her mother (Ashley Johnson), and more. As seemingly the only person in the world who's immune to Cordyceps, there's also a layer of survivor's guilt here. Ellie's surrounded by death, yet protected from it too. That's a crushing burden to bear, one that's defined her entire coming-of-age — and one that Joel will never truly understand.
When Ellie questions what happened in Salt Lake City.
On Ellie's 19th birthday, she gets what she's wanted since moving to Jackson: to go on patrol with Joel. But now, she wants something else, too: answers about what really happened in Salt Lake City at the end of Season 1.
Before she and Joel head out to patrol, she sits in her room, rehearsing questions she has about Salt Lake City. "If the Fireflies spotted us a mile from the hospital, how did they get surprised by an entire group of raiders?" she wonders. "If the raiders could kill all those soldiers and Marlene, and you had to carry me the whole time, how did we get away?"
These brief moments signal how much Ellie has replayed that pivotal day, how these discrepancies have been eating at her for years. Deep down, she knows that Joel lied to her. Perhaps that subconscious knowledge influenced her need for space from Joel, further widening the rift between them that Joel may have just attributed to teenage rebellion. Based on episode 1, we know that that rift is about to get a whole lot wider, so the inclusion of Ellie's questions here suggests the other shoe is about to drop.
When we finally learn what happened with Eugene.
This is the big one, folks. Ever since episode 1, The Last of Us has been talking about Joel killing Gail's husband Eugene (Joe Pantoliano). Now, we finally get to see it play out.
Eugene is marked for death from the moment he gets infected on patrol. He accepts that, but man, do his final moments sting. It all starts when Ellie insists that Eugene has enough time to make it back to Jackson and say goodbye to Gail before he fully turns, and she makes Joel promise that he'll help. But Joel, thinking to protect Ellie and Jackson, goes back on his promise and shoots Eugene anyway. It's a brutal betrayal not just of Eugene, who gets a few seconds of false hope before reality sets in, but also of Ellie, who realizes that Joel's promise mirrors the very promise he made to her after the events of Salt Lake City.
"You swore," she says, all the weight of years of pain and questioning coming through in just two words.
Ellie's discovery of Joel's lie plays out differently in the show than in the game, where Eugene is already dead from a stroke. Still, watching her put the pieces together — and watching Joel betray her even after their relationship seemed to be tentatively mending — is nothing less than devastating.
When Joel and Ellie take steps towards healing in the porch scene.
Up until now, episode 6 has revealed why Joel and Ellie aren't on speaking terms by the start of Season 2, as well as what happened with Eugene. There's only one major question left to answer: What happened the night before Joel's death to make Ellie say she and Joel were "better now"?
The answer plays out in episode 6's gorgeous final scene, a continuation of the porch scene from episode 1. Here, The Last of Us reveals that Ellie didn't just turn in for the night after seeing Joel out on the porch. Instead, she came back to ask him, point blank, about what he did to the Fireflies. Her line of questioning serves as a direct parallel to Abby's (Kaitlyn Dever) interrogation of Joel right before his death: The two both know the role Joel played in the massacre, but they want to hear him confess it for himself.
The conversation that follows is full of lines that double as gut punches. Upon learning that making a Cordyceps cure would have killed her, Ellie says, "Then I was supposed to die! That was my purpose. My life would've fucking mattered. But you took that from me, you took that from everyone."
Joel's response? "Yes, and I'll pay the price."
Little does he know he'll pay the ultimate price the very next day. In fact, the whole scene hurts even more knowing that the journey of forgiveness that Ellie hopes to embark on will be cut short in a matter of hours. Episode 6, you've already made me tear up several times before, but this might take the cake.
Adding salt to the wound is one last callback to the Austin flashback. "If you should ever have [a child] of your own, well, then, I hope you do a little better than me," Joel tells Ellie.
The line hits especially hard after Ellie's reaction to Dina's (Isabela Merced) pregnancy: "I'm gonna be a dad."
With that, The Last of Us comes full circle, making episode 6 a stunning, heartbreaking story of parenthood — and a season highlight.
New episodes of The Last of Us Season 2 premiere on HBO and HBO Max Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.
