Pedro Pascal’s Joel Returns for the Ultimate Farewell

Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 6.

The sixth episode of The Last of Us Season 2 is the most beautifully heartbreaking episode of the show so far — and yes, that includes “Long, Long Time.” This episode fills in the gaps of the five years between seasons, showing how the relationship between Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) has evolved over that time from an almost father-daughter bond to their final conversation together. It’s a tremendously powerful hour of The Last of Us, so get ready to cry from beginning to end.

“I’m Doing a Little Better Than My Father Did”

Last week’s episode ended with a flashback to the past, when Joel and Ellie were still good and living together. This week’s episode is entirely dedicated to looking into the past, starting with a flashback to a young Joel and Tommy in 1983, in Austin, Texas. Young Tommy is afraid he’s going to get belt-whipped by their father, but Joel says he’ll protect him, telling him to go to his room. Later that night, dear old Dad (played by Tony Dalton), who is a police officer, comes home, with Joel waiting downstairs for him, and immediately asks what happened. Joel says he tried to buy pot from another kid, the kid ripped him off, and they got into a fight. His father doesn’t believe him — he (correctly) suspects Tommy was the one buying the drugs, Joel saw what was happening, and he started punching. His father adds that if they weren’t his kids, they’d be in juvie. To this, Joel replies that his father is not going to hurt Tommy.

In response, Joel’s father goes to the fridge and gets himself and his son each a beer. He tells Joel a story about how he stole a candy bar when he was 10, and his grandfather made him take it back and apologize. When they got back home, his grandfather punched him and broke his jaw, leaving his mouth wired shut for two months, and since everyone knew why his jaw was broken, it was humiliating. Joel, point-blank, asks his father why he does the same to them if he knows what it’s like. His father admits to hitting them, but never like that, as he tears up and wonders if he has also gone too far. But he says, “I’m doing a little better than my father did,” and that he hopes when it’s Joel’s turn, he’ll do a little better than he did. He gets up, puts his hand on Joel’s shoulder, and then leaves the house to return to work.

Ellie’s First Birthday With Joel

We then jump forward to Jackson, only two months after Joel and Ellie have moved in, as Joel pays a visit to Seth (Robert John Burke) at the restaurant. Joel gives Seth a bag of LEGOs as payment for something, and Seth tells Joel that he used to be a cop. Seth says in exchange for the LEGOs, he can give Joel what he’s looking for by Friday, but Joel needs it by tomorrow. Seth gives Joel the choice of vanilla or chocolate, but adds that he should say vanilla, since it’s easier. Joel also needs one more thing, but it’s something Seth has a lot of.

Back at home, Joel has a bone in his hand as he takes it to his woodworking desk, sawing a piece off of it, sanding it, and then placing it into a guitar. He then engraves a moth design into the frets. He carefully puts each piece together; the guitar is very clearly a work of love from Joel that he wants to get just right. As he finishes it, he hears Tommy (Gabriel Luna) coming into the house with Ellie, who’s out of it on painkillers, her arm in a bandage. Ellie burned herself by intentionally putting her arm against a pot, and when the pain starts to get to her, Joel comforts her, saying, “easy, baby girl,” the same thing he used to call his daughter. Ellie admits that she just wanted to be able to wear short sleeves again, since the burn would cover up her bite mark.

Later, Ellie comes downstairs to find Joel in the kitchen, frustrated about the cake that Seth got him, which reads “Happy 15th Birthday Eli.” Joel goes to get a knife to cut the cake, but Ellie has already grabbed a handful and started eating it, an adorable moment between pseudo-father and daughter. Joel leaves to get Ellie her present: the guitar he’s been putting together. He also reminds her of his offer to teach her how to play guitar, but Ellie asks him to play something and sing, since it’s her birthday. Joel starts to pick through Pearl Jam’s “Future Days,” which starts with the lyric, “If I ever were to lose you, I’d surely lose myself,” a beautiful rendition of a song about feeling complete once you’ve found a person who completes you. Ellie is clearly pleased to finally hear Joel sing, but Joel is admitting just how much Ellie means to him. As he hands over the guitar, he admits he understands why Ellie burned herself, saying, “Happy birthday, kiddo.”

Joel Takes Ellie to Space

The episode jumps ahead another year, as Joel leads Ellie down a path to her birthday surprise. Now that she’s sixteen, Ellie thinks she should be able to go on patrols like Jesse (Young Mazino) did when he was that age. Joel promises she’ll get on patrols eventually, but she should enjoy being a kid for now — which is when Ellie mentions Jesse said he’d train her if Joel let her. With these constant mentions of Jesse, Joel asks Ellie if there’s something between the two of them, which Ellie just laughs at, even though Joel says he has a keen eye for these types of things. Ellie says she promises she won’t get pregnant if Joel lets her go on patrols, but there’s no real opportunity to talk about it further because they’ve reached Joel’s birthday surprise for her.

Joel has brought Ellie to the long-abandoned Wyoming Museum of Science and History. Outside is the statue of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, which Ellie naturally has to climb on, all the way up to the head. They enter the museum, and Joel says he’s known about the place for a while, but he was saving it for a special day. Ellie is awestruck when she sees the section dedicated to space, and when she cranks the mechanical model of the Solar System, she’s surprised that it still works. Joel slyly mentions that someone must have greased it, while Ellie wonders out loud about what it must’ve been like going to space.

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They go to the next room, and again, Ellie is blown away by the sight of a real reentry capsule that actually went to space and back. Joel tells her to get inside — but before she goes to space, she needs a helmet. She breaks one of the museum’s spacesuit displays to retrieve one, and the pair enters the capsule. Ellie is in heaven, playing with all the different switches, but Joel has another surprise as he gives her a cassette tape, which took a mighty effort to find. She puts the tape into her cassette player and puts on her headphones, and Joel tells her to close her eyes. Ellie is blown away by the recording of an actual space launch and imagines herself taking off, a giant smile on her face, all while Joel is beaming at her. When she comes back from “space,” Joel asks if he did OK. “Are you kidding me?” Ellie responds, still in awe, and the two sit together, basking in the experience.

As they head back to Jackson, Joel says they should do this more often, but as they walk through the woods, Ellie stops to observe a group of actual fireflies. Even though they’ve just shared a moment that they’ll both always remember, the thought in the back of her mind that Joel has been lying to her about what happened in Salt Lake City returns with a vengeance, nagging at her no matter how she tries to ignore it.

Joel Gets All the Teenage Stuff at Once

The episode jumps forward yet another year, as Joel returns home with another cake — a chocolate one, this time, that actually reads “Happy 17th Birthday Ellie.” Good job, Seth! When Joel hears noises in Ellie’s room, he knocks hard before walking in, finding Ellie and Kat (Noah Lamanna) putting their clothes back on. Joel’s clearly surprised them by coming home early to celebrate Ellie’s birthday. As if this couldn’t get worse for Joel, he realizes that Kat has been tattooing Ellie’s arm over her bite/burn scar, although the design isn’t finished yet. Joel complains that he’s getting all the teenage stuff at once: sex, tattoos, and drugs, as he also puts out a joint they were smoking. What Joel seems most hung up on is Ellie “experimenting” with girls. Ellie says they weren’t having sex, and it wasn’t an experiment, but Joel isn’t convinced that Ellie knows what she’s saying and adds that they’ll talk about this once she’s herself, as he leaves.

Later that night, Ellie goes out to their garage and looks around. A bit later, Joel can’t sleep and gets up to discover that Ellie is trying to move her mattress out of her room and into the garage. Joel points out that she can’t live out there, since there’s no heat or running water, and Ellie gives up. Joel states that it’s his house, his rules, and Ellie counters that it’s not — the house was given to both of them by Jackson, and he doesn’t own anything. Joel knows she’s right, and Ellie apologizes for her actions, but also states that she’s not sorry. Joel concedes and says that maybe it’s a good idea for Ellie to have her own space, but that he’ll need a few days to fix things up in the garage, as they put her mattress back.

Joel asks to see the tattoo and compliments its quality, saying the moth in the design is better than the one he put on her guitar. He asks about Ellie’s fascination with moths, and Ellie admits she read about them in a book on dreams and that they’re symbolic; Joel pretends to know what that means, saying it means change and growing. They say good night, but from the look on Joel’s face, he can tell they’re pulling apart. On another day, Joel finds Gail (Catherine O’Hara) at Jackson’s restaurant and starts asking her about dream interpretations. Joel tells her he assumes moths mean change and growth, and Gail says no, that’s a butterfly. Gail says a moth means death… if you believe in that shit. Again, Joel seems shocked by this new revelation about Ellie. Back home, Ellie packs her stuff as she gets ready for the big move out to the garage.

Ellie’s First Patrol Leads to a Heartbreaking Loss

Two years later, in her garage room, Ellie practices having a conversation with Joel about Salt Lake City, and she’s put together a list of questions. If the Fireflies spotted them a mile away, how did they get surprised by the group of raiders Joel claimed attacked the hospital)? If the raiders killed all those soldiers and Marlene (Merle Dandridge), and Joel had to carry an unconscious Ellie the whole way, how did they escape? If there were more immune people, how come no one’s heard of any others existing? Ellie’s practice is interrupted by Joel knocking on her door. This year’s birthday present involves Ellie getting to go on her first patrol, and they head out together.

On their training run, Joel admits that this reminds him of the old days; he wishes they could spend more time together, but it’s clear that the questions Ellie has are eating away at her. Joel gets a radio call about infected and tells Ellie to go back to Jackson, but Ellie refuses, stating that she’s not his daughter, she’s his partner, and they should stick together. Once again, Joel knows she’s right as they head towards danger.

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“Every path has a price.”

As they make their way through the forest, they hear screams and gunshots. A horse rides through the fog towards them, dragging a body with it, and they find a dead infected a bit further. They also find Eugene (Joe Pantoliano), who reveals that he’s been bitten. Joel aims his gun at Eugene, but Eugene argues that he has about an hour — enough time to go back to the gate so he can say goodbye to his wife, Gail. Joel isn’t in favor of the idea, so Eugene tries to use reason, even begs, but Joel doesn’t budge. Ellie asks Eugene to hold out his hand and count clearly from 1 to 10, a test to see how far gone an infected person is, which he does without his hand shaking. Ellie agrees with Eugene, saying they have enough time to bring him back, and pleads with Joel to let him see his wife one last time. Joel gives in, telling Ellie to go get the horses; they’ll meet up with her on the trail. She pauses before walking away, and Joel makes a promise between them.

As Joel and Eugene make their way through the woods, it soon becomes clear that Joel is about to break his promise, taking Eugene to a spot overlooking the water and the mountains. Eugene realizes what’s happening, but Joel tells him not to turn around. Eugene doesn’t need a view, and doesn’t want to give Joel his last words for Gail. He needs Gail, and her last words for him, and he begs Joel to let Gail’s face be the last thing he sees. Joel responds by saying that if you love someone, you can always see their face. When Ellie catches up to them with the horses, she discovers that Joel has shot and killed Eugene. On the way back, Ellie won’t talk to Joel, while he mentions that he’ll radio ahead. When they get back, he’ll tell Gail what she needs to know and nothing more, adding that it’s the right thing to do and that he had no choice.

In Jackson, Tommy brings Gail to Joel, Ellie, and Eugene’s body. Joel says he was bitten when they got there, and that Eugene wants Gail to know that he loved her. He also lies, adding that Eugene wished he could say goodbye in person, but he didn’t want to put her in danger, and that he wasn’t scared, that he ended it himself. This comforts Gail, as she hugs Joel, but Ellie can’t quit staring daggers at him. Ellie then blurts out the truth, telling Gail that Eugene begged to see her and that he had time, and that Joel had promised both Eugene and Ellie that he’d bring him back to Gail. Instead, he shot Eugene in the head. Gail slaps Joel and tells him to get away. Ellie says, “You swore,” to Joel, before walking away, as Gail collapses in Tommy’s arms. It’s clear Ellie’s talking about way more than Eugene with those words.

Joel Finally Tells Ellie the Truth in Their Last Private Moment Together

The episode makes one last jump to nine months after Eugene’s death, at the New Year’s Eve party, depicting the dance from Joel’s perspective, as he watches Jesse (Young Mazino) and Ellie talking together. Joel seemingly realizes how foolishly he used to think they might be an item. Before Tommy takes his son to bed, he and Joel say they’ll see each other “next year,” which are likely the last words they ever spoke to each other. Joel watches Ellie and Dina (Isabela Merced) dancing, and Maria (Rutina Wesley) says she’s grateful for everything Joel has done for Jackson, adding that family helps each other out if he needs it. Their conversation is interrupted when Joel spots Seth making comments about Ellie and Dina, so he goes over and pushes Seth to the ground. To Joel, he’s helping family out, but Ellie sees this as Joel butting in where he isn’t needed. Joel leaves the party confused and upset.

Back home, Joel is sitting on the front porch and playing Ellie’s guitar, but he stops when he sees Ellie coming home. Just like in the first episode, she walks right by him without saying a word, which breaks Joel’s heart — but then, she comes back to the porch, something we didn’t see in the premiere. When she asks what he’s drinking, Joel admits he traded for some coffee last week (by the third episode, Ellie leaves some of those coffee beans at Joel’s grave). Ellie states she had Seth under control, and adds that she never wants Joel to take her off patrol again; he agrees to both things. When Joel asks if Dina is Ellie’s girlfriend now, Ellie insists that it was just a kiss that didn’t mean anything. Joel asks if Ellie likes Dina, then adds she’d be lucky to have Ellie. To this, Ellie says Joel is “such an asshole,” which takes him by surprise.

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Ellie reminds Joel that he looked her in the eyes and lied, and that it was the same face, the same look, he gave to Gail; Joel knows she’s talking about his lie regarding Salt Lake City. Ellie admits she’s already known, this whole time, that he lied to her, but she’s giving him one last chance to tell her what happened with the Fireflies. If Joel lies to her again, they’re done. But Joel can’t even verbalize what he’s done, as Ellie starts to ask her questions. Ellie asks if there were other people who were immune, and all he can do, with tears in his eyes, is shake his head, and he continues to shake his head as she asks if there were raiders. When she asks if the Fireflies could’ve made a cure, Joel nods, and they both seem to realize the tragedy of his actions. Joel continues to nod when Ellie asks if he killed everyone, including Marlene.

Ellie can’t believe what she’s hearing, even though she thought she knew it all along. Joel admits that the Fireflies’ cure would’ve killed Ellie, but she counters that that means she was supposed to die, that it was her purpose, and Joel took it from her and everyone. Joel agrees and says that he’ll pay the price because Ellie is going to turn away from him, but Joel says if he had a second chance, he would do it all over again. Ellie says it’s because he’s selfish, but Joel reveals it’s because he loves her in a way that she can’t understand. Maybe she’ll never understand, but if that day comes and Ellie has a child of her own, Joel hopes she does a little better than he did, echoing the words his father once said to him all those years ago. Ellie doesn’t think she can forgive Joel for this, but she’d like to try. It’s not what Joel was expecting to hear, but it’s what he needed, an opportunity to make things right for the lies he kept for years. Back in the present day, Ellie makes her way back to the theater in Seattle after dealing with Nora (Tati Gabrielle).

Helmed by the director of The Last of Us: Part II, Neil Druckmann, Episode 6 is a powerful, emotional collection of some of the game’s biggest moments tied together with new additions that flesh out what life was like for Joel and Ellie in the past five years. When Joel admits his lies to Ellie, the show combines two of the game’s biggest scenes into one, which makes for an even more impactful reaction from Ellie. The episode is also a tremendous goodbye to Joel, as we finally understand that Ellie didn’t just lose the closest thing she’s had to a father, but the potential to try and move beyond the lies and the pain and start anew with the person who meant the most to her in this world. It’s a staggering hour of television, and arguably the most powerful and emotional episode of The Last of Us so far.

New episodes of The Last of Us Season 2 premiere Sundays on HBO and Max.

The Last Of Us

The sixth episode of The Last of Us Season 2 is a staggering, emotional episode that is also a beautiful goodbye to Pedro Pascal’s Joel.

Release Date

January 15, 2023

Network

HBO

Showrunner

Craig Mazin

Directors

Craig Mazin, Peter Hoar, Jeremy Webb, Ali Abbasi, Mark Mylod, Stephen Williams, Jasmila Žbanić, Liza Johnson, Nina Lopez-Corrado

Pros & Cons

• By giving an episode entirely comprised of flashbacks to Joel and Ellie, The Last of Us gives it’s most emotional episode yet.
• This episode is not just Joel’s best episode, but Pedro Pascal’s best performance we’ve ever seen.
• Director Neil Druckmann does a phenomenal job bringing some of the most important moments from the game to life, and making smart changes.
• In one episode, The Last of Us is able to recontextualize everything we knew about Joel and Ellie’s relationship for this season.