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This article contains spoilers for the The Last of Us season two. Please do not read unless you have seen episodes one to six.
Back in early 2023 The Last of Us launched to admiring reviews and millions of viewers around the world. When it was quickly renewed for a second season there was speculation about how showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann would approach the task. Would they skip straight to adapting the second (and so far final) video game, which picks up the action five years after the original? Or would they take a more scenic route, inventing new post-apocalyptic adventures for surrogate father-daughter duo Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) to have during that considerable time gap? It would certainly be an easy way to eke another lucrative season or three out of the source material.
In the end, Mazin and Druckmann chose to remain faithful to the video game by jumping five years ahead and brutally killing off Joel in the early running. But tonight’s extended flashback episode shaded in some details of what happened in the interim. Like a stone skipping over a gorgeous Wyoming lake, it jumped ahead a year at a time (rather like the recent final season of Andor) to track the ebb and flow of Joel and Ellie’s relationship as she matured from rebellious young teen to even more rebellious older teen.
For those who had been keenly feeling the absence of Joel, an hour in the company of Pascal as he tried to whittle down some of his character’s more anguished edges felt like a thoughtful, handcrafted gift. There was also an all-too-brief but memorable appearance from Joe Pantoliano. But first there was the surprise of seeing Joel himself as a scowling, defiant teen.
Meet Mr Miller
An opening flashback to Austin, Texas, in 1983 sees young Joel and Tommy stressing about their father coming home. It’s obvious that Tommy has done something very naughty but Joel is determined to take the blame so that his younger brother avoids a beating. The first surprise is that Mr Miller (played by Tony Dalton) is a cop. The second is that his approach to disciplining Joel – whom he instinctively knows is covering for his sibling – involves offering him a can of beer. As they sip their Buds, Miller Sr tells a story from his own childhood about being caught shoplifting. His vengeful father broke his jaw with one punch. He is clearly aware that raising his hands to his own sons is perpetuating a cycle of violence. But by not sending them to the hospital he thinks he is at least managing to do things “a little better than my father did”.
Happy birthday(s) to Ellie
After the credits, we are still in flashback mode but it is now two months since Joel and Ellie got back to Jackson Hole at the end of season one. Joel is preparing a surprise for Ellie’s 15th birthday, trading salvaged Legos with gruff bartender Seth (Robert John Burke) to secure a cake and some materials he needs to restore an acoustic guitar. But his Repair Shop-style woodworking reverie is interrupted by Tommy (Gabriel Luna) rushing an injured Ellie back to the house.
While working in the settlement’s kitchen she badly burned her forearm on a cooking pot. It’s obvious Ellie did this deliberately to obscure the suspicious bite mark on her arm. The injury does not put a dampener on her birthday celebration the next morning, but it does mean she cannot actually strum the acoustic guitar that Joel has given her. He allows himself to be cajoled into performing a rough cover of Pearl Jam’s Future Days. It earns him some uncharacteristically high praise from Ellie: “Well … that didn’t suck.”
Space exploration
One year later, Joel and Ellie are on a ramble to mark her 16th birthday. Perhaps inspired by being out in nature, Joel attempts to broach the subject of the birds and the bees, which goes about as well as you might imagine. (“You mean dicks and vaginas?” is the response.) But while Ellie has had to grow up fast, Joel seems obsessed with carving out space for some happy childhood experiences. He has planned this trip to a ruined Wyoming museum so Ellie can see an actual Apollo space capsule and, at least for a moment, imagine what it might be like to leave their compromised world behind. Her joy is palpable.
Another year later, things aren’t going quite as smoothly. Joel’s attempt to surprise Ellie with a 17th birthday cake sees him awkwardly gatecrashing a date that ticks off every fear in an overprotective parent’s nightmare: sexual experimentation, drug use and getting a tattoo. Joel even finds himself reaching for a hoary old mantra that will probably outlast any apocalypse: “This is my house, and when you’re under my roof …” But after a quick consultation with town shrink Gail (Catherine O’Hara) Joel seems to see the sense in giving Ellie her own space by letting her move into the garage. He even has some complimentary words about her new moth tattoo.
A tough break for Eugene
This time the jump ahead is two years, to Ellie’s 19th birthday, and by now she and her Nirvana posters are fully installed in the garage. We eavesdrop as she rehearses asking Joel some awkward questions about what really happened in Salt Lake City. Five years on, she has begun to realise his story about how they escaped does not stand up to scrutiny. She is interrupted by Joel, who is belatedly granting her desperate wish to go out on patrol. It will turn out to be a baptism of fire.
An emergency call over the radio sends Joel and Ellie racing to protect another patrol from an infected attack. It is too late for poor Adam but they see a confused Eugene (Joe Pantoliano), who reveals that he has been bitten. All he wants to do is get back to the outskirts of Jackson before he turns so he can say goodbye to his wife, Gail. Under pressure from Ellie, Joel agrees to help. But after he sends Ellie to retrieve their horses it seems that his plan all along was to escort the doomed Eugene to the shore of a peaceful lake and shoot him there.
As the pair ride back to the settlement, dragging Eugene’s body, Joel impresses on Ellie that he intends to tell Gail “what she needs to know and nothing more”. She now has stomach-churning confirmation that Joel will flat-out lie if he thinks it serves a greater good. But when faced with Gail’s grief Ellie refuses to let Joel sugarcoat what happened and tells everyone the truth: Joel shot him in the head.
‘I’ll pay the price …’
There is one final time jump, to nine months later and the New Year’s Eve shindig from the opening episode. We see the dancefloor confrontation between homophobic Seth and the canoodling Ellie and Dina from Joel’s point of view as he unwisely wades in. But we also see more of the aftermath, as he and Ellie have a bruising heart-to-heart on their porch. She gives him “one last chance” to tell the truth about what happened in Salt Lake City, but it is so traumamatic that Joel cannot even speak. All he can do is shake his head or nod as Ellie works through her questions and finally gets truthful answers. This is the point where their relationship could shatter for ever. But there is still room to end on an unlikely 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 know that our heroes could have rebuilt their relationship? Or is it even more heartbreaking to hear with the foreknowledge that Joel is fated to die the very next day?
Notes and observations
If Dalton and his moustache looked familiar, he has appeared in Disney+ Marvel shows Hawkeye and Daredevil: Born Again as New York socialite Jack Duquesne, AKA dashing vigilante Swordsman. Dalton will also star in forthcoming PlayStation 5 game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet from The Last of Us creators Naughty Dog.
Yes, Pearl Jam didn’t release the song Future Days until 2013, which makes it a little weird to hear Joel covering it when the world-wrecking outbreak took place back a decade earlier. Maybe 2003 megahit Bring Me to Life by Evanescence would have been more fitting?
The actual Apollo 15 command module is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio rather than an overgrown museum in Wyoming.
Next week: it’s back to Seattle for the season finale, which seems to have come up very fast. Start the countdown …
What did you think? Was this a fitting sendoff for Joel? Do you feel ready for the season to end? Have your say below, but please avoid spoilers from the game …
