In “The Last of Us” recap, Ellie travels back in time to remember the past five years with Joel and the promise broken that led to the chasm between them…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
As expected from the closing moments of “The Last of Us” 5, the sixth and penultimate episode in season 2 travels back in time to show what led to the chasm between Joel and Ellie.
The episode actually begins even further back in time — 1983 to be exact — when a young Joel protected his little brother Tommy by beating up a drug dealer trying to cheat him and that resulted in the cops being called on the both of them. Tommy lived in constant fear that their father was going to beat the hell out of him, but especially now that he did something so wrong.
Joel promised his little brother that he would take the beating for him and their father wouldn’t lay a finger on him.
When Javier Miller returns home, we discover that he’s a police officer (played by the great Tony Dalton of “Better Call Saul” fame) and he doesn’t believe for a second that Joel was actually responsible. It didn’t help matters much that the cops arrived at the scene and spoke to the boy who got beat up and they identified Tommy as the one making the deal before Joel arrived.
Javier then tells his son about a time he misbehaved by stealing a candy bar from the store. His father busted him and made him return the candy bar to the store owner and apologize for his actions. On the way home, Javier’s father punched him so hard that it broke his jaw.
Javier spent the next two months with his jaw wired shut and everybody in the neighborhood knew exactly what happened.
He then tells his son that he does hit them from time to time but he’s never gone as far as what his father did to them. Javier doesn’t pose that as an excuse as much as trying to relay to Joel that he’s attempting to do better than his own father.
The two of them end up sharing a beer together as Javier imparts that bit of wisdom on his son and it’s important to know because Joel carries that with him for the resto of his life. Joel wants to do better than his father and that’s the only real accordance he follows when raising his surrogate daughter Ellie.
The relationship between parents and children takes center stage this week as we find out what exactly happened over these past five years and a heartbreaking final conversation between Joel and Ellie that sets the stage for revenge in the season finale.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of “The Last of Us” titled “The Price”
Happy Birthday, Kiddo
The flashback starts five years earlier when Joel and Ellie have been residents of Jackson, Wyoming for only two months. Joel goes to the local bar to make a trade with the bartender — none other than Seth — and he’s got a bag full of Legos to exchange. Seth knows his grandchildren will appreciate the toys and he agrees to fulfill a promise to Joel — but he’s operating on a clock because this gift needs to be finished by the next day.
Seth only has one question — vanilla or chocolate?
Joel gets one more necessary item from Seth before returning home where he begins to prepare for Ellie’s birthday. Seth gave Joel a bone that he was able to carve and shape into the necessary pieces to fix a guitar that he plans to give to Ellie as her gift.
But before they can celebrate, Tommy brings Ellie back home after she was burnt badly while working kitchen duty. This was the moment when Ellie took it upon herself to suffer such a severe burn that it would cover up the bite marks on her arm, which prove that she’s immune to the Cordyceps infection.
She apologizes to Joel and tells him that she really just wanted to wear short sleeves again — and he can’t help but smile at her resolve.
When Ellie wakes up again after all the painkillers wear off, she’s greeted by Joel and the gift he received for her from Seth. It’s a vanilla birthday cake inscribed with the words “Happy Birthday Eli.”
Yeah, Seth has a thing or two to learn about spelling.
But the moment is saved when Ellie dives right into the cake hands first and starts chomping away. It turns out Seth can’t spell for shit but he sure can bake.
Then Joel gives Ellie her real present — the guitar he’s repaired so she can learn how to play. Ellie asks him to play something for her and at first Joel resists but it is her birthday after all.
So Joel strums the guitar and plays her the first verse to the Pearl Jam track “Future Days” — the same song Ellie started to play in the abandoned theater in Seattle before she just couldn’t bring herself to hear it any longer.
A year later, Joel celebrates Ellie’s 16th birthday with an even more special surprise after he takes her on a ride outside the walls and he actually gifts her a dinosaur! OK, not a real dinosaur but a statue that sits near a museum that serves as the second part of Ellie’s present.
He takes her inside and it turns out Ellie is fascinated by space travel — a trait that was actually bestowed upon the character in “The Last of Us” video games because Ashley Johnson, the actress who played Ellie, always wanted to be an astronaut growing up.
The icing on the cake — so to speak — is Joel letting Ellie climb inside the real capsule used during the Apollo 15 mission and then he presents her with a cassette tape with the actual audio recording from that journey. Ellie closes her eyes and imagines what it must have been like to travel into space, blasting through the atmosphere and then looking back down at the Earth below.
Another year passes but Ellie’s 17th birthday starts out a little different when Joel arrives with a cake but he walks into her room and finds her kissing another girl with the smell of weed lofting through the air. As if that’s not enough, Ellie’s date has started the outline of a tattoo on her arm — a moth that still needs some additional shading before it’s finished.
The girl scatters out of the house as Joel admonishes his surrogate daughter for doing all the “teenage shit” in one fell swoop. Sex, drugs and tattoos — and she’s even experimenting with girls.
But Ellie is quick to cut off Joel to inform him that this is no experimentation.
That night, Ellie decides it’s time for some distance between the two of them so she plots to move out of the house and into the detached garage next door. When Joel hears her moving, he stops Ellie and tells her that it’s not only piss pouring rain but the garage doesn’t have any heat or running water.
But he understands her need for some space so Joel promises to work on the garage and get it set up so Ellie can move in there.
After helping Ellie put her bed back, Joel takes a look at the tattoo and he’s actually impressed by the work — it even looks better than the moth he carved on to the guitar her gave her for her birthday a few years back. He wonders why Ellie draws so many moths and she tells him it’s something she read in a book about dreams and she’s been fascinated ever since.
The next day Joel purposefully runs into Gail at the local diner and he asks her about this dream interpretation. While Gail seems uninterested in using dreams for her therapy, she informs Joel that the moth doesn’t signify change or growth as he imagines — it symbolizes death — if you actually believe that shit.
Promises Broken
The next time jump takes us to two years later and it’s Ellie’s birthday again but this time she’s got questions for Joel that she needs answered. She’s sitting on her bed rehearsing how she can talk to Joel about her concerns regarding what really happened back in Salt Lake City.
“OK so I’ve been thinking or wondering, no thinking for a while now about Salt Lake City. I just want to understand it. So I wrote down some questions.”
~ Ellie
A knock on the door interrupts and Ellie finds Joel standing there with another birthday present. This time, he’s finally ready to take her on her first patrol outside gates.
So Ellie’s questions will have to wait because she loads up her rifle and heads out onto the trail with Joel for her first patrol. Of course, Joel picks the safest route available as he tries to teach Ellie about scouting and patrolling but she’s getting a little bored with all the mundane tasks.
That’s when they receive a frantic call from another patrol that’s been attacked by the infected.
Joel and Ellie are the closest people available so they’ll have to race off to help.
When they arrive, they find several dead Cordyceps zombies and a few members of the Jackson patrol that didn’t survive. And then they find Eugene — Gail’s husband and a well liked member of the community — and he’s been bitten.
All Eugene wants is to return to Jackson and allow Gail to see him for his final moments so they can share one last conversation before he’s dead. None of this matters much to Joel because he knows Eugene has to get put down before he turns and starts trying to bite anyone and everyone around him.
But Ellie decides to test Eugene to see just how far along the infection has gotten — and he’s cognitive enough to count to 10 without his hands shaking or trembling. Ellie surmises that Eugene probably has an hour before he turns and that’s plenty of time to get him back to Jackson so he can see Gail one last time.
Joel promises to walk back with Eugene while Ellie runs to get their horses.
But as Joel leads Eugene away, he eventually pushes him towards an opening that looks out into the valley — a beautiful and stunning view and the last thing Eugene will ever see. Joel had no intention of ever allowing him back to Jackson no matter what he promised Ellie.
Eugene pleads and begs because he just wants to spend one more moment with his wife — he wants to die after seeing her face for the last time.
“If you love someone, you can always see their face.”
~ Joel
When Ellie makes it back with the horses, she finds Eugene already dead and Joel waiting there with the smoking gun. They load up the body and return to Jackson where they drag Eugene’s corpse through the gates and a distraught Gail is already grieving the loss of her husband.
Joel cooks up a story about how Eugene didn’t want to risk anybody’s life by returning so he gave him a message to tell Gail about how much he loved her and then he claimed Eugene put a bullet in his own head to end it. But Ellie can’t abide by these lies as Gail embraces Joel for a bit of comfort after her husband’s death.
“That’s not what happened. 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.”
~ Ellie
With that, Gail slaps Joel across the face and then she goes back to grieving her deceased husband.
Do a Little Better Than Me
The next time jump returns us to the very beginning of this season — nine months past that incident with Eugene — and it’s New Year’s Eve in Jackson. Joel is trying to enjoy the holiday with his brother and new sister-in-law but he’s really just keeping a close eye on Ellie and wondering if they’ll ever repair the damage done to their relationship.
After Tommy goes to put his son to sleep, Maria tells Joel that while she called him a refugee earlier in the day she wants him to know that she considers him family now. He’s become a valuable part of the community but more importantly, Joel has become an indispensable member of their family.
That’s when Joel spots Ellie and Dina kissing and Seth remarking that this is a family party before using a gay slur against them. We know what happens from there with Joel shoving Seth to the floor and Ellie telling him she doesn’t want his help any longer.
Later that night, Joel sits on the porch playing the guitar when Ellie returns home. We only see a part of this earlier in the season but it turns out they actually shared a much deeper conversation.
Ellie explains to Joel that she’s had suspicions about what actually happened in Salt Lake City but her worst fears were realized when she saw the way he lied to her and then lied to Gail — and it was the same look he had when explaining what happened at the Firefly hospital.
“You lied to me. You looked me in the eyes and you lied and it was the same face, the same fucking look. I think I knew already. I knew this whole time. So 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
So Ellie questions Joel about what happened and he finally comes clean through a series of heartbreaking nods. Yes, Joel killed Marlene and all of the Fireflies. Yes, Joel killed the only doctor capable of creating a cure from Ellie’s immunity. Yes, Joel single-handedly stamped out the best chance humanity had to survive because he couldn’t let Ellie die.
She lashes out at him for taking that choice away from her because Ellie believes her death could have actually given her life more meaning. But Joel wasn’t ready to let her go because he’s grown to love Ellie as much as his own child.
Joel: “I love you in a way you can’t understand. Maybe you never will. But if that day should come, if you ever should have one of your own, well then, I hope you do a little better than me.”
Ellie: “I don’t think I can forgive you for this but I would like to try.”
Much like his father before him, Joel isn’t proud of what he’s done but he tells Ellie that given the chance, he would do it all over again because he just couldn’t let her go. Ellie admitting that she’s not ready to forgive him but she wants to try is perhaps the hardest pill to swallow because we know that 24 hours later, Joel was beaten and stabbed to death in front of her.
We finally pick back up with Ellie arriving at the rendezvous in the theater just outside Seattle where she’s clearly already beaten Nora to death to get the information about Abby’s location. It seems pretty clear by this episode that Ellie isn’t going to just let go of her need for vengeance.
Abby robbed Ellie of the chance to make things right with Joel and she took away the only person who has ever loved her unconditionally. Now Abby must die.
“The Last of Us” returns next Sunday night at 9 p.m. ET on HBO for the season 2 finale.
