'The Last of Us' Episode 6 Is Hopeful For Once! (Then Burns It All Down.)
This story contains spoilers for The Last of Us Episode Six.
Greetings, fellow fans of mushrooms, Appalachia, Pedro Pascal, and The Last of Us. Your favorite recapper, Josh Rosenberg, was off reporting at Universal Studios's brand-new Super Nintendo World this week—he met Mario and ate coin block-shaped tiramisu!—so his editor (yours truly), is filling in. You'll get your newly-minted Mario Brother back next week.
After witnessing yet another heartbreaking climax in Episode Five—we miss you, Henry and Sam—Episode Six of the HBO video game adaptation dares to offer us a bit of hope. Our man Joel has been searching for his long-lost brother, the ex-Firefly Tommy, for nearly the entire season. At long last, the Millers reunite. By way of an encounter in the wilderness that seems fatal at first, a group of strangers bring Joel and Ellie to Jackson, Wyoming, a paradise amidst a cordyceps-ravaged planet. It's where Tommy has found refuge—and, as we find out, peace. It's a glimpse of what life could be for Joel and Ellie, but of course, it turns out to be only a glimpse. Let's get into it.
We've Been Talkin' 'Bout Jackson
Episode Six is an absolute feast for fans of The Last of Us video games. We get a damn good look at Jackson, which—not to get too deep into it—will become the closest thing this story ever gets to a main setting. It's a major change from The Last of Us Part I game, where we hardly get to see the fully-functioning town, led by the formidable Maria. But here on screen, Jackson has shops, a big ol' dining hall, children running around, and people actually seem happy! It's bewildering to Joel and Ellie—especially the latter, who grew up in the militaristic Boston QZ. We don't learn a ton about the inner workings of Jackson, but again, it's an absolute treat (and a surprise) to see and feel the energy of the town so early.
Brotherly Love
Aside from whiskey (!), Jackson has one more treat for our heroes: Tommy. Joel assumed that his brother got himself mixed up in some Firefly antics, but the man is thriving. He's seemingly an important cog in the daily upkeep of Jackson, and has a reliable partner in Maria. They're even expecting a child together.
Joel and Tommy's initial reunion is all fun and cuddles. They embrace. Catch up while Ellie destroys a plate (or two) of food. But this is The Last of Us, after all, so trouble soon returns. At this point in the series, Joel truly cares about Ellie. And he's a practical guy. He's old. Tommy is not. In the home stretch of delivering Ellie to a team of doctors working on a vaccine, Joel makes a rational conclusion: Tommy is the best person to keep Ellie safe the rest of the way. Joel grabs a drink with Tommy—at, hey, a real bar!—to make his ask. In a brilliantly performed scene from both Pascal and Gabriel Luna, who plays Tommy, Joel doesn't get the answer he's looking for.
"All he's asking me in that moment is to do him this favor," Luna said of the fateful moment, in a new interview with Esquire. "I explain that I would have to choose my own family at this point and he has a very adverse response to that. I respond just because his life ended, it doesn't mean mine has to. It's not that I don't love our family and I didn't love [Joel's daughter] Sarah. I have to tread forward. And Joel's not really prepared for that quite yet."
Ellie resents Joel for making the call to stay behind—until he has a change of heart, anyway. Near the end of the episode, Tommy changes his mind too, saddling up with Ellie. Joel arrives, takes the reins, and... things don't go too well. More on that soon, because I have to touch on my favorite moment from this episode.
Hey, I Know You!
Skip to the next section if you don't want the teensiest spoiler for The Last of Us Season Two. Waiting... Waiting... Waiting... Okay. Dina! I think. While Ellie is chowin' down, she catches someone staring at her from across the dining hall. "What?!" Ellie shouts. We see a girl looking at Ellie from behind a pillar before she quickly scurries away. Anyone who has played The Last of Us Part II knows that ponytail from anywhere. I'm keeping this relatively non-spoilery, but we just met a major character. If you want to know more, Bella Ramsey, who played Ellie, has teased her character's future with this particular person. We even meet Shimmer in this episode! Ah. Too much.
All Hope Is Lost. (Again.)
Back to our regularly scheduled, incredibly depressing programming. Ellie and Joel hit the road again. They stumble on what they think might be their final destination, only to find that this particular hospital has been abandoned. On their way out of the area, they run into yet another unsavory crew of baddies, which means that Joel has to go into scary-killer mode (also again). He breaks a dude's neck while all of his friends run away. Another threat squashed, right?
Sort of. Joel suffers a major stab wound in the fight. While the adversaries wander off, we see that Joel isn't looking so good—and this might be his first ouchie from the series where he can't whip out a video-gamey health pack to make it all better. He collapses into the snow. Ellie, understandably, freaks out, not knowing what to do with this grown man who may very well be dying. In true The Last of Us fashion, it's a brutal end to this chapter, which showed us a future for Joel and Ellie: one where they could live in Jackson, enjoying relative peace. But no. Ellie suddenly has to figure something out, the bear-cub dynamic we've seen so far flipping in an instant. In other words? This mushroom world spins madly on. See you next week.
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