The Last of Us' Episode 6

In episode 6 of "The Last of Us," we see Joel unlike we've ever seen him before: looking like a lost old man.

Finally, Joel lets Tommy in on the true nature of his trip: to take Ellie to the Fireflies in the hopes of finding a vaccine. We get a nice, fun scene of Joel finally teaching Ellie how to use a rifle. And when that dog tried to sniff out Ellie earlier in the episode, Joel felt similarly helpless. Ellie brings up Sarah and Joel tells her to stop. Tommy clearly hates seeing Joel this way and agrees to take Ellie to the University of Eastern Colorado, where the Fireflies might have a base. Here’s another thing we get to see in the show that we never did in the game: Joel and Ellie relaxing and camping. A woman recognizes Joel and escorts him and Ellie to Jackson. He reveals to Joel that he’s about to be a father. Here, we see peace and order in world of “The Last of Us.” If the story has felt bleak and hopeless up to this point — that no matter what a community does, it’s doomed — this Wyoming community is the counter argument. Ellie confesses to Joel that she tried and failed to save Sam. Here’s one of the biggest differences between the game and the show: Compared to the game, we spend very little time with just Joel and Ellie in the show. But in episode 6 of HBO’s “The Last of Us,” we see a new side of Joel.

After arriving at a remote cabin, they've taken Florence (Elaine Miles) hostage while she waits for her husband, Marlon (Graham Greene). It's not that tense a ...

Back then, there were two main ways of looking at things: some people wanted to own everything, and some people didn’t want anyone to own anything at all.”) The question of whether or not they’re a “we” has been settled for good. (It’s reminiscent of the scene in the kind-of-underrated Kevin Costner film The Postman where a bunch of post-apocalyptic tough guys are shown really digging The Sound of Music on movie night, then get angry when the film switches to the violent Universal Soldier. They escape to the wilderness, but only after Joel is stabbed and seriously wounded. Ellie learns to shoot and the rules of football and asks whether Jackson is how it was pre-apocalypse. Joel doesn’t hesitate to reply, “Of course I do,” and though that’s the central question, he still can’t commit to staying with her. And he doesn’t understand why Tommy won’t agree to come with them on the next step of the journey, to a Firefly base on a Colorado campus. The Last of Us is at least partly a tour of different ways of post-apocalyptic living, from the totalitarianism of Boston to, well, the different flavor of totalitarianism of Kansas City. It also leads Ellie to take a break from the sarcasm and remind him that if he’s dead, she’s “fucked.” (“There are Firefly People?”) They do know, however, not to pass the River of Death, a border they know by all the dead bodies that line it. To Joel, this seems to be a part of Tommy’s habit of joining others’ groups. And do what they’re told.”) Spurred in part by her admiration for Sally Ride, Ellie talks about wanting to go to the moon. As if to jolt us to attention, “Kin,” the sixth episode of The Last of Us’ first season, begins with a short flashback to the fifth episode’s most harrowing moment (though it certainly has competition): Henry shooting himself after shooting his infected brother Sam.

HBO's hit sees Joel and Ellie stumble upon an idyllic community in Jackson, Wyoming, while also facing the biggest threat to their survival yet.

Now he’s the one on the ground with a terrible wound to the midsection, and his surrogate daughter is the one hoping against hope that he can survive. That The Last of Us can do both within the same episode, and have it feel all of a piece, is among its most impressive traits. But Jackson is doing as fine at the end of “Kin” as it was when Joel and Ellie first arrived. Ellie’s conversation with Maria is the first she’s heard of Joel having (and then losing) a daughter. But in the process, his stomach gets impaled by the shard of a baseball bat, and the episode ends with a panicked Ellie tending to his wound and pleading for him to get up. It’s remarkable how easily this show can jump from [Bill and Frank’s love story](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-recaps/the-last-of-us-season-1-episode-3-recap-hbo-nick-offerman-murray-bartlett-gay-love-1234667212/) to the dark Kansas City two-parter to this calm, very [Station Eleven](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/station-eleven-review-1265799/)-esque look at Joel and Ellie’s relationship, and at the possibilities of finding peace even in a post-apocalyptic world. In the melee, Joel briefly appears to be the superman he wants to be for Ellie, snapping the neck of one of his attackers. Instead, the threat is to the relationship of the two leads, as his fear of opening up to her instead makes her think she’s being abandoned by him. Where “Endure and Survive” was full of [mayhem, spectacle, and despair](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-recaps/the-last-of-us-episode-5-recap-hbo-sam-keivonn-woodard-henry-lamar-johnson-melanie-lynskey-death-1234674650/), “Kin” is quiet and contemplative, heavy on character and so light on action until the end that we don’t even see any infected. [Rutina Wesley](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/qa-true-blood-star-rutina-wesley-on-taras-vampire-transformation-243584/) from Queen Sugar and True Blood), and they are expecting a baby. It is the dead of winter, and our heroes have stumbled across an older Native couple — played by the great character actor Graham Greene and Northern Exposure alum Elaine Miles — who have managed to carve out a life for themselves in a cabin in the middle of nowhere that few people or infected ever come across. [The Last of Us](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/the-last-of-us-review-hbo-zombies-neil-druckmann-pedro-pascal-bella-ramsey-1234655768/), which at times is extremely straightforward, but exciting and crafted at a high level.

Recovering from the aftermath of episode 5, Joel and Ellie finally reach Tommy's and have a moment to breathe in episode 6.

The episode provides Joel and Ellie with a chance to breathe a little easier for a bit. Gamers will know these are the henchmen of David, a major antagonist in the game. The episode has plenty of references to the game. We spied Ellie taking a pack of tampons in one of the earlier episodes, and in this episode, Maria gives Ellie a Diva Cup. Now travelling through the snow-covered wilderness, Joel and Ellie encounter Marlon and Florence, an elderly couple living in the woods. The tragic death of Sam and Henry will definitely haunt us, and it certainly does our heroes Joel and Ellie, as we pick up with them 3 months after the events of episode 5.

This week's episode sees Joel and Ellie finally find Tommy, who has been on a side quest for this season, to use a bit of video game-speak. Turns out, while ...

We're already getting to see what we see in the early parts of Part Two of the game. In The Last of Us Part One, Tommy's reintroductionrevolves around a mission to restore power to Jackson. The glimpse of Jackson's way of life is something we see at the beginning of The Last of Us Part Two—as is the reveal that Maria is expecting a child. Turns out, while Joel has been burning the bodies of infected children, Tommy has been living in a wonderfully inhabitable settlement. [The Last of Us ](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a42541771/the-last-of-us-hbo-release-schedule/) [Season One](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a42541771/the-last-of-us-hbo-release-schedule/), people—which means that we're nearing the events of the second game. But Episode Six, which debuted this Sunday night, does give us a taste of two brilliant parts of [The Last of Us](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a42689700/the-last-of-us-hbo-season-2/) ['s future](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a42689700/the-last-of-us-hbo-season-2/): Joel's brother, Tommy Miller (played by Gabriel Luna), and the settlement in Jackson, Wyoming.