(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
Less than 24 hours after Joel (Pedro Pascal) admitted to Ellie (Bella Ramsey) that he had killed all the fireflies in Salt Lake City, Ellie witnessed her surrogate father’s brutal death in The Last of Us. Ellie had long suspected Joel had told a whopper of a lie, but it wasn’t until New Year’s Eve that Ellie got her answer. If the truth can set you free, this pair had little time to experience living in the aftermath.
At first, Sunday night’s penultimate episode of the season takes an expected path, charting how Joel and Ellie’s relationship disintegrated over the five years in Jackson, using Ellie’s birthday as a marker. Thankfully, there are some surprises amid the sweet and salty interactions, ensuring this outing isn’t simply checking boxes of the things we had already figured out or been told.
It wasn’t Joel confirming that he chose Ellie’s life over a potential cure that led to the divide, but the promise he broke when he killed Eugene (Joe Pantoliano) nine months earlier.
The incident with Eugene isn’t out of the blue either, as Eugene’s widow, Gail (Catherine O’Hara), has already aired her grievance with Joel in the Season 2 premiere. However, the circumstances of Eugene’s demise offer clarity, leading to the NYE porch tête-à-tête: “I don’t think I can forgive you for this, but I would like to try.”
The second part of Ellie’s statement shows maturity, which goes against her well-documented lack of patience. Anger runs through her veins, so it doesn’t take much for her grief to morph into vengeance (even if Ellie dresses it up as justice). Hearing this desire to work at forgiving Joel is a significant development.
But Ellie didn’t go on patrol with Joel on New Year’s Day. Instead, their final conversation is this bittersweet and emotional exchange, with Ramsey and Pascal rising to the occasion as they get to the heart of this rupture.
Of Joel’s consequential lies to Ellie, it was the second that undid the first because he had “the same f---ing look.” Poker was probably not Joel’s game.
Casting choices can lead to assumptions about where a storyline is headed, but even with a heavy-weight like Pantoliano playing Eugene, there was no way Joel was taking him from the woods back to Jackson. Ellie assesses that they have time to give Eugene and Gail a proper goodbye, and Joel reluctantly promises Ellie they will tie Eugene up and give him this request. It is her birthday after all.
The minute Joel sends Ellie to get the horses, it is clear that no such thing is happening. Eugene tells Joel his final words for Gail. “I need her last words for me,” pleads Eugene. Considering O’Hara has been a Season 2 scene-stealer, I would have liked to see this exchange.
Joel said f--- your feelings to Ellie, Eugene, Gail (and me) because he is the one person more stubborn than Ellie. It isn’t that Joel is fastidious about the rules, because his inflexibility here is driven by his desire to protect to an unnecessary degree, and he cannot read the room.
Given that Joel thought Elle was into Jesse (Young Mazino), you might say he isn’t the most observant. Perhaps this is why he thinks Ellie will follow his manufactured version of events when they return to Jackson. Instead, Ellie immediately tells Gail what actually happened with her husband. Eugene still had time and didn’t take his own life. No wonder Gail told Joel that she hates him during therapy.
“You swore,” Elle says to Joel. After hearing this line in the trailer, I guessed she was referring to the Fireflies, but it turns out it was about Eugene. Okay, it was also about the Fireflies.
Earlier that day, Ellie was practicing asking Joel about the holes in his story about saving her from raiders at the Salt Lake City medical facility. Joel marks Ellie’s 19th birthday by taking her on her first patrol, postponing this planned Q&A.
However, Ellie doesn’t need her piece of paper when she finally asks Joel what happened, giving him one last chance to tell the truth. What follows is an exercise in verbalizing everything without uttering a word. Joel’s teary eyes confirm what Ellie already knows, the head shakes and nods do the rest.
It isn’t that Joel doesn’t say anything to explain his decision, but the minimal dialogue in the first part showcases Joel’s guilt—and that both actors are A+ criers.
Ellie’s intuition and innate sense of who Joel is led to this. My gut told me that Pascal wouldn’t leave The Last of Us without an emotional sucker punch exchange with Ramsey and this back-and-forth hits all those notes. Ellie is furious that she didn’t get to fulfill her purpose (to die and provide the cure). Joel says he would do it all over again, even though it has destroyed their relationship.
It boils down to Joel loving Ellie like he is his daughter. Unfortunately, his dad brain only has one setting: overprotective. Joel claims he had no choice with what he did to Eugene (which is a reach), and he flew into a rage on New Year’s Eve after Seth (Robert John Burke) hurled a slur at Ellie and Dina (Isabel Merced) because of how he is hardwired.
The other reason he does this is a roundabout way of apologizing for his ingrained homophobia. On Ellie’s 17th birthday, he accuses her of experimenting with girls and doing “all the teenage s--- all at once” (smoking pot and getting a tattoo).
But it isn’t all angst and a growing rift. Joel makes a concerted effort to be a better father than his own, and the first two birthdays he plans are a sweet (and sometimes clumsy) reminder of their bond, such as restoring a guitar for her 15th.
It is no longer a world with bows on cars for a Super Sweet 16, but the day at the abandoned science museum with Joel showcases how deeply he wants to be a good father. Reality slips away when Ellie is in the Apollo 15 capsule, but on the journey back to Jackson, dancing fireflies give Ellie pause, and it is clear she is still stuck on what happened in that facility. The truth only stays hidden for so long, and it took another lie for Joel to finally admit to what he did.
Rather than return to Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) killing Joel, the flashback ends on the porch with hope lingering in the air. The present quickly snuffs that out as Ellie makes her way in the Seattle rain to the music theater, doubling as a makeshift base.
Ellie didn’t have time to work on forgiving Joel, but she is hellbent on avenging him.
