<i>The Last of Us</i> Season 2, Episode 6 Recap: Daddy’s Home

Spoilers below.

After all the brutality we’ve witnessed on The Last of Us these past few episodes—the turf war between the WLF and Seraphites, disembowelments and cruel beatings, attacks from infected stalkers—we needed a little tenderness. And who better to give it to us than Pedro Pascal? Season 2, episode 6 unfolds through a series of flashbacks, tracing Pascal’s Joel from his childhood to his final days with Ellie, marking a welcome and heartfelt return for the lead actor. Many have been feeling withdrawal since Abby beat Joel to death before our eyes and Ellie’s, and although Bella Ramsey has been carrying on with Isabel Merced (Dina), there’s an unspeakable comfort in seeing Pascal again, specifically at Ramsey’s side. Their reunion is bittersweet, shadowed by the knowledge that it won’t last.

The first flashback takes us all the way back to 1983, during Joel’s adolescent years in Austin, Texas. He and Tommy are about to be in trouble when their dad gets home. Tommy was caught trying to buy weed, and Joel stood up for him and got into a fight. The cops were called. Their father, a police officer, of course has already heard about it. Tommy is afraid he’ll get belted, and again Joel stands up for his brother, sending him away to talk to their dad first when he arrives. But instead of getting violent, Mr. Miller gets Joel a beer from the fridge and the two have an honest conversation. Joel asks why he hits Tommy, and his father responds with a story. When he was young, Joel’s grandfather once punished him by hitting him so hard he broke his jaw; there was so much blood that Joel’s grandmother thought he was dead. Mr. Miller knew his own father loved him, but he was too tough, so when he became a parent, he tried to do “a little better than my father did.” He hopes Joel does the same. “You’ll know when its your turn. I hope you do a little better than me.” What follows is Joel doing his best when his time comes.

The next flashback takes place decades later, a few months after Joel and Ellie have arrived in Jackson. He trades Seth a bag of legos for Seth’s grandkids in exchange for a cake for Ellie’s birthday, along with a bone. At home, Joel grinds the latter into a sleek saddle for a custom guitar he’s making with his bare hands—turns out Joel is a master carpenter. He even carves a moth into the neck of the guitar. He works wearing his watch, the same one his father was wearing in the previous scene. When the instrument is complete, Tommy barges in with Ellie, who is drugged out on painkillers because she had just burned her arm on a burning pot. (She was trying to cover up the bite marks on her skin, she’s tired of not wearing short sleeves again.) Joel embraces her rather than snaps at her. Okay, gentle parenting!

Here, we get a bit of Joel and Ellie’s life in Jackson together. (Did you catch the A-ha “Take on Me” cassette on the counter?) He unveils Seth’s cake for her, and although her name is spelled wrong (“Happy 15th birthday Eli”), she doesn’t wait to devour a handful of it. He gives her a guitar as a gift and she eggs him on to sing, then he serenades her with Pearl Jam’s “Future Days” in a low, rough voice. (This is the song Ellie couldn’t bring herself to sing in a previous episode.)

The following year, they’re on a playful walk through the woods together as Joel is leading Ellie to secret surprise. He tries to talk to her about “the birds and the bees”—a classic parental milestone—before they reach their destination: a museum. There’s a T-rex statue and a planetarium and a spaceship. Ellie is ecstatic and Joel is pleased. He knows he did well.

But when Ellie turns 17, something shifts. Joel comes home early with a cake to find Ellie in her room fooling around with a girl, getting a tattoo, and smoking weed. The teenage angst is settling in, and a distance is forming between them. Joel rushes to judge Ellie for “experimenting” with girls; she decides to move into the garage. Joel catches the moth drawings that Ellie’s been sketching from her dreams. He thinks it’s a metaphor for this period of change in her life, but Gail says it’s a symbol of death. A later sketch shows what Ellie really thinks it means: “You have a greater purpose.”

Fast-forward two years, 19-year-old Ellie is in her room rehearsing some questions for Joel. A lot of time has passed since their escape from Salt Lake City, but doubts still linger in her mind. Were there really raiders at the hospital? Were there other immune people? How did they make it out alive? Joel interrupts her rehearsal with some long-awaited good news: He’s taking her on her first patrol of Jackson. They start with an easy route, but Joel gets alerted via radio that an infected was spotted outside of town, and the civilians need backup. One of them is Eugene, Gail’s husband. We already know that he dies, and that Joel is involved…we can probably guess what’s going to happen next.

When Joel and Ellie get to Eugene, he’s already been bitten, but he thinks he still has enough time to say goodbye to Gail. Ellie sympathizes with him. She tests his cognition and reasons that he has an hour left before he turns full zombie. That’s enough time to get back to the Jackson gates and bring Gail out for a final farewell. Joel acquiesces, telling Ellie to grab their horses, and promises he’ll meet her there with Eugene. But he doesn’t. Instead, Joel leads Eugene to a dead end at the lake and holds him at gunpoint. He ignores Eugene’s pleas to see Gail again (“I need her last words for me!” he cries), but Joel convinces him that if you really loves someone, you can always see their face. Eugene’s expression softens. “I see her,” he says.

You don’t hear Joel’s gun go off, but you do see a flock of birds flying out of the trees, startled by the sound. Ellie arrives with the horses to find Eugene shot dead on the ground. Her trust in Joel is completely broken. She’s silent on the ride back home.

When Tommy brings Gail to Eugene’s remains, Joel tells her a lie about how Eugene decided to end his own life after getting bit. But Ellie can’t hold in the truth, telling Gail that her husband begged to see her and Joel ultimately shot him in the head. Gail is disgusted, Joel is shocked, and Ellie is hurt. “You swore,” she tells Joel, her voice breaking.

Thus explains why Ellie and Joel are on such rocky terms when season 2 begins, which is nine months after Eugene’s death. Not only is Ellie in her angsty teen years—she feels betrayed by her partner in crime and father figure, the person she trusts most. Joel is aware of his mistake too, so when we’re back at that New Year’s Eve scene and he sees Ellie dancing with Dina, he tries to do right by them. “Family helps each other out if you need it,” his sister-in-law Maria tells him. We watch from Joel’s point of view in the party as Seth hurls a homophobic slur at Ellie and Dina. Joel rushes to push him to the ground to save Ellie, the girl he’s saved so many times before. But she growls at Joel; she doesn’t need his help.

Next, we get another replay of season 2, episode 1, as Joel returns home to play guitar (the one he made for Ellie) on his porch. Ellie arrives home and pauses to look at him, then retreats back to the garage. That’s how we think the night ended for these two, but in this flashback we learn there was more to it: Ellie returns to the porch to talk to Joel. He tries to be a supportive dad (he’s really trying!) “Dina, is she your girlfriend now?” he asks Ellie, later adding, “She’d be lucky to have you.” It’s a sweet gesture, but Ellie is still hesitant to trust Joel again. Now is the time to ask those questions she rehearsed, and if Joel lies, “we’re done” for good, Ellie says. Were there other raiders in Salt Lake City? Were there other immune people? Joel shakes his head silently, tearing up. Could they have made a cure? He nods. Ellie’s eyes well up with tears (the performances by Ramsey and Pascal are Emmy-worthy here, as if they weren’t already). “My life would’ve fucking mattered, but you took that from me,” she scolds him. She says he did all that because he’s selfish, but he corrects her: “Because I love you.” She might not be able to understand it now, just like he didn’t when he was her age, but he knows she will one day. When she’s older and decides to have children of her own, “I hope you do better than me,” Joel says, echoing his own father’s words. It’s starting to make sense to Ellie. “I don’t think I can forgive you for this,” she says. “But I would like to try.” It seems like they left on better terms than we thought.

This scene offered a sense of closure both for the characters and the viewers, as we return to the present timeline without Joel. We know now that his teachings are alive with Ellie, who, let’s not forget, is about to become a parent (or co-parent). After Dina revealed her pregnancy to her, Ellie said, “I’m going to be a dad!” The sweet response wasn’t just a joke—it was a full-circle moment generations in the making.