The Last of Us Episode 6 Recap

Joel and Ellie finally reunite with Tommy in Wyoming on this week’s episode of The Last of Us. But in the process, they also kick up (and have to work through) a lot of familial conflicts. For this week’s The Last of Us (TLOU) recap, here’s what we dug about The Last of Us episode 6.

Joel’s going through it

This week’s episode operates at a slower pace than last week’s action in more ways than one. The episode opens with Joel and Ellie hiking through the Mountain West en route to Jackson.

The show spends ample time showcasing some gorgeous outdoor vistas—a nice change-up from the grime of Kansas City—along with Joel and Ellie’s softening relationship. Under the northern lights, Joel and Ellie talk about what they’d like to do once the Fireflies make a Cordyceps cure. Ellie dreams about going to space, while Joel simply wants a quiet sheep farm.

But although Joel and Ellie are getting along, their improved relationship is making things complicated for Joel. At this point, we’re more than well-acquainted with Joel as the hardened cowboy outlaw. But all that killing and death does a number on a person, as Joel opens the episode with a panic attack outside the old couple’s cabin.

From the deaths of Sam, Henry, and Tess to Ellie rescuing Joel in Kansas City, Joel’s dealt with a cascading number of failures that weigh on him more than he realizes. Things come to a head in Jackson once Joel and Tommy (Gabriel Luna) reunite. Joel doesn’t take Tommy’s impending fatherhood well, and in their later conversation at the shop, Joel reveals his plan to have Tommy take over as Ellie’s escort.

Pedro Pascal’s marvelous in this scene as he strips back Joel’s self-imposed walls to reveal the broken-down man underneath. As Joel and Ellie have gotten closer, it’s also salted the wound from his biggest failure: the death of Sarah. In Joel’s head, he’s already failed once as Sarah’s father, and the prospect of failing again as Ellie’s surrogate father terrifies him.

Of course, Ellie doesn’t take this news well. Back at the house, Ellie confronts Joel over his plan, and they get an overdue opportunity to work through their issues. But in a harsh turn of events, Joel’s fears were ultimately well-founded. After leaving Jackson, Joel and Ellie escape a group of bandits at the college campus. In the midst of the scrum, Joel takes a shiv stab to the gut, and the episode closes with Joel collapsed on the ground and bleeding out in Ellie’s arms. (Fatherhood’s tough sometimes, man.)

Look out, Jackson

This week’s episode was relatively action-free, but it gave us a bounty of nice character-driven bits:

1. Marlon (Graham Greene) and Florence (Elaine Miles), the old couple in the episode’s opening. They’re just living in the country and taking it easy.
2. Tommy’s shocked realization when Maria (Rutina Wesley) points out they’re basically communists. When you live in a communal colony and work communally. . .
3. Maria’s care package for Ellie, which included everything she’ll need for the road.
4. Jackson’s community movie night showing being the 1977 Neil Simon romantic drama The Goodbye Girl. If the screen presence of Richard Dreyfuss enthralled the kids that much, imagine how jazzed they’d be with something like Finding Nemo.
5. Joel describing the rules of football to Ellie. Fact check: true!
6. Joel describing how everyone loved contractors to Ellie. Fact check: [sound of fact checker machine exploding]

The Last of Us episode 6 easter eggs

Was that Dina in The Last of Us?

• When Joel and Ellie are eating at the cafeteria in Jackson, she shoots a mean glance at a brunette girl who quickly scurries away. TLOU game fans pounced on the easter egg, which co-creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin danced around confirming on this week’s The Last of Us Podcast.
• On the show, Maybe Dina is played by Paolina van Kleef and officially credited as Staring Girl. In The Last of Us Part II, Dina—played by Shannon Woodward—is a friend of Ellie’s who also lives in Jackson. (This blurb is also rooting to get Shannon Woodward on the next season of TLOU. Make it happen, HBO!)
• Joel and Ellie’s fight was largely pulled from the game, although Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal more than made it their own.
• Ellie meets a horse named Shimmer for the first time when Maria and Tommy take her through the stables. Shimmer is Ellie’s horse in TLOU Part II.

The Last of Us episode 7 preview

On next week’s episode of The Last of Us, we’ll flashback to Ellie’s time at boarding school in the Boston quarantine zone. We’ll also see Storm Reid’s first appearance in the show as Riley.

Are we going to do the Leo Pointing meme every time Utah gets shouted out on a big TV show?

Speaking as a Utah-based recap series, we absolutely will. Ogden City, baby!