‘The Last of Us’ Chapter 6 Analysis: ‘Family’

SPOILERS WARNING!

*This article contains spoilers for “The Last of Us” episode 6.

‘Family’, the sixth episode of ‘The Last of Us’, reassembles Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) after the tragic event at the end of the fifth episode, which we are reminded of in a short flashback following the jump of three months. The duel, or rather much of it, was left behind. Ahead are miles covered in snow. Our protagonists are rather lost.

To meet, they raid the isolated cabin of an elderly couple (Graham Greene and Elaine Miles), who don’t feel overly threatened. Despite this, they show them where they are on the map and they receive an important warning: they must not cross the river because no one who crosses it comes back alive. At this point in the road, turning around isn’t an option.

As they leave the booth, Joel clutches his chest and leans against the railing. He thinks he’s having a heart attack. It’s a panic attack. After the scare, they make camp for the night. Before going to sleep, Ellie confides in Joel: she tried to help Sam. He reacts sharply, but cautiously. He tells her that he doesn’t think the solution is as easy as using her blood to heal. The girl is carried away by a ray of optimism and they talk about what they would like to do if they find the cure and all this nightmare ends. He wants a sheep farm, he wants peace of mind after spending two decades killing (literally) to survive. Watching the Northern Lights, she confesses that she has read all about space. As someone who has known nothing but the walls of the quarantine zone, he wants to be an astronaut and travel through infinite space. Though Joel makes it clear that their paths will part once they find the fireflies, he eventually ends up merging the two dreams into a space sheep farm. It’s getting harder and harder to think of a future without Ellie.

Joel doesn’t let Ellie keep watch at night because he’s the protector. But he falls asleep. The young woman guards her dream and is proud to have followed all the rules her bodyguard taught her.. She keeps trying, whenever she can, to be a little more like him. Joel tells him that next time he has to wake him up. This is their dynamic: he protects her. But she has already had to save him more than once.

The two cross “the river of death” surprised not to have met anything or anyone. They arrive at a power plant which is the main setting of this section of the video game, but which we won’t explore here. Instead they are intercepted by a procession of people on horseback, all with their faces covered by a scarf (this chapter oozes western everywhere). These strangers have a dog they’ve trained to sniff out the infected. Joel just puts his paws on him, being dominant. The camera stays mostly on Pascal, so we see his face terrified and helpless at the possibility of him attacking Ellie or being riddled with bullets if he tries anything. Ellie, also tense, glances at one of the few (if not the only) female in the group who appears to be the leader. The tension breaks as soon as we hear the girl’s laugh. The dog started licking his face. Another daily situation that invites us to catch our breath. Joel explains that he came looking for his brother and when he identifies himself, the woman reacts as if she knew him. Well, if you know him. But she’s not exactly happy about it.

jackson the oasis

Welcome to Jackson, proof that you can get the closest thing to a company like that before the outbreak, even if it has to be behind walls. This town, which we didn’t see in the video game until “Part II” (that’s not the only nod to the sequel, and yes, I’m talking about a certain cafeteria presence), is the closest thing to an oasis in the midst of all this chaos: he has school, laundry, stable, cinema… If they also celebrate Christmas! But the rules are clear: to preserve it, all contact with the outside world must be cut off, even via radio. That’s why Joel hasn’t heard from Tommy (Gabriel Luna), who is one of the residents of this commune. “I’ve come to save you!” scolds him. First stop: the canteen. There Tommy gives them the happy news that Maria (Rutina Wesley), the woman who appeared to be the leader, is his wife. Jealousy is everywhere. Ellie is jealous of Tommy when she sees her brothers reunion. Joel is jealous of Maria, who his brother has clearly chosen over her. And Maria is jealous of Joel because she knows the power she has in Tommy. But the knives are just starting to fly.

Tommy takes Joel to a bar (Joel is touching the sky). Pedro Pascal’s character doesn’t tell him the truth, not even what happened to Tess (Anna Torv). He says Ellie is the daughter of a Firefly bigwig and asks if she knows where she is. At Eastern Colorado University, Tommy replies. He returns the discussion: why didn’t you contact him? Tommy explains that Jackson reflected the hope he desperately sought, but he had to play by the rules to stay. It was also a way to undo all the damage they had done in the past. Joel doesn’t get off the donkey and kick the grudge up a few notches. But Tommy drops the bomb: Maria is pregnant. Joel doesn’t react well, but Tommy, although he is more right than a saint, reacts worse: “just because life stopped for you doesn’t mean it has to for me too”. Joel storms off, having another panic attack that subsides only when he sees someone who looks very much like him, his daughter (Nico Parker). Sarah once again gains a lot of presence in this episode because Joel, more than ever, was left with feelings he thought he’d never have again.. And that’s a problem.

Meanwhile, Ellie comes out of the shower to find several presents from Maria: clean clothes and a menstrual cup. For whatever reason, she didn’t think Joel would think about something so extremely important. Ellie goes to Tommy and Maria’s house to meet her. She sees a blackboard with two names on the fireplace: Kevin and Sarah. Below are their birth and death dates. Ellie offers her condolences to Maria and she tells her that Kevin was her son, but Sarah was Joel’s daughter. When she sees that she didn’t know, Maria goes into defense mode: she looks out for Joel. Ellie stiffens and tells him that she knows he’s killed people in the past, and that Tommy has too. Maria tells him Tommy was doing it because she was following Joel. Maria solves the question with advice: only people we trust can betray us. Ellie will find out very soon.

On movie night on the town, Herbert Ross’ “Bye-bye Girl,” Joel is left in a repair shop trying to fix his boots. Tommy arrives with a new pair of boots to bury the hatchet. Joel breaks down and opens up to his brother in the longest, most profound monologue the character has ever had. Pedro Pascal’s Joel says a lot just with his expressions, with his silences, but this scene finally allows him to let go of that vulnerability with words. He tells him that Ellie is immune, that she promised Tess before she died of the infection that she would take her to the Fireflies in hopes of a cure, but that she keeps failing. You feel weak and worthless. Every time he wakes up he feels like he’s lost something. As Bill (Nick Offerman) said a few chapters ago: now he has a reason to be afraid again. Her greatest fear is that the girl will die because of her. How will it be. That’s why she asks Tommy to take charge of taking her to the Fireflies. It will be the last thing I’ll ask you. Tommy, who has always followed his brother and chased every glimmer of hope, agrees.

But Joel doesn’t know that Ellie overheard part of the conversation. He’s waiting for you at home reading the diary of the girl who lived in that room before all this. With what he’s wearing, the problems of an early 2000s teenager seem silly to him. “If you’re going to leave me, do it” snaps at Joel and asks him what is he so afraid of. “You have no idea what leakage is” free Joel. One of the most remembered phrases of the video game, which once again hurts even more. Ellie reminds her that everyone who was a part of her life either died or left her.. “Everyone But You”. Ellie makes one last attempt by telling him that she will be more afraid of her if he leaves her and that she is not like her, her daughter, and he throws the most poisonous dart he can find in order to protect himself and in retaliation for lying to Sarah. : “You are not my daughter, and rest assured I am not your father”. The decision is made.

But Ellie doesn’t lose hope that when the bedroom door opens, Joel will be waiting for her. But it’s Tommy. With bowed heads they march towards the stable, where Joel is, who has not been able to leave it. Knowing exactly what the answer is, it gives you the choice. Of course he chooses it.. Joel may have accepted his feelings for Ellie the moment he expressed them to Tommy, but he’d rather burden Ellie with her decision than take full responsibility for her next steps. Tommy says goodbye to his brother (a secondary who survives his chapter, make a wish!) telling him they’ll have a place in Jackson when they finish their adventure, and Joel is, for the first time, excited. And there are sheep to look after!

Ellie needs no apology. Both she and Joel have accepted that what they have between them is respect and adoration and love. Both are fascinated by that acceptance, and the series rewards them with a montage where they do the typical things a father and daughter would do in the apocalypse.: teach him how to use a rifle to hunt, explain the rules of American football, tell him what his job was before the pandemic (in a slightly sweetened way) while she transforms him into a kind of superhero. Upon entering university, he reveals to her that as a child he wanted to be a singer, and she asks him that one day he will have to sing for her. The icing on the cake is that Ellie sees monkeys for the first time in her life. Once again we see her being a normal girl.

Everything seems to smile at them…until they get to the building where the fireflies are supposed to be and it’s empty. They find a supply list (another nod to the game) and conclude that they are gone. A noise disturbs them. Will anyone stay? It’s a monkey, but in the room, they find a map with the city of Salt Lake City, Utah marked on it. They have a new destiny, but their luck runs out when they see a group of men approaching the building, and they don’t look like Marlene’s (Merle Dandridge) men. The horse is down, they will realize that someone is there. In a desperate race to escape before they are seen, Joel is attacked by one of the men. He manages to choke him (as he does so many times in the video game), but soon realizes he managed to drive half a baseball bat through his spleen. Although they manage to gallop off, Joel passes out and bled out in the middle of the train tracks.. Ellie, frightened, asks her please not to leave her alone, to survive. “I Can’t Do It Without You”. Now that she’s finally embraced how she feels about him, she can’t let him go. Not now. “Please Joel”.

The episode ends with Depeche Mode’s “Never Let Me Down Again” again, but this time it is a wistful version played by the eldest daughter of series showrunner Craig Mazin. A nod to that parent-child relationship that has just unfolded in this episode full of emotions, in which Gustavo Santaolalla’s melodies break the silences with a delicate sadness, shining brighter than ever. The music, in fact, leaves us suspended again while the end credits roll. One more week with my heart on the ground.

‘The Last of Us’ returns with the seventh episode Monday, February 27 on HBO Max.