Sunday night’s The Last of Us episode 6 was a bit more whimsical than last week’s action-packed, tragedy-filled episode, right up until the very end when things got scary. Still, despite the slow entry into the series, I liked it better than last week. For one thing, I didn’t care for Kathleen and her rebels. I also wasn’t impressed with the infected “bloater,” which felt cartoonish and out of place in this show.
‘Kin’ was a more grounded episode that spent a lot of time building the relationship between Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsay). It also gave us an early start by suggesting at one point that the two will split up, with Tommy (Gabriel Luna) taking over as protector and Ellie guiding him the rest of the way to the Firefly base in Colorado.
Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Joel and Ellie’s relationship was tested and is better than ever with a new intimacy between the two. When Joel tells her, “You’re right. You’re not my daughter and I’m sure your father isn’t,” it’s like her last-ditch effort to shut herself off from another terrible loss. The closer he gets to Ellie, the more he discovers about his painful past and the death of his daughter Sarah – and the more he fears he will lose Ellie, and that it will once again be his fault (so Sarah will not die was at fault, but he carries that guilt).
So, he tries, and fails, to push her away, to make her promise to Tommy, but he can’t do it. It’s too late. She may not be his daughter, but he’s quickly becoming her surrogate father, and when both of Tommy’s brothers leave Jackson to ride off into the winter sunset, you can tell things between them have taken a turn for the better.
Jackson is a little sad for our heroes. After his run-in with the rebels in Kansas City and the tragic deaths of Henry and Sam, we arrive after a three-month time jump. They are now in the snow-covered forests, fields, and mountains of Wyoming. It looks very cool. Walking through miles and miles of snow is cold and exhausting. We get a little glimpse of how worn he is when Joel wraps his shoes in duct tape, or later when Tommy’s new wife, Maria (Rutina Wesley), throws his old clothes into a pile of rags.
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The modern world has taken on a new form in Jackson, a walled city that is half fort and half Old West town. Residents have electricity from a nearby dam, running water, a school and a bar, and gardens. They are self-sufficient and hidden. Mariah and Tommy tell Joel and Ellie that everything is here. Joel jokes that it’s communism and Tommy says “No, it’s not,” but Maria cuts him off. Yes, she says. “It’s a commune. We’re communists. Tommy is confused and shocked.
It’s a funny moment, especially since I think Bill would love this place and he’s about as liberal as they come. It’s funny how blurred our political dividing lines become during testing. Liberal communism—or some form of anarcho-federalism/left-libertarianism/post-apocalyptic anarchism—may be just the thing for the end of the world.
Maria was blonde in the video game but the show cast a black woman to play her and when I saw her hair, I have to admit I immediately thought of Michonne from The Walking Dead. It turns out that Rutina Weasley was actually in an episode of AMC’s zombie drama — one of the most disturbing episodes of the latter season. She played one of Michonne’s old friends in the episode ‘Scars’, which explains some really twisted things that happened to Michonne and Daryl during the Season 9-time jump.
In any case, Joel and Ellie head south to Colorado and the university where the Fireflies are supposed to be based, but once again, they’re nowhere to be found. Looks like they’ve packed up and are headed to Salt Lake City, Utah. Now only the wild monkeys and some bad guys are left.
This is where the episode finally picks up the pace and gives us some action and real scares. I argued last week that Kathleen’s rebels felt unrealistic and toothless and that we’d be better off with a smaller group of more formidable foes. We didn’t need a background, just the threat of real danger. Well, that’s what we got this week with four nameless, backstory-less goons and a hasty retreat with our heroes.
However, the escape doesn’t work out so well, and a goon jumps Joel. Joel—using his manual chokehold attack—gets the better of his attacker and snaps his neck, but not before the man plunges the broken bat into his gut. They ride on horseback, but shortly after, Joel collapses, leaving Ellie to worry about his unconscious body as the credits roll.
All told this was a really great episode that helped deepen and strengthen the relationship between Joel and Ellie and Joel and Tommy. We also got a glimpse at a very important new location, Jackson, which was reproduced quite faithfully from the second game, where we really get a sense of community. Small bricks were placed here, which moved away from the road.
The road itself is fraught with danger. Ellie is suddenly given the responsibility she’s been longing for, though in an amount she feels she’s not ready to handle. Joel is out cold, bleeding, and it’s up to our young hero to find a way to save him and himself. Things will get worse before they get better.
