Ever since The Final of Us killed off Joel (Pedro Pascal), my complaints with The Final of Us Season 2 have been twofold.
First, the sequence finds itself with the unenviable activity of filling the void left by the dearth of Joel and Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) dynamic. As candy as Ellie and Dina’s (Isabela Merced) blossoming romance is, it merely does not maintain a candle to Ellie and Joel’s relationship. (Nor has The Final of Us given it sufficient time to benefit its placement because the present’s focal pairing.) Second, Seattle’s factions are so thinly drawn that it is virtually inconceivable to latch onto something in that world, doubly so when that storyline is transferring at a glacial tempo.
Enter Season 2, episode 6, an installment of The Final of Us that alleviates my season-long quibbles for one heartbreaking hour. The episode reunites Joel and Ellie in a sequence of flashbacks spanning years, reminding us of each how impeccable Pascal and Ramsey’s chemistry is and the way rather more effectively fleshed-out Jackson is in comparison with Seattle.
Actually, the entire episode looks like a reminder of the whole lot Season 2’s been lacking — generally actually, because it fills in gaps in regards to the rift in Joel and Ellie’s relationship. The impact is undoubtedly a season excessive, but additionally irritating proof of how nice The Final of Us might be amid an in any other case underwhelming season.
This episode exhibits us Joel and Ellie at their happiest — and Pascal and Ramsey at their greatest.
Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal in “The Last of Us.”
Credit score: Liane Hentscher / HBO
With regards to Joel and Ellie, a lot of The Final of Us Season 2’s focus has understandably been on the rift between them. Pascal and Ramsey each do an unimaginable job taking part in the ache of this divide, with Pascal skewing extra melancholy and Ramsey channeling a simmering rage. However the flashback format of episode 6 permits them to change course and play a number of the lighter moments Joel and Ellie have shared through the years — and the present is best for it.
After spending all of Season 1 and most of Season 2 watching Joel and Ellie cope with peril after peril, it is a reward to look at them get pleasure from regular, comfortable lives. We have gotten glimpses of this pleasure in moments like Season 1’s giraffe scene, however episode 6 provides us years’ value. From birthday celebrations to Pearl Jam singalongs to awkward talks in regards to the birds and the bees, episode 6 gives catharsis following so many episodes of relentless struggling. Joel will get to embrace being a father once more, and Ellie lastly will get the chance to be a traditional child.
Even powerful scenes like their argument about Ellie’s “teenage shit” — smoking, getting a tattoo, and hooking up with Kat (Noah Lamanna) — have a bittersweet high quality to them. These are the sort of rising pains any parent-child relationship goes via. Ellie and Joel’s security in Jackson permits them this normalcy, one thing they by no means had throughout their harmful cross-country journey.
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These sequences give Pascal and Ramsey new shades of their characters to discover, from Joel’s dorky dad vitality to Ellie’s teen rise up. In addition they function proof of how completely matched they’re as performers. Pascal’s solely been out of the image for 3 episodes, however even these three hours really feel too lengthy after you witness him again in motion with Ramsey. Their chemistry is the muse on which The Final of Us was constructed, so seeing it again onscreen is each a pleasure and a reminder of simply how a lot the present’s misplaced with out it.
This episode solutions our largest questions on Joel and Ellie’s relationship.
Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal in “The Last of Us.”
Credit score: Liane Hentscher / HBO
Whereas The Final of Us Season 2 has offered Seattle’s Washington Liberation Entrance and Seraphites as mysterious new factions for viewers to interrogate, the season’s most urgent and intriguing questions haven’t been ones of world-building, however of character. What brought on Ellie and Joel to cease talking? And what occurred on the night time earlier than Joel’s demise to make Ellie consider that they had an opportunity of reconciliation?
Episode 6 solutions each questions in devastating style, first exhibiting how Joel’s ultimate betrayal of Eugene (Joe Pantoliano) proved to Ellie that he’d been mendacity about what occurred in Salt Lake Metropolis. It follows that heartbreak up with the quiet ache of the pair’s porch dialogue on New 12 months’s, the place Joel tells Ellie the reality, and Ellie admits that whereas she’s uncertain she will be able to ever forgive Joel, she’s keen to attempt.
In a kinder world, that dialogue could be the beginning of an extended therapeutic journey for Ellie and Joel. However the world of The Final of Us is never a form one, and Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) murders Joel the very subsequent day. With that, The Final of Us traps us in a heartbreaking mire of “what ifs.” What if Joel had instructed Ellie earlier? What if he hadn’t killed Eugene? Would the pair have gotten extra time for extra comfortable recollections? We’ll by no means know, and that is the lingering ache episode 6 leaves us with.
This flashback episode raises questions on TLoU Season 2’s pacing.
Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal in “The Last of Us.”
Credit score: Liane Hentscher / HBO
On high of leaving us with normal heartbreak, episode 6 of The Final of Us prompts anxieties about what the present goes to do subsequent. Sure, Ellie stays on the hunt for Abby, however with Abby MIA since episode 2, and with the Seattle storyline spinning its wheels, the possibilities of the Season 2 finale delivering something as significant and satisfying as episode 6 are slim. Actually, in offering some sort of closure to Joel and Ellie’s damaged relationship, episode 6 feels extra just like the climax of the season.
The location of episode 6 as this season’s penultimate installment can also be troubling from a structural standpoint. In contrast to Season 1’s flashback episodes, which paired Invoice and Frank’s love story with Joel and Ellie’s present-day go to to their home, or Ellie’s failure to save lots of Riley together with her frantic scramble to heal Joel, this flashback episode stays absolutely previously, with nothing to anchor us to the current. (No, that flash of Ellie heading again to the theater does not minimize it.)
That selection is a double-edged sword: It permits us to totally immerse ourselves in Joel and Ellie’s lives, but it surely additionally slows what little momentum has been in-built Seattle. We get a stunning decision to the questions introduced up within the season’s early episodes, at the price of the latter half of the season. And with only one episode left in a seven-episode season — too rattling quick for one of many largest exhibits on TV! — The Final of Us Season 2 has set itself up for a contact act to comply with. How do you come again from an episode that is so heartfelt and so grounded the remainder of the season already pales as compared?
New episodes of The Final of Us Season 2 premiere on HBO and HBO Max Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.
