The Last of Us season 2 episode 6 finally gives fans the closure we've needed

There’s no doubt about it, the heart and soul of The Last of Us is and always will be the unshakeable bond between Joel and Ellie, and in the latest instalment, the TV adaptation honoured their father-daughter dynamic with an ill-fated flicker of hope.

At the start of season 2, we were thrown a red herring, with the series suggesting that Ellie’s final exchange with Joel was at the town’s disastrous New Year’s Eve party.

As it turned out, however, there was more to the story. After glimpsing Joel on the front porch with her guitar that same night, Ellie appeared to head into the garage, before changing her mind and confronting him about Salt Lake City.

In a raw and Emmy-worthy performance from Pascal, a distraught Joel admitted to killing the Fireflies and preventing the development of a cure in order to save Ellie. "I’ll pay the price, because you’re going to turn away from me," he says, tears streaming down his face. "But if, somehow, I had a second chance at that moment, I would do it all over again."

"Because you’re selfish," Ellie fires back. "Because I love you," Joel cries out. "In a way you can’t understand. Maybe you never will, but if that day should come, if you should ever have one of your own, well then, I hope you do a little better than me."

"I don’t think I can forgive you for this, but I would like to try," Ellie tells him. It’s a brief, albeit doomed, moment of optimism, and one last shot at redemption for Joel, who, though well-intentioned, is better described as an unapologetic anti-hero.

The fact that Joel had died the next day with the knowledge that Ellie still loved him, and that they could survive the damage he had done, however, is a hero’s send-off in its own right.

For Joel, his life began and ended with Ellie – she was everything to him in this cruel, post-apocalyptic world – and their conversation gave him a sense of closure as a father. That’s something that no one, not even Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), could ever take away from him. Losing Ellie would have been the ultimate price; not death.

While she doesn’t know it then, Joel’s sentiments about the unconditional love of a parent couldn’t be more fitting, either, given that Ellie learns of Dina’s (Isabela Merced) pregnancy months later, and agrees to raise the baby with her in episode 5.

Thanks to this subtle foreshadowing, it feels like Joel has handed the torch to Ellie, and when her own child arrives, she’ll finally be able to understand the kind of love he had for her. It’s that love which serves as Joel’s real legacy.

Finding the bright side in Joel’s tragic death isn’t easy, considering the horrific pain that Abby put him through, and the idea of what could have been will always hang in the air, but episode 6 is a fitting final tribute to a character who was unashamedly flawed and fierce till the bitter end.

Just as it is in the game, Joel’s return in this flashback is a major highlight thanks to its emotional resonance, and his reappearance in episode 6 solves many of the season’s biggest mysteries.

We now know that Ellie and Joel’s nine-month rift was ultimately catalysed by his decision to kill Eugene, but after taking responsibility for his actions in Salt Lake City and supporting Ellie’s relationship with Dina in that final conversation on the porch, things were beginning to look up for Joel.

Sure, he may be gone now, but Ellie will always have the guitar he played that night, she’ll always cherish the memories of her many birthdays with Joel, and she’ll always have the knowledge that whenever he did wrong, he was trying to do right by her.

Joel’s arc has been given a semblance of closure, which is hauntingly beautiful, but as Ellie continues to embark on a merciless killing spree in his very name, it seems unlikely that she’ll find peace - at least, not yet.

The Last of Us airs on Sky Atlantic and NOW in the UK and on HBO in the US.

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