The Last of Us Season 2 just made its biggest Joel & Ellie mistake in Episode 6

The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 6 is an incredibly emotional, near-flawless ode to Joel and Ellie (and everything the series is actually about)… apart from one annoying thing.

The sixth episode delivers some of the game’s most unforgettable moments, like Joel playing ‘Future Days’ for Ellie (even though it’s a bit of a continuity error) and their birthday trip to the museum, complete with the recording of the Apollo launch.

After taking a detour to explore the story of Eugene, Gail’s late husband who was (brutally and harshly) killed by Joel after he was bitten on patrol, it returns to a tense moment: Joel sitting alone on his porch after he defended Ellie from Seth.

If you didn’t play The Last of Us, you may have presumed that Ellie stormed off. But she didn’t, and they have a poignant, revelatory final conversation on the eve of Joel’s death.

The Last of Us Season 2 changes the most important Joel & Ellie scene

HBO

As Joel strums the chords of ‘Helplessly Hoping’, Ellie walks past him… until she comes back. From there, the scene unfolds almost exactly the same as it does in the game. Ellie asks about his coffee, he says he’s embarrassed about what he traded for it, she asks him to stop taking her off patrols, and he talks to her about Dina.

It changes after Ellie calls him an asshole. At this point in the game, Ellie already knows that Joel lied about what happened with the Fireflies at the hospital (she travels back to the hospital and finds evidence of what he did), and she tells him that she was “supposed to die… my life would’ve f**king mattered.”

In Episode 6, after Joel killed Eugene (after he swore he wouldn’t until the time was right), Ellie finally feels confident enough to ask him to confess the truth… and he does.

There’s some extra dialogue, which is actually an improvement. Joel tells Ellie he did it because he loves her “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,” he adds, calling back to the scene with his dad at the start of the episode.

Why The Last of Us just made a big mistake

Sony

In the context of Season 2 and how the show has followed (and strayed from) the chronology of The Last of Us Part 2, Episode 6 adapting this Joel and Ellie scene makes sense. Even in death, it resolves their tension; even as he died, he knew Ellie didn’t hate him, and she was willing to try and forgive him.

As a fan of the games, it’s really hard not to compare the show to its (admittedly better) source material. For the most part, I view them as separate, even complementary versions of the story – but this is the first time it’s left me feeling frustrated.

Here’s the thing: this scene with Joel and Ellie comes at the very end of Part 2. It comes immediately after the conclusion of Ellie and Abby’s arc (no spoilers, don’t worry), and it’s a pitch-perfect, almighty gut-punch.

It mostly serves the same purpose, revealing that Ellie and Joel effectively reconciled before they collided with the horror of their fate, and echoing the story’s main thematic throughline: love exists in everything, especially hate. It’s absolutely heartbreaking, and here, it’s a tender moment that’s more sweet than bitter, and it should hit you like a train.

I don’t believe the show should unfold exactly like the game; its bold half-and-half structure works within that medium and would have been a tough sell on TV. But repurposing one of the best Joel and Ellie scenes across both games for a plot point – Joel admitting the truth – that could have emerged in another way feels like an enormous waste, the weight of which an ordinary viewer won’t feel.

I feel it; Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin were so preoccupied with whether or not they could bring this scene forward, they didn’t stop to think if they should.

Until the next episode drops, read more about why The Last of Us chose ‘Take On Me’, find out what happens to Abby in the game, and check out our list of the best TV shows of all time.