Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for The Last of Us Episode 6.The “zombie” show yet again has brought audiences to tears. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are perfectly cast as Joel and Ellie from The Last of Us videogame, and their story as well as the stories of the supporting characters make HBO’s latest series must-watch television. But audiences can’t seem to catch an emotional break. Just when it seems we’ve recovered from Bill and Frank’s tragic love story from Episode 3, The Last of Us finds a new way to pull on our heartstrings. The opening scene of episode 6 gives us a brief snippet of the final moments of the last episode. Henry (Lamar Johnson) makes the unthinkable choice of killing his infected brother Sam (Keivonn Montreal Woodard). Unable to live with the choice, Henry points the gun to himself and decides a life without his brother is a life not worth living at all. These few seconds aren’t just meant to remind the audience of the heartbreaking conclusion to Henry and Sam’s story, but they also serve as tragic comparisons to the more hopeful and inspiring examples of a “normal life” in Episode 6. Although the couple in the cabin in Wyoming’s wilderness and the community of Jackson are examples of a normal life that is possible in the post-outbreak world, it’s a life that Joel and Ellie are probably not made out to enjoy.
A Long, Fulfilling Life in the Middle of Nowhere
After a brief recap of Henry and Sam’s tragic fates in Kansas City, Episode 6 jumps to three months later in a wintry, snow-covered landscape of Wyoming. Joel and Ellie are still moving west in search of his brother Tommy as well as the other Fireflies who have the resources to help take care of Ellie and possibly figure out a cure for the infected. However, they are lost. They find an elderly indigenous couple living in a cabin in the wilderness. Although Joel threatens the woman, she admits that she hasn’t actually been hurt by him.
Rather than react with fear and panic, the woman, Florence (Elaine Miles) is actually very calm and collected. She even welcomes Joel and Ellie with a bowl of soup. Her husband Marlon (Graham Greene) similarly approaches the situation peacefully, immediately surrendering his gun and taking a seat like his wife. They don’t plead for their release or safety, nor do they make any drastic choices at the moment. Apart from knowing that Joel and Ellie aren’t going to hurt them, the couple is also extremely content no matter their situation. This is in complete juxtaposition to where the episode started, between Joel and Ellie having to confront Sam’s turn into an infected and Henry’s abrupt suicide.
Part of the reason why Marlon and Florence have managed to make a living in the middle of nowhere, even after the outbreak, is because of their remote location. As Marlon tells Joel, “[We] Came here before you were born, sonny.” He is referring to the history of native and indigenous peoples who lived on the continent before the formation of the United States. That history is made all the more tragic as many of them were displaced from their lands throughout American history, only given some plots of land on reservations. However, even after the apocalypse, some of those reservations were taken over by the infected. “Yeah,” Marlon points out, “Laramie and Wind River Reservation. Anywhere people used to be, you can’t go there no more.” However, because of the outbreak and the fall of civilization, Marlon and Florence are finally able to settle down in the middle of nowhere — not to hide, as Joel accuses them of doing, but to live. They can finally live in peace.
On the contrary, for Joel and Ellie, this kind of peace and the idea of settling down is far from what they can actually achieve at the moment. Because of their life experiences since the outbreak, Joel and Ellie have come to approach the world through the lens of cynicism and survival. There is no peace in their lives. Even while sleeping, both have to keep one ear on the ground and an eye over their shoulder. Marlon and Florence, however, are calm and serene. There’s a tenderness to their relationship, which is emblematic of the long and loving life they’ve spent together. It’s a kind of relationship that Tommy and Maria are looking forward to in Jackson, but one that neither Joel nor Ellie probably won’t have a chance of getting.
A Collective, Utopian Life in Jackson
When Joel is eventually reunited with his brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna), Joel and Ellie find out that there is a possibility of living a normal life in the small, secluded town of Jackson, Wyoming. As Tommy’s wife Maria (Rutina Wesley) explains, “House of worship, multifaith. School. Laundry. Old bank works as the jail, not that we’ve needed it.” It’s a commune run under collective ownership. As much as Tommy hesitates to call himself one, Maria admits, “We’re communists.” With Christmas trees and eventually bacon, Jackson is the closest setting that replicates what life was like before the outbreak. There is even a movie theater where the whole town can gather. This is very much a good life, especially compared to the authoritarian society in the Boston Quarantine Zone or even in Kathleen’s chaotic, newly liberated Kansas City (especially once the infected and bloaters were released last episode).
Like Marlon and Florence in the cabin, Tommy and Maria are planning to settle down in a life as close to normal as possible. Not only are they married, as Joel abruptly finds out, but they are also expecting a child. As Tommy says, “So I just gotta be more careful. To be honest, I’m scared to death. But I don’t know. I feel like I’d be a good dad.” Despite how the world looks like outside of Jackson, and despite the questionable choices that he and Joel did to survive in the past, Tommy still has hope for the future. He didn’t turn out to be the cynic that Joel has become. His wife has also managed to put her hope in the future, despite her own experiences in the past. She explains to Ellie how she used to be a district attorney and had a son, Kevin. And yet, Maria never lost her motherly instincts, as she demonstrates in her interactions with Ellie. She gives her new clothes, a haircut, and even a menstrual cup. Both Tommy and Maria are looking forward to the future, to a life with their own family in the utopia that is Jackson.
Although Tommy assures Joel and Ellie that there’s a place for both of them in Jackson, we know that their future is headed toward a different trajectory. We learn in this episode that Joel still hasn’t moved on from the past. He mistakes a young woman in the town for his own daughter Sarah. Later, he confesses to Tommy how he hasn’t recovered from failing to save her so many years ago. For Joel, that hope in a future and normal life seemed to disappear when he lost his own daughter. On the other hand, this episode also hints at a possible future for Ellie. The girl staring at Ellie in the cafeteria might potentially be a love interest as portrayed in the sequel videogame The Last of Us Part II.
It remains to be seen whether Joel or Ellie will have a happily ever after. Joel confesses that he isn’t expecting much. He tells Ellie that if their mission was a success and that a cure was developed, he would retire to a farmhouse with a ranch and raise some sheep. Later, he changes his mind and confesses his childhood dream of becoming a singer. By the end of the episode, we find out that neither one of those dreams will probably come true, as Joel is severely injured after being stabbed. But one can’t help but hope for the best for Joel and Ellie. Especially after this episode, it’s only a matter of time before Joel fully accepts Ellie as his own.
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