Did ‘The Final of Us’ Season 2, episode 6 break your coronary heart? Us too.

In the event you thought the demise of Joel (Pedro Pascal) could be probably the most heartbreaking a part of The Final of Us Season 2, you would be fallacious.

That honor falls to Season 2, episode 6, a flashback episode all about Joel and Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) years in Jackson — and why they grew aside.

The episode’s heartbreak is available in waves. Early sequences of Joel and Ellie’s happiest reminiscences turn out to be tragically bittersweet with the data of what is to return. And naturally, watching the 2 fall out is a surefire recipe for unhappiness. By the tip of the hour, your eyes will probably be damp and your coronary heart can have shattered into 1,000,000 tiny items. However hey, a minimum of we bought Joel again for a bit!

Right here, in chronological order, is each time The Final of Us Season 2, episode 6 broke our hearts.

When younger Joel’s father will get weak about parenting.

Episode 6 opens with a flashback to Austin in 1983, when younger Joel (Andrew Diaz) tries to guard Tommy (David Miranda) from a beating from their father (Tony Dalton). However as an alternative of bodily punishing both of his sons, Joel’s father decides to inform him concerning the warped blueprint of fatherhood he inherited from his personal abusive dad, and the way he hopes to enhance upon it, little by little.

“I am doing a bit of higher than my father did,” he tells Joel. “When it is your flip, I hope you perform a little higher than me.”

That line proves to be the thesis of the episode, with Joel making an attempt to perform a little higher than his personal father throughout his time with Ellie. Figuring out how restricted that point is — and the way the 2 ended issues — kickstarts episode 6’s heartache. And guess what? It isn’t about to let up anytime quickly.

When the opening credit change to carry again Joel.

After Joel’s demise, The Final of Us‘ opening credit made a devastating change. As a substitute of ending on the picture of two fungal silhouettes, meant to symbolize Ellie and Joel, they ended with simply the Ellie silhouette, highlighting her new loneliness. In episode 6, nevertheless, the Joel silhouette is again! It is each a welcome return and a reminder that we’re on borrowed time with this pair. Who knew a shadow of a fungus might make me so emotional?

When Joel sings “Future Days” to Ellie.

Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal in “The Final of Us.”
Credit score: Liane Hentscher / HBO

So many components of Ellie’s fifteenth birthday tug on the heartstrings, from Joel’s response to her burning her arm to cover her chew mark to him customizing a guitar for her. However the second that opens the floodgates is undoubtedly Joel’s rendition of Pearl Jam’s “Future Days” (teased by Ellie herself again in episode 5).

The tune’s lyrics — “If I ever have been to lose you / I might certainly lose myself” — are a convincing reminder of how a lot Ellie and Joel have come to imply to one another. (It is also a darkish portent of how Ellie could also be shedding herself on her revenge quest.) However the efficiency can be a payoff of a narrative thread from all the best way again in Season 1, when Ellie requested Joel to sing for her and educate her to play guitar. Properly, it is lastly occurred, and I would not blame you for getting teary-eyed.

When Joel and Ellie go to the museum.

Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in “The Final of Us.”
Credit score: Liane Hentscher / HBO

After a full season and a half of watching Joel and Ellie run from Contaminated and human enemies alike (and in Joel’s case, you realize, dying), any scene the place these two can simply calm down and luxuriate in themselves is a blessing. And what a blessing Ellie’s sixteenth birthday is!

Joel brings Ellie to a museum, the place she spends the day clambering on dinosaur statues and blasting off to area in an previous capsule. In one of many season’s most poignant moments, her imagined area flight turns into actuality, with the sunshine of the actual world fading round her till she’s drifting at the hours of darkness void of area.

All the sequence is Joel and Ellie at their happiest. She will get to really be a child for as soon as, and Joel revels in her pleasure, figuring out he is doing an excellent job as a father.

After all, the scene additionally serves because the calm earlier than the storm. Ellie’s insistence that she goes on patrol is a reminder of the hazards Jackson faces, in addition to the fateful patrol that may sooner or later rip Joel from her eternally. For now, although, we get to get pleasure from Joel in dad mode, trying to present Ellie “the discuss,” all whereas being clueless about her sexuality. Speak about bittersweet.

When Ellie strikes out of their home.

If Ellie’s sixteenth birthday celebration is Joel’s dream, then her seventeenth birthday is his nightmare. He walks in on her smoking pot, getting a tattoo, and hooking up with Kat (Noah Lamanna). “All of the teenage shit abruptly,” as he places it.

Whereas Joel’s exasperated dad act appears humorous at first — what’s worse, dodging Clickers or teenage rebel? — it strikes into upsetting territory fairly quick. Dismissing Ellie’s relationship with Kat as an “experiment” is terrible, plain and easy, as is his assertion that Ellie is not presently herself. No surprise Ellie desires to maneuver into the storage: Having her personal father determine refute her identification like that marks a significant blow to their bond.

Fortunately, Joel acknowledges the error of his methods and tries to assist by giving Ellie extra space, however this combat and subsequent transfer mark the start of the tip for Joel and Ellie. You need to seize them by the display and yell at them to speak with one another, that they solely have a couple of years left. As a substitute, all you are able to do is watch the tragedy snowball.

Once we study what Ellie’s moth tattoo means.

Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal in “The Final of Us.”
Credit score: Liane Hentscher / HBO

Considered one of Joel’s makes an attempt to bond with Ellie post-fight is to ask her about her moth tattoo. It echoes her drawings, which he used as inspiration when adorning her guitar. Ellie says she selected the moths due to what they symbolize in desires. Joel mistakenly believes they’re symbols for change and metamorphosis, however therapist Gail (Catherine O’Hara) reveals the reality: They symbolize demise.

Which means Ellie has been carrying across the deaths of everybody she’s misplaced, like Riley (Storm Reid), her mom (Ashley Johnson), and extra. As seemingly the one individual on this planet who’s resistant to Cordyceps, there’s additionally a layer of survivor’s guilt right here. Ellie’s surrounded by demise, but shielded from it too. That is a crushing burden to bear, one which’s outlined her complete coming-of-age — and one which Joel won’t ever actually perceive.

When Ellie questions what occurred in Salt Lake Metropolis.

Bella Ramsey in “The Final of Us.”
Credit score: Liane Hentscher / HBO

On Ellie’s nineteenth birthday, she will get what she’s needed since shifting to Jackson: to go on patrol with Joel. However now, she desires one thing else, too: solutions about what actually occurred in Salt Lake Metropolis at the tip of Season 1.

Earlier than she and Joel head out to patrol, she sits in her room, rehearsing questions she has about Salt Lake Metropolis. “If the Fireflies noticed us a mile from the hospital, how did they get shocked by a whole group of raiders?” she wonders. “If the raiders might kill all these troopers and Marlene, and also you needed to carry me the entire time, how did we get away?”

These temporary moments sign how a lot Ellie has replayed that pivotal day, how these discrepancies have been consuming at her for years. Deep down, she is aware of that Joel lied to her. Maybe that unconscious data influenced her want for area from Joel, additional widening the rift between them that Joel could have simply attributed to teenage rebel. Based mostly on episode 1, we all know that that rift is about to get a complete lot wider, so the inclusion of Ellie’s questions right here suggests the opposite shoe is about to drop.

Once we lastly study what occurred with Eugene.

Joe Pantoliano in “The Final of Us.”
Credit score: Liane Hentscher / HBO

That is the massive one, of us. Ever since episode 1, The Final of Us has been speaking about Joel killing Gail’s husband Eugene (Joe Pantoliano). Now, we lastly get to see it play out.

Eugene is marked for demise from the second he will get contaminated on patrol. He accepts that, however man, do his last moments sting. All of it begins when Ellie insists that Eugene has sufficient time to make it again to Jackson and say goodbye to Gail earlier than he totally turns, and she or he makes Joel promise that he’ll assist. However Joel, considering to guard Ellie and Jackson, goes again on his promise and shoots Eugene anyway. It is a brutal betrayal not simply of Eugene, who will get a couple of seconds of false hope earlier than actuality units in, but additionally of Ellie, who realizes that Joel’s promise mirrors the very promise he made to her after the occasions of Salt Lake Metropolis.

“You swore,” she says, all the burden of years of ache and questioning coming by in simply two phrases.

Ellie’s discovery of Joel’s lie performs out in a different way within the present than within the sport, the place Eugene is already useless from a stroke. Nonetheless, watching her put the items collectively — and watching Joel betray her even after their relationship gave the impression to be tentatively mending — is nothing lower than devastating.

When Joel and Ellie take steps in direction of therapeutic within the porch scene.

Up till now, episode 6 has revealed why Joel and Ellie aren’t on talking phrases by the beginning of Season 2, in addition to what occurred with Eugene. There’s just one main query left to reply: What occurred the evening earlier than Joel’s demise to make Ellie say she and Joel have been “higher now”?

The reply performs out in episode 6’s beautiful last scene, a continuation of the porch scene from episode 1. Right here, The Final of Us reveals that Ellie did not simply flip in for the evening after seeing Joel out on the porch. As a substitute, she got here again to ask him, level clean, about what he did to the Fireflies. Her line of questioning serves as a direct parallel to Abby’s (Kaitlyn Dever) interrogation of Joel proper earlier than his demise: The 2 each know the position Joel performed within the bloodbath, however they need to hear him confess it for himself.

The dialog that follows is filled with strains that double as intestine punches. Upon studying that making a Cordyceps remedy would have killed her, Ellie says, “Then I used to be presupposed to die! That was my function. My life would’ve fucking mattered. However you took that from me, you took that from everybody.”

Joel’s response? “Sure, and I am going to pay the worth.”

Little does he know he’ll pay the final word worth the very subsequent day. In truth, the entire scene hurts much more figuring out that the journey of forgiveness that Ellie hopes to embark on will probably be reduce quick in a matter of hours. Episode 6, you have already made me tear up a number of occasions earlier than, however this would possibly take the cake.

Including salt to the wound is one final callback to the Austin flashback. “In the event you ought to ever have [a child] of your personal, nicely, then, I hope you perform a little higher than me,” Joel tells Ellie.

The road hits particularly exhausting after Ellie’s response to Dina’s (Isabela Merced) being pregnant: “I am gonna be a dad.”

With that, The Final of Us comes full circle, making episode 6 a shocking, heartbreaking story of parenthood — and a season spotlight.

New episodes of The Final of Us Season 2 premiere on HBO and HBO Max Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.