Warning: This post contains spoilers for Episode 6 of The Last of Us Season 2.
For those who were wondering what exactly went down between Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) in the time between Seasons 1 and 2 of The Last of Us to create such a rift between them, Sunday night’s episode finally provided some answers.
Episode 6, the penultimate installment of Season 2, was made up almost entirely of flashbacks to those five intervening years, with the show revisiting Joel and Ellie nearly every year on Ellie’s birthday. While some of these flashbacks—like their poignant visit to the museum—were pulled from The Last of Us Part II video game, the show also took some liberties with the source material that resulted in a bit of a different spin on how their relationship ultimately fractured.
One pivotal scene, which took place on Ellie’s 19th birthday (her final one before Joel’s murder), revolved around the death of a character you hear of in the game but never actually meet: Eugene (Joe Pantoliano). We learned earlier this season from therapist Gail (Catherine O’Hara) that she and Eugene were married for 41 years prior to his passing and that she was still pretty upset with Joel for the way he died, even if it was unavoidable.
“You shot and killed my husband. You killed Eugene. And I resent you for it,” she told Joel in the Season 2 premiere. “No, maybe a little more than that. I hate you for it. I hate you for it. And yes, I know you had no choice. I know that. I know I should forgive you. Well, I’ve tried, and I can’t. Because of how you did it.”
This sets up a pretty big departure from the game, in which a conversation between Ellie and Dina (played in the show by Isabela Merced) reveals that Eugene simply died from a stroke. The gist of what players learn about him beyond that is that he was once a member of the Fireflies who left the militia group because he grew “tired of killing people” and that he had become Jackson’s resident marijuana farmer….
