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The Last of Us season 2 episode 6 takes a shocking yet compelling turn, abandoning the violent revenge plot of the present day to go into a sequence of flashbacks that rewrite everything fans believe they understood. While the show has thus far been built around Ellie's revenge pursuit of Abby, this episode gets away from the action to return to the emotional center of the series, Joel and Ellie's relationship.
Through a combination of flashbacks, The Last of Us season 2 episode 6 constructs a richer portrait of their relationship and lays the groundwork for the emotional collapse that follows.
Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us season 2 episode 6 and reflects the author's opinion. Readers' discretion is advised.
These layered flashbacks range from 1983 up to the events immediately following Joel's brutal brawl at the New Year's Eve dance, revealing the unresolved grief, remorse, and survival costs. But the actual emotional kick comes when Joel tells a buried truth, and when Ellie finds out what really happened to Eugene.
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In The Last of Us season 2 episode 6, Joel kills Eugene after he is bitten, sparking a major fallout with Ellie. The episode is not a diversion, it's a reckoning, providing illumination on Ellie's mindset and disclosing a crack in her relationship with Joel that informed everything afterward.
Did Joel actually inform Ellie of the Fireflies, and what do the flashbacks mean in The Last of Us season 2 episode 6?
One of the most eagerly awaited questions is finally resolved in The Last of Us season 2 episode 6: Does Ellie know what Joel did at the Firefly hospital in Salt Lake City? Since season 1 concluded with Joel lying to Ellie about the intentions of the Fireflies and his brutal intervention, viewers have been waiting to know when the truth would be revealed.
The revelation comes in a subdued but turning point scene after the New Year's Eve dance party, where Ellie catches Joel outside and confronts him. For the first time, Joel lets his guard down. He tells her everything, that the Fireflies were going to perform an operation that would have killed her, and he put a stop to it. He confesses to killing them all to save her life.
In return, Ellie gives one of the episode's most heartbreaking lines: she'd like to forgive him, but she doesn't know if she can. Episode 6 doesn't provide closure, but recognition of just how deep the betrayal went, and how anger and love can co-exist.
The episode's initial flashback to 1983 provides even more emotional depth. A youthful Joel dreads punishment at the hands of his father, who then discloses that he was beaten by his own father. This cycle of pain is conveyed quietly but forcefully. Joel repeats his father's words to Ellie later on, "I hope you do better than me."
In The Last of Us season 2 episode 6, such a statement becomes a major theme, excellence through truthfulness, and development through confrontation of feelings.
What does Joel and Ellie's museum visit and the song mean in The Last of Us season 2 episode 6?
Two of the biggest flashbacks in The Last of Us season 2 episode 6 are birthday surprise sequences showcasing the softer, more human moments of Joel and Ellie's relationship. The first is a moment of Joel giving Ellie a guitar. He plays Pearl Jam's Future Days, the same song Ellie plays in episode 5.
This is anything but a filler, it cements the symbolic meaning of music within the show. Future Days is Ellie's emotional anchor to Joel, a track that signifies love, remorse, and the memories she holds on to in the midst of the anarchy.
The second flashback is the museum outing, a fan-beloved scene reenacted in its original form from The Last of Us Part II video game. Joel surprises Ellie with an abandoned museum, where he takes her to a space capsule exhibit. As Ellie reclines within the capsule, he plays an actual rocket launch soundscape, so that she can pretend, for one brief moment, that she is heading to space.
The Last of Us season 2 episode 6 conveys how Joel gives Ellie something that nobody else can in their own broken world. The ability to dream, and the chance to be, simply, a child.
These two flashbacks illustrate why Ellie's grief is so overwhelming. Joel wasn't only her guardian, he was like her father, and those little moments were the basis of their relationship. When that bond was broken, the repercussions were much more emotional than could ever be caused by physical brutality.
Why did Joel kill Eugene and what happened after?
The most heartbreaking and morally complex flashback in The Last of Us season 2 episode 6 occurs while on patrol. Joel and Ellie answer a call after a group has been ambushed by Infected.
One man is left alive: Eugene, who has been bitten. He pleads to be returned to Jackson to see his wife, Gail, one last time. Ellie compiles, saying that's the compassionate thing to do. Joel, though, says no. He drives Ellie away, pretending to go get the horses, and then shoots Eugene quietly.
The consequences of Eugene's death spread rapidly. Joel deceives Gail, saying Eugene perished immediately. But Ellie, horrified by the deception, reveals the truth to Gail. The news shatters Gail and erases Ellie's trust in Joel.
This scene, above all others in The Last of Us season 2 episode 6, marks the end of their relationship. It's a betrayal reminiscent of Joel's deception regarding the Fireflies. He continues to make the same decision, manipulating information for Ellie's safety, only to lose her bit by bit.
Eugene's death is not simply a plot device. It ends up as the emotional fissure line that shapes Ellie's decisions in the future, her rage, and her isolation within the current narrative. The Last of Us season 2 episode 6 illustrates that Joel's compulsion to protect Ellie drove her further away than any threat ever could.
What else happened at the end of the episode?
The last few minutes of The Last of Us season 2 episode 6 return to the present. Ellie strolls through devastated Seattle, finally reaching the theater where she and her friends have barricaded themselves. This proves that she did indeed survive her bloody run-in with Nora at Lakehill Hospital, a violent altercation foreshadowed in episode 5.
While the details of how she managed to get away are offscreen, her body language and demeanor are telling. In a moment of quiet rareness, Ellie's return to the theater isn't a relief, facing what happens to her makes it feel like an aftermath.
The Last of Us season 2 episode 6 leaves her battered, shaken, and emotionally exhausted. Killing Nora didn't give her closure, it simply showed how lost she is in a cycle of violence engendered by unresolved grief and guilt. The silence that ends the episode is eerie because it implies the worst is yet to come.
Interested viewers can watch The Last of Us season 2 episode 6 on HBO.
