Episode Recap
Episode 6 of The Last Of Us jumps forward three months. Joel holds several people at gunpoint and asks for his brother Tommy’s location. Ellie also emerges, ignoring Joel’s orders to stay away, and learns that the road west of the river is full of death and something worse than infected. Joel is inclined to believe them, but something is wrong. He clutches his chest and tries to catch his breath for a moment before pressing on.
As we’ve seen throughout the season, Joel and Ellie walk through the landscape, eventually stopping to make a fire and discuss what the future holds between them.
The pair eventually reach the dam and the “river of death”, where they are surrounded by a horde of men on horseback. With guns drawn, they force Joel to drop his gun and order Ellie to back off. Leader checks them both for infection with a dog trained to sniff out infection, but miraculously, the mutt doesn’t notice anything from Ellie.
When they learn that Joel and Ellie want to meet Tommy, they are taken to a town where many people work. Among them is Tommy, who is not engaged in construction work. The couple embraces him and is eventually brought to eat.
Ellie is immediately hostile, snapping at anyone who stares too hard at her and demanding her gun back. He also tells Joel to congratulate Tommy, who is now married to a woman named Maria. He goes on to explain the wonderful benefits of communism before Joel hints at his mission to take Ellie to the Fireflies in exchange for a car battery to see Tommy. But given what we know about the characters, that mission has now become a bit more difficult.
Joel continues to ask for Ellie’s help to get her further to her destination, but Tommy refuses. He admitted that he was expecting a child from Maria and that he would not continue with her. Joel grits his teeth and finally agrees to get out of his hair in the morning after picking up some supplies. Before that, Joel emphasizes that Ellie is untouchable.
Maria confides in Ellie about Sarah, and as a result, Ellie and Joel have a long conversation about their journey and what it means to be lost. Finally, Joel promises that they will part ways after their journey is over.
In the morning, Joel decides to fly with one of the horses. He gives Ellie the choice to stay with Tommy or join him, and she chooses the latter option. In the desert, Joel and Ellie do some target practice before heading to the university where the fireflies are supposed to stop. There are no guards around and all they find as they press inside are monkeys… and a bunch of pin maps pointing to Salt Lake City.
Unfortunately, all four scavengers show up outside and Joel and Ellie are forced to flee. That is, they had an advantage, they could probably shoot them. Unfortunately, they go outside and when one attacks Joel, the man stabs our hero in the gut. he other three hunters appear and Ellie fires blindly to protect him and thankfully none of them have guns so they escape without further conflict. But Joel is injured and he clutches his stomach in pain, eventually falling off the horse.
Episode Review
Does anyone feel that this world is devoid of danger and completely empty? I’m all for landscape shots, but The Last Of Us has a weird example where we’re listening to a great score and for 15/20 minutes we’re looking at vast areas that are infected or empty of other people.
Unfortunately, the episode is also very boring. While I appreciate that this is a human drama, the amount of key scenes that have been completely cut and stripped from the game doesn’t really do the source material justice.
In the game, the university is full of hunters, Joel and Ellie are forced to try to walk dangerously through the corridors to escape. They’ve got tons, they’re intense, hectic, and absolutely nail-biting. It’s also a very important part of the game because eventually Joel gets injured and the pair are about to make it out alive. Although here? There are four hunters outside and Ellie and Joel’s gun is high and they could jump on them.
We know that Joel is a good shot and has experience shooting a variety of weapons (hence the target practice scene earlier) and they probably could have taken them out. Instead, we end this episode with a rushed and rather unsatisfying ending, while the infected are barely a part of this show.
The Last of Us is a decent enough video game adaptation (Arcane and Edgerunners are better), it’s not a particularly memorable zombie series. There are better options in the market in this genre. Let’s hope the upcoming episodes pick up the pace and stay true to the source material, because these scenes are some of the best in the entire series.