This week’s episode of The Last of Us Season 2 was heartbreaking, but once again, full of changes.
HBO’s The Last of Us game adaptation has aired its latest episode this week: Season 2 Episode 6, titled The Price. This was a meaty hour-long episode, consisting mainly of flashbacks to Joel and Ellie’s time together in Jackson. While much of the episode adapted events from The Last of Us Part II, it did contain quite a few changes of its own to flesh out Joel’s final years.
Here are all the changes and Easter eggs we spotted in The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 6:
Joel and Tommy’s dad unveiled
This episode’s cold open is entirely original to the series, but it does give us deeper insight on Joel’s past. The opening, which is set in Austin, Texas, 1983, sees a young Joel take the fall for his brother Tommy, who was caught selling drugs before the two got into a fight. Here, we meet Joel and Tommy’s father Javier Miller, who imparts to Joel that he hopes Joel becomes a better father than him one day. We also learn that Joel’s watch was, in fact, his dad’s watch all along.
An interesting casting choice was made here. Tony Dalton (Better Call Saul, Hawkeye) makes his first series appearance here as Joel’s father Javier, in an episode directed by Naughty Dog studio head Neil Druckmann. Druckmann’s next game after The Last of Us Part II is called Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.
Fans have spotted multiple unannounced actors in Intergalactic’s reveal trailer, ranging from actor Kumail Nanjiani to–you guessed it–Tony Dalton! This won’t be his last Naughty Dog gig, that’s for sure.
Ellie skips a dinosaur exhibit to go to space
Seeing as this episode was directed by The Last of Us Part II’s co-game director, it shouldn’t be surprising that most of it delivered shot-for-shot remakes of the original game. We saw Joel take Ellie to the Wyoming Museum of Science and History, much like the game, for her birthday. Ellie even climbed atop a dinosaur, adapting an optional moment from the game.
What we didn’t see was the museum’s dinosaur exhibit, which many players will remember exploring as Ellie in the game. Ellie and Joel would examine dinosaur exhibits and comment on their descriptions, while Ellie (optionally) put hats on various dinosaurs. The series skips this fun detour and has Ellie and Joel head right into the space exploration exhibit, where they enter a space capsule.
However, we do know that The Last of Us’ TV production crew actually built a set for the dinosaur exhibit and filmed there, thanks to some behind-the-scenes footage published by HBO. For whatever reason, all of that footage was cut from the final episode.
At the end of the museum flashback in the game, we see Ellie stop and stare at a Firefly sigil painted onto a wall. The series remakes this scene, but has Ellie hesitate while staring at actual fireflies in the forest. The end result is the same: deep in her gut, Ellie knows that Joel lied about the Fireflies, but she doesn’t know why, nor how deep the lie goes.
Ellie’s tattoo explained
The series also differs from the games in justifying Ellie’s tattoo. In the game, Ellie gave herself a chemical burn to hide her Infected bite. Later, a Jackson resident named Kat gave her a moth tattoo, amid a romantic fling between the two (the game begins with both of them on the outs, however). The series retains Kat and Ellie’s fling, but changes the source of Ellie’s burn to construction work.
Joel also built Ellie’s guitar from scratch, lovingly carving a moth pattern into the instrument based on her drawings, to boot. In the video game, we see Joel scavenge the guitar while on patrol with Tommy, having found it abandoned in a house filled with Infected. In the very first cutscene of the game, we see Joel clean the guitar before later handing it to Ellie.
A little note: a blink-and-you-miss-it moment sees the series recreate the original menu screen for The Last of Us in Ellie’s bedroom. Curtains, knife, and all.
Eugene and Joel’s constant lying
The biggest new addition to this series involves Eugene, a character players never got to meet in The Last of Us Part II. In the game, players learned about Eugene while Ellie and Dina explored his secret marijuana stash. The series expands on his backstory greatly, though one thing remains the same: both in the series and the game, Eugene is dead long before the story begins in earnest.
In the HBO series, Eugene is said to still have a marijuana stash in operation despite Maria’s disapproval. His wife, Gail, serves as the local therapist in exchange for various favours from Jackson residents. Earlier in the series, we learned that Joel had something to do with Eugene’s death, and Gail resents him for it to a degree. In this episode, we discover the darker truth behind his passing.
Ellie and Joel, who are suffering a decaying relationship at this point, head out on their first patrol together. They’re sent to help Eugene, who has been bitten by Infected while on patrol. Eugene pleads with them to go see his wife Gail while he’s still in control of his sanity. Joel promises to Ellie that they will do so, at her behest, but kills him anyway. He’s not willing to take the risk of Cordyceps infection, but the consequences are dire: Ellie now knows how easily Joel can lie to her, when he truly believes his actions are righteous.
Ellie does not agree with his brutal decision, and immediately tells Gail that Joel killed her husband. Thus, Gail begins to resent Joel despite understanding his motivations. Ellie and Joel, on the other hand, are in dire straits.
The biggest change here is that Ellie finds out that Joel lied very differently. In the game, she visits Salt Lake Hospital and finds it abandoned. Voice recordings confirm that Joel lied, and she then confronts him right outside the hospital. The series plays this realisation out with more subtlety, and it takes more time for Joel to actually admit what he’s done.
The porch scene, revisited
Towards the end of the episode, we make an unexpectedly early return to the porch scene. At the end of Season 2 Episode 1: Future Days, we saw Ellie encounter Joel on the porch in front of his house, before walking ahead and leaving him there. This episode reveals that she came back to speak with him, and the two have an emotional confrontation. Joel admits to killing the Fireflies and Marlene to save Ellie, but tells her that he loves her (a series-original moment), and that he would do it all again.
The dialogue here unfolds much like the original game, with one major difference: it happens a lot earlier in the story than expected. In The Last of Us Part II, Ellie’s conversation with Joel on the porch bookends the entire campaign, while Ellie reminisces on the end of her journey. It serves as an emotional conclusion to the story, and offers the revelation that after so much lost time, Joel and Ellie had finally made up the night before his death. With this scene out of the way so early, the series’ ending is a little more uncertain.
However, it is worth noting that the porch scene in the game ended with Ellie walking away from Joel. In the series, this scene cuts away while Joel and Ellie are arguably still deep in conversation. Thus, there’s room to expand on this moment still–if the series chooses to go down that route.
One final Easter egg: Joel is holding the exact same cup of coffee that he held in the game, right down to the pattern of an owl adorning the cup. It’s a minute detail, but appreciated nonetheless.
It’s finale time next week
This episode ends with an emotionally-scarred Ellie returning to the theatre, moments after beating Nora to death in a W.L.F. hospital. Presumably, Dina and Jesse await her inside. Next week, Season 2 will come to an end after just seven episodes in total. Fans of the games will know that the season is aiming to end on a very specific and predictable note from its campaign, but we’ll discuss that in more detail next week.
That’s it for now! Check out our coverage of The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 5: Feel Her Love here, and stay tuned for more Easter eggs and references from upcoming episodes.
