This newsletter contains spoilers for The Last of Us season 2, episode 6.
I must start this week with a confession: My interest in The Last of Us waned within the last few weeks without Pedro Pascal. I took some time off to binge twelve episodes of Andor and check out the new Marvel film that's "supposed to be nuts," as Tim Robinson would say. (In all seriousness: Thunderbolts* is pretty damn good.) I can't blame you if you did the same. But when Pedro's shining face returned, my faith in this uneven second season of HBO's post-apocalyptic thriller was briefly restored.
As our senior entertainment editor Brady Langmann put it last week, The Last of Us felt like it was struggling to find its identity ever since Pascal's departure. "The Last of Us video games had the same issue after Joel's death," he wrote, "but I'm feeling the story's identity crisis a little more this time."
If you haven't played it, The Last of Us Part II is a perfectly imperfect video game. Joel, Ellie, and Abby's stories are brutally affecting metaphors for the karmic cycle of violence. The infected zombies—which amount, in part, to just good horror—are also embodiments of the way our choices take over and consume us. And yet, the critically acclaimed game's awkward pacing, new faction war, and sudden perspective shifts all rear their ugly heads once again in HBO's live-action adaptation.
I'll praise this week's episode—I promise!—but I have a few things to get off my chest first. In season 2 so far, there are a few too many storytelling choices that I simply cannot explain. Abby has not returned to the screen since killing Joel in episode 2. Jeffrey Wright's Isaac Dixon, who was introduced in episode 4, is completely absent in the following chapter. Maybe that works in a video game, but it's not what TV audiences are used to on a week-to-week basis. Right now, we're seeing The Last of Us throw a lot of spaghetti at the wall—and the series is not doing a fantastic job of figuring out whose star power replaces Pedro moving forward. The answer? You cannot replace Pedro. It's silly to even try.
Enter: Episode 6, which is written and directed by Neil Druckmann, the creator of The Last of Us video game. For the last three episodes, we've seen Ellie basically chase around a ghost in between make-out sessions with Dina. But episode 6 is a real tearjerker. Pascal returns—albeit in flashback form—to fully explore the duo's strained father-daughter relationship from the season 1 finale all the way to his last moments in season 2.
The episode begins with a flashback to Joel's childhood. His abusive father tells him that he's just trying his best, and he hopes that Joel is a better father than he is when he someday has a child. That's what every parent hopes for. But as we know, Joel loses his daughter in the initial chaos of the cordyceps outbreak. That's why he continuously makes insane choices to protect Ellie, his found-family daughter who saves him from his own depression. And in episode 6, both Ellie and us—the viewer—take the first steps toward forgiving him. (If we haven't already. Pedro just makes it so easy.)
In just one hour, Pascal and Ramsey win our hearts, break them once again, and replace any chance for healing with Ellie's new quest for revenge. It's a reminder to everyone just what made The Last of Us so great in the first place, right before the season 2 finale next week. But for now, let's just enjoy the Pedro of it all.
Have thoughts you want to share before The Last of Us season 2 finale? Let me know at josh.rosenberg@hearst.com.
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