This is the one I’ve been waiting for. Since HBO announced it was making a Last of Us TV show, my thoughts immediately went to the museum. The scene from The Last of Us Part II where Joel takes Ellie to the Wyoming Museum of Science and History for her birthday is, for my money, one of the best scenes in video game history, and I have been anxiously awaiting its live-action adaptation. Well, it finally came, and not only did it live up to those expectations, it blew them out of the water.
The scene, which is an isolated tangent in the game, becomes the centerpiece for an almost completely flashback episode detailing not just some intense ups and downs in Joel and Ellie’s relationship, but Joel’s upbringing as well. Plus, we finally got to see the moment. The one that the entire first season and second season have been building to. Incredible new actors joined the show for the occasion, and the result is almost certainly the best episode of The Last of Us ever. Let’s dig into “The Price.”
I can’t be the only one at first confused, and then delighted, when I realized where the episode started, right? Two brothers, one older one younger, are trying to quickly figure out how to handle a situation without getting in trouble. Younger brother is worried his father is going to beat him, and older brother assures him he won’t let that happen. The year is 1983, this is Austin, Texas and the brothers are Joel (Andrew Diaz) and Tommy (David Miranda) Miller. Joel tells Tommy to go as their father, played by Tony Dalton from Hawkeye, walks in. He’s a police officer and seems very on edge about what’s going to happen. Joel lies about the situation, covering up for Tommy, and Dad calls him on it. “You’re not going to hurt him,” Joel says.
Dad grabs a couple of Budweisers, gives one to Joel, and tells him a story. A story about how when he was a kid, his father caught him stealing something, and punched him so hard, he broke his jaw. It has to be wired shut for two months, and he was ashamed and embarrassed. “So if you know what it feels like, then why?” Joel asks his father. Dad breaks down about how he hates that he’s hit his kids, but at least it’s never been as hard as his dad hit him. He’s doing just a little better than his father did and, he hopes, when Joel has kids, he’ll do better than him. Dad gets up to leave, puts his hand on Joel’s shoulder–revealing the watch that Joel wore until his dying day–and leaves.
We don’t know it yet but the scene not only tells us so much about Joel’s past, but it sets up his future too. The entirety of the episode is about Joel trying to do better than his dad and, for the most part, succeeding.
Joel preps Ellie’s present – HBOFast forward decades. We’re two months after the finale of season one, roughly four years before the start of season two, and Joel makes a trade with Seth: Legos for a birthday cake. At home, he restores an old guitar and customizes it. He’s getting ready for Ellie’s 15th birthday. Before that though, Tommy brings a woozy Ellie home in a commotion. Ellie burned her arm on purpose and the painkillers are making her loopy. This is a moment we’ve heard about in the past, when Ellie burned herself to cover the scar from a zombie bite, but here we see how worried it made both Joel and Tommy.
The next morning, Ellie devours her birthday cake and loves the guitar. Joel promises he’ll give her lessons on it but, first, she wants to hear something. He plays a few bars of “Future Days” by Pearl Jam, a sort of deep cut in the realm of Pearl Jam, but a song that was part of the game. It’s a song about how a child changes a father, and you can see how it moves both Joel and Ellie.
“Is it a dinosaur?” One year later, it’s Ellie’s 16th birthday and she is rapidly guessing what surprise Joel is bringing her through the woods for. Shat she really wants is to go on patrol with Jesse and Joel asks if Ellie likes him. “I’ve got a keen eye for these things,” Joel says. “I don’t think you do,” Ellie, who is closeted at this time, says. They round the corner to reveal that the surprise does, in fact, include a dinosaur. A life-size Tyrannosaurus Rex stands in the center of the woods and as Ellie excitedly climbs it, she notices there’s a museum nearby. Joel has known about it for a while but was saving it for a special day. This day.
Joel and Ellie enter the museum – HBOAt 16 years old, and having lived all through during a world-ending apocalypse, Ellie has never seen anything like this. She’s beyond excited and Joel has helped that along by coming early and making sure everything is just right. “Would you like to go to space?” Joel asks. Ellie turns a corner and sees an actual space capsule from Apollo 15. The excitement is building but, before she can go in, Joel tells her she needs a helmet and hands her a rock. She’s to pick a helmet from the displays, throw a rock through the glass, and take one. Which, honestly, sounds like the coolest freaking thing in the world.
Or, maybe, the second coolest. Because once Ellie puts on the helmet and she and Joel get inside the capsule, he’s got one more surprise. He hands her a cassette tape, something he says “took a mighty effort” to find. She pops it into her Walkman, puts on her headphones and Joel tells her to close her eyes. It’ll be worth it.
Joel was right. In a tight close-up on Ellie’s face, reality changes. We go from a museum in Wyoming to an actual space shuttle launch in Ellie’s imagination. The lighting changes and the capsule shakes as Ellie listens to the recording of an actual launch that Joel got for her. We watch this kid who has faced so much pain and suffering experiencing maybe the most joy she’s felt in her entire life, and we see it all from inside her imagination. Ellie is in heaven or, at least, as close as you can get. “Did I do okay?” Joel asks as the recording ends and she takes out the headphones. “Are you kidding me?” she replies, as tears stream down Joel’s face.
The game version of the scene is a little different, a little longer, but just as heartwarming and beautiful. I’d been waiting years to see how The Last of Us show would adapt my favorite scene in the games and it did so wonderfully. As they leave the museum on Ellie’s best birthday ever, something catches her eye. She tells Joel it’s nothing, but we see what it is. Fireflies.
Joel checks Ellie’s new tattoo – HBOOne year later, it’s Ellie’s 17th birthday and Joel gets her another cake. He tries to sneak it up to her room but hears giggling from behind the door. He goes in and sees Ellie in bed with Kat, which Dina referenced a few episodes back. Joel is shocked, not just to find Ellie in bed with a woman, but also the drugs and tattoo gun in the room. “So just all the teenage shit at once,” he says as Kat rushes out. Joel puts “experimenting with girls” alongside “drugs, tattoos, and sex” but Ellie makes it clear she was not experimenting. Joel doesn’t take it well.
Later that night, any angry Ellie is trying to move into the garage. Joel stops her, not because he’s against it, but because he wants to fix it up for her first. They’re calmer now and he inquires about her tattoo of a moth. She really likes moths, Joel notices, and tries to connect with her about it. There’s a guarded understanding between them, even if it’s awkward. In an attempt to understand, Joel finds Gail in town the next day who tells him that moths don’t mean an interest in rebirth, they mean an interest in death. Why is Ellie interested in death?
We get our answer in the next time jump. Two years pass. It’s Ellie’s 19th birthday, which almost catches us up to the current timeline. She’s alone in the garage she’s presumably been living in now for about two years and is talking to no one. She practicing a conversation she wants to have with Joel about what happened in Salt Lake City all those years ago. She’s got some very logical questions about Joel’s version of the story but is interrupted by Joel himself. After three years, he’s finally giving her the present she’s always wanted. He’s letting her go on patrols outside of Jackson. And yet, Ellie’s questions about their past still linger between them.
God, this is running so long, and there’s still so much to discuss. If you need a break, now is a good time. But come back, things were about to get very, very interesting. @ HBOPatrol is going well. Joel starts to reminisce about the old times and suggests he and Ellie spend more time together. Except, she’s still on edge about everything. He can sense it too but that’s interrupted when he gets a call that another group needs help. He tells Ellie to go home but she yells at him and the pair set off. Tensions rise dramatically as they don’t know what they’re going to find. What they do find is Eugene, played by Joe Pantoliano. We’ve heard about Eugeue a lot this season but this is the first (and, potentially, last) time we’re going to see him. Because, as we know from previous episodes, Gail resents Joel for killing Eugene. Which is Joel’s first instinct when he realizes Eugene has been bitten. Those are their rules. If you’ve been infected, you have to be killed, but Eugene begs for them to bring him back to Jackson just so he can say goodbye to Gail. After doing a little test, Ellie begs Joel as well and Joel agrees. Ellie even makes him promise because she’s skeptical he’s not going to kill him the second she leaves to get their horses.
That’s exactly what happens. Joel takes Eugene to a beautiful lake and tells him not to turn around. Eugene begs and pleads, telling Joel he just wants to hear and see Gail one more time. It doesn’t matter. Joel offers some very unhelpful advice before shooting him in the back of the head. Ellie arrives, and she’s in shock. He apologizes and, as they drag the body back, he tells her he’s going to lie to Gail about it. “I’ll tell her what she needs to know and nothing more,” Joel says. “It’s the right thing to do.” Ellie doesn’t answer.
They get back to Jackson, where Gail and Tommy are waiting. Joel tells Gail that Eugene was bitten and that he bravely ended things himself. Gail seems okay with it but Ellie, channelling a fear and frustration with Joel that’s been bubbling for years, speaks out. “That’s not what happened,” she says, before telling Gail the truth. Eugene wanted to come back, Joel agreed, but then he killed him anyway. Gail is furious, as is Joel at what he views as a betrayal. “You swore,” Ellie sneers, making him realize he’s not the one who was betrayed.
Ellie practices a tough conversation – HBOAnd so, another jump forward. It’s nine months after Eugene’s death, and we’re back in the first episode of the season. We watch the events of the New Year’s party–Dina kissing Ellie, Seth being homophobic, Joel retaliating, Ellie yelling–from Joel’s point of view. After their exchange, he goes home and is playing the guitar on the porch. Ellie arrives, sees him, and walks by. That’s what we saw on the show. And, if you remember back to the third episode, Ellie told Gail that was the last time she saw Joel. She was lying. A rustling on the side of the house alerts Joel that Ellie isn’t going to bed. She’s coming back to talk to him.
Why did Ellie lie to Gail? Why didn’t she tell her she saw Joel one more time before his death? Well, because they were about to have the moment of moments. One no one else could know about. After a few pleasantries, Ellie locks in. She explains that when Joel lied to Gail about Eugene, it was the same look he gave her when she asked about Salt Lake City. And so, for the last time ever, she gives him a chance to come clean. Ellie asks Joel a series of questions. Questions so painful to answer, Joel can’t even speak. He just shakes his head. “Were there other immune people?” No. “Were there raiders?” No. “Could they have made a cure?” Yes, he nods through building tears. “So did you…” Ellie trails off, unable to finish by saying, “kill all those people?” Yes, he nods. “Marlene?” Another yes. This is Ellie’s every nightmare coming true at the same moment.
Finally, after coming clean, Joel speaks. He explains the very important fact that making a cure would have required Ellie to die. And so, Ellie says, maybe that was her fate. It would’ve given her life purpose. But Joel took that from not just her, but everyone. “Yes,” Joel says, “And I’ll pay the price because you’re going to turn away from me.” He then reiterates, if he could do it again, he would. But not because he’s selfish as Ellie suggests and the audience believes. But because “I love you in a way you can’t understand and maybe never will,” he says. “But if that day should come, if you have one of your own, I hope you do a little better than me.”
Joel messed up – HBOAnd there it is. Bringing it all the way back to the very beginning of the episode. Joel’s dad was violent and flawed, but he did better than his dad. Joel is also violent and flawed and, well, besides the serial killer tendencies, has definitely been more loving and understanding than his dad. Ultimately though, it’s up to us to decide if he’s actually done better, because Ellie never got to meet Joel’s dad. And it’s a thought that kind of rebuilds Joel’s entire persona. He gave Ellie a life. He saved her. But is that enough to say you did the best you could?
“I don’t think I can forgive you for this,” Ellie replies after considering Joel’s admissions. “But I would like to try.” Joel is stunned, as are we. She forgave him. She loved him. And even though Joel died the next day, they were at peace with one another. Which is why, when the story cuts back to Seattle as Ellie heads back to the theater, we’re left with a few important thoughts. We just watched Ellie brutally torture and beat one of Joel’s killers. Is she doing better than he did? What will she do next? And what is Joel’s legacy?
All in all, “The Price” was just the most powerful, thoughtful, and fascinating episode of The Last of Us to date. It explored moments and emotions that didn’t just give us a better understanding of our main characters, but the world itself. And with one more episode to go, we’re left wondering, can Ellie be better?
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