Spoiler Warning: Major plot points from The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 6 are discussed below, including flashbacks, emotional revelations, and important character development. If you haven’t watched it yet or played the game, this is your cue to bounce and come back later.
After the brutal ending to Episode 5, where Ellie crossed a line by savagely beating Nora for information, The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 6: “The Price” pulls us out of Seattle’s nightmare and into something equally painful but in a completely different way: the past. Unlike the standalone flashback episodes from Season 1 (“Long, Long Time” with Bill and Frank, and “Left Behind” with Riley), this episode does something more devastating – it shows us the life that could have been.
Like Father, Like Son
The episode doesn’t start where you’d expect. Instead of picking up with Ellie in Seattle, we’re thrown back to Austin, Texas, 20 years before the world went to hell. Young Joel (Andrew Diaz) and Tommy (David Miranda) are in trouble again. Tommy was trying to score some drugs, the dealer tried to rip him off, and big brother Joel just happened to be passing by. So Joel did what Joel does. He protected his brother. Violently.
Back at home, Joel braces himself. Their father’s a cop, and he’s not exactly the gentle type. When their dad (Tony Dalton, absolutely killing it in a small role) rolls up in his patrol car, you can see young Joel’s body tense with the anticipation of punishment. But something completely unexpected happens.
Instead of the beating Joel obviously expects, his father sits down, cracks open two beers, and starts talking. Actually talking. He tells Joel about his own father, a man so brutal he once hit his son hard enough to have his jaw wired shut for two months.
“I’m doing a little better than my father did. And, you know, when it’s your turn, I hope you do a little better than me.”
Holy shit.
In less than five minutes, this cold open just handed us the entire emotional blueprint of the series. The sins of the father. The cycles of protection and violence. The desperate love that drives terrible decisions. When you watch Joel’s face as his father speaks – the confusion, the relief, the understanding – you’re seeing the first link in a chain that will eventually connect to everything Joel does for Ellie. It’s a brilliant framing device that isn’t just backstory, but the entire psychological foundation of Joel’s character. His protective instinct, his capacity for violence, his desperate desire to shield the ones he loves at any cost. It was all there decades before Sarah, decades before Ellie, hardwired into him by generations of Miller men trying (and often failing) to do right by their children.
Birthday Chronicles
After that emotional gut-punch of an opening, the episode shifts to a storytelling structure that frankly caught me off guard. It becomes a series of birthday snapshots marking the years of Joel and Ellie’s life together in Jackson. Starting shortly after their return from Salt Lake City, these vignettes don’t just show their relationship; they dissect it year by year, letting us watch it bloom and then slowly, painfully wither.
Ellie’s 15th birthday just about broke me, y’all. Joel’s gone full dad mode in the most heartbreakingly earnest way possible. He handcrafts her a guitar (not an easy feat in the apocalypse), somehow convinces bigot sandwich chef Seth to bake a cake (with Ellie’s name hilariously misspelled), and then – in what might be Pedro Pascal’s most vulnerable moment in the entire series – he sings.
Well, “sings” might be generous. He sort of gravel-talks his way through Pearl Jam’s “Future Days,” and it’s absolutely perfect in its imperfection. Pascal’s voice cracks and wavers, but the raw emotion behind it? Pure gold.
Seeing this scene faithfully recreated with Pascal and Ramsey’s incredible chemistry somehow hits even harder than the game. This isn’t just a sweet moment; it’s establishing the foundation of what will become Ellie’s most important emotional outlet. That guitar becomes the language through which she processes her trauma, her connection to Joel, and eventually, her grief. And knowing where this is all heading makes watching this pure moment of connection feel like watching a slow-motion car crash you’re powerless to prevent.
Museum Magic
Year sixteen brings us what might be the most visually stunning sequence of the entire series. Joel blindfolds Ellie and leads her to a museum! But not just any museum, though. This is a natural history wonderland that’s been reclaimed by the very forces it once documented. The production design team deserves all the awards for this set. Seriously. Like, all of them.
They’ve created this beautiful space where nature and human achievement coexist in decay. A massive dinosaur draped in vines, planetarium dioramas, all of it bathed in that gorgeous filtered sunlight that only abandoned buildings seem to capture. It’s both melancholy and magical at the same time.
But the real magic? It’s watching Ellie just be a teenager for once. No infected, no survival stress, no trauma. Just pure, unfiltered excitement as she bounces from exhibit to exhibit. When they climb into the space capsule and Ellie listens to the countdown to “blast off,” I nearly lost it. It’s such a small thing. A father indulging his daughter’s imagination. But in this world, it’s everything. For a few precious minutes, Ellie gets to be what she never truly was: just a normal kid having a normal birthday adventure.
However, as they’re leaving, Ellie spots actual fireflies flickering in the distance. The camera holds on her face just long enough for us to watch her expression change. The joy drains away as reality crashes back in. Those insects aren’t just insects to her. They’re a symbol of what she believes was her destiny. Her purpose. The cure that never happened.
In one brilliant visual metaphor, the show reminds us that even the most perfect day can’t erase what Ellie believes Joel stole from her:
The chance to matter. To make a difference.
And you can almost see the first hairline fracture forming in this relationship we’ve been watching heal.
Teenage Rebellion
Fast forward to birthday number seventeen, and boy, do things take a turn. Joel, ever the optimist, comes barging into Ellie’s room with yet another birthday cake. What he finds instead is peak teenage rebellion:
Ellie’s mid-makeout session with Kat, there’s a joint still lit nearby, and she’s got a fresh tattoo on her arm.
The look on Pascal’s face is absolutely priceless. You can practically see his brain short-circuiting in real time.
“So all the teenage shit all at once, huh? Drugs and tattoos and sex and experimenting with girls?”
I have to give the writers credit here. They could’ve played this scene purely for laughs or turned it into a heartwarming coming-out moment, but instead, they chose something far more real and uncomfortable. Joel’s not villainous in his reaction, but he’s not winning any PFLAG awards either. He’s just … a dude. A product of his time and place: Texas in the ’80s. He is suddenly confronted with the reality that his little girl isn’t so little anymore. And she’s definitely not living the life he imagined for her.
I will say, there’s something hilariously meta about watching Pedro Pascal play this uncomfortable dad moment, considering he’s one of Hollywood’s most vocal LGBTQ+ allies in real life. The man who fiercely defends his trans sister at every opportunity is perfectly embodying that slightly homophobic dad energy. It just shows you how damn good of an actor he is that he can so convincingly play against his actual values here.
Anyway, what makes the scene work is how painfully authentic it feels. The way Joel tries to process multiple revelations at once while Ellie defiantly stares him down, daring him to say the wrong thing. Ellie moving into the garage feels exactly like the kind of half-measure a struggling single dad would come up with. He can’t fix the growing distance between them, but he can give her physical space and pretend that’s addressing the real problem. It’s a Band-Aid on a bullet wound, and deep down, they both know it. The real issue isn’t where Ellie sleeps. It’s the massive, unspoken lie that’s been festering between them since Salt Lake City.
The Truth Starts to Surface
Birthday number nineteen brings what should be a rite of passage – Ellie’s first patrol with Joel. But this is The Last of Us, where nice things go to die. Their father-daughter bonding adventure takes a sharp turn into nightmare territory when they encounter Eugene (the always-brilliant Joe Pantoliano). Poor Eugene’s got a fresh bite wound, and everybody knows what that means. The clock is ticking.
What unfolds next is a scene created specifically for the show that wasn’t in the game, but holy hell, does it work. Faced with his imminent transformation, Eugene makes a desperate plea: Let him return to Jackson to say goodbye to his wife, Gail. It’s such a simple, human request. Just one last moment with the person he loves.
And Joel? Joel does what Joel always does. He lies.
He sends Ellie away on some bullshit errand about checking on their horses, then sits with Eugene in his final moments. There’s a flicker of genuine compassion as Joel helps the dying man visualize his wife’s face one last time before pulling the trigger. A small mercy from someone who understands loss. But it’s still a betrayal, and one that hits too close to home for Ellie.
She realizes what Joel has done: He’s robbed Eugene of his final wish, just like he robbed her of her purpose. The parallel is brutally obvious. Once again, Joel has made a unilateral decision about someone else’s life and death.
The scene back in Jackson might be the most painful yet. As Joel feeds Gail and Tommy some sanitized version of Eugene’s death, Ellie can’t take it anymore. She interrupts, blurting out the harsh truth in front of everyone. The look that passes between Ellie and Joel in that moment is devastating. “You swore,” she tells him through tears, her voice cracking with rage and betrayal.
And we all know she’s not just talking about the promise to let Eugene say goodbye. She’s talking about Salt Lake City. She’s talking about the Fireflies
The Final Conversation
The most gut-wrenching sequence occurs nine months later, on New Year’s Eve, the night before Joel’s death. After the dance and the Seth incident in Episode 1, Joel and Ellie have their final conversation.
Ellie directly confronts Joel about the Fireflies, and he finally confesses everything. “Making a cure would’ve killed you,” he explains. Ellies lashes out …
“Then I was supposed to die, that was my purpose. My life would’ve fucking mattered! But you took that from me! You took it from everyone.”
Joel’s response is devastating in its simplicity
“Yes. And I’ll pay the price, because you’re gonna turn away from me. But if somehow I had a second chance at that moment … I would do it all over again.”
When Ellie calls him selfish, his reply cuts to the core:
“Because I love you. In a way you … you can’t understand. Maybe you never will. But if that day should come, if you should ever have one of your own, well, then … I hope you do a little better than me.”
It’s a perfect callback to the episode’s opening, with Joel echoing his own father’s words. The cycle continues, but with a hope for improvement with each generation. Pascal delivers these lines with such raw emotion that it’s impossible not to feel the weight of Joel’s love, misguided as it may have been.
“I don’t think I can forgive you for this,” Ellie tells him. “But I would like to try.”
And that’s the true tragedy. They were on the path to healing, to understanding, when Abby’s revenge ripped that possibility away forever.
Final Thoughts
“The Price” is The Last of Us at its most emotionally devastating. It’s not about infected or survival. It’s about the impossible choices parents make for their children, and how those choices can sometimes cause more harm than good, despite the best intentions.
By structuring the episode around birthdays – celebrations of life – the show cleverly highlights what Joel stole from humanity but also what he preserved: Ellie’s chance to grow up, to experience joy, pain, love, and even the normal teenage rebellion that would have been impossible had she become the cure.
The episode makes Ellie’s current path of vengeance even more tragic. We now understand she’s not just avenging Joel’s death – she’s avenging the loss of any chance to reconcile with him, to process her feelings about his decision, and perhaps eventually forgive him.
Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey deliver their most nuanced performances yet. Their chemistry has never been stronger, making the knowledge of how their story ends even more painful. The supporting cast also shines, particularly Tony Dalton as Joel’s father in his brief but impactful scene.
With just one episode left this season, “The Price” perfectly positions us for the finale. Ellie has now become what Joel once was – someone willing to inflict terrible violence to protect or avenge those she loves. The cycle continues, just as Joel’s father predicted, and we’re left wondering if Ellie will indeed “do a little better” or if she’s doomed to pay the same price Joel did.
Score: 10/10
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