Previously: In their attempt to get closer to the WLF’s hospital outpost, Dina and Ellie get trapped in an abandoned building full of Stalkers but are thankfully rescued by Jesse, who came to Seattle with Tommy to bring our dynamic duo back to Jackson. Our heroes have a run-in with the Seraphites before getting separated. Instead of regrouping with Jesse and an injured Dina, Ellie sneaks into the WLF hospital to find Nora, chasing her down to a cordyceps spore-filled level and torturing her to death.
Last week, Stephanie asked how I felt about flashback episodes: helpful backstory or current-plot ruiner? My wishy-washy answer is it depends lol. Is there a compelling reason to pause the momentum to revisit the past? And when the flashback episode is also the penultimate, THERE BETTER BE.
As for how successfully this mostly flashback episode pulls it off… emotionally, yes. Narratively? Remains to be seen. I’m reserving judgment to see if it’ll stick the landing.
Apocalypse Now (and Mostly Then)
Austin, 1983. Joel tries to cover for Tommy, who got caught buying weed, but their cop father (Tony Dalton) sees through the ruse. The Miller boys are expecting the typical punishment (i.e., a beating), which doesn’t happen this time. Their dad says that he’s doing a little better than his own father did, and that “when it’s your turn, I hope you do a little better than me.”
Jackson Hole, 2024. Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Joel (Pedro Pascal) have been living in their new home for 2 months. He surprises her with a vanilla cake by resident baker and bigot Seth (Robert John Burke) — “Happy 15th Birthday, Eli” — and a lovingly restored guitar, engraved with her own drawing of a moth.
Jackson Hole, 2025. For Ellie’s 16th birthday, Joel takes her on a trek to the Wyoming Museum of Science and History. Not only is there a freaking dinosaur statue nearby, but there’s a space exhibit inside with a functioning solar system diorama and the actual Apollo 15 spacecraft. Ellie and Joel climb aboard, and he gives her one final present: a cassette of the mission audio.
Jackson Hole, 2026. Joel comes home early from patrol to surprise Ellie with a chocolate cake (“Happy 17th Birthday, Ellie”), only to be surprised himself: Ellie’s been fooling around and smoking pot with Kat (Noah Lamanna), who’s also been tattooing over Ellie’s scarred arm. In continuation of her teenage rebellion, Ellie tries to move her mattress out to the shed in the backyard in the middle of the night. Joel convinces her to hold off until he can fix up the shed to be actually livable first.
Jackson Hole, 2028. For Ellie’s 19th birthday, Joel takes her on patrol for the very first time. What was supposed to be a safe training run takes a turn when Jackson HQ informs them of a nearby team requiring backup. They come across Adam, who’s already a goner, and Eugene (Joe Pantoliano), who’s been bit but hasn’t turned yet. After Ellie administers the infected test on Eugene, she goes to fetch the horses so that she and Joel can bring a restrained Eugene back to Jackson to say goodbye to Gail (Catherine O’Hara). But Joel goes back on his promise and kills Eugene. When they get back to town, Joel comforts Gail by saying that it was Eugene’s choice and he was at peace, but Ellie exposes the lie to Gail and Tommy (Gabriel Luna).
Jackson Hole, New Year’s Eve 2028. After the kerfuffle at the dance, Ellie and Joel finally have the conversation they’ve both been avoiding: what happened with the Fireflies in Salt Lake City? Ellie learns the truth: there were no raiders or other immune people, and making a potential cure would have killed her. Joel echoes his father’s words (“if you should ever have one of your own, I hope you do a little better than me”), and Ellie’s not sure if she can forgive Joel but she’s willing to try.
Seattle, 2029. Ellie’s made her way back to the theatre, where Dina and Jesse await.
The State Of Us
We get confirmation that Ellie and Joel were on the path to reconciliation before he died, as well as why their relationship deteriorated in the first place. Not that either were huge mysteries, but in the age of all-time low media literacy, this did need to be made explicit.
The Strange Benefits of the Apocalypse
Luxuries like chocolate and coffee might be hard to come by, but not impossible when you have the right connections! I also love how the evolution of Ellie’s birthday cakes reflected her and Joel’s status in Jackson Hole.
I suppose another benefit is, uh, not needing to sugarcoat things.
Survivor of the Week
Daddy Joel, obvs. Who was a surprisingly excellent gift giver??! And now I’m thinking about how this entire series began with his birthday.
Pour One Out For…
The weed king of Wyoming, Eugene. While Joel probably made the right call — or at least, the most cautious one — could they not have just arranged for Eugene and Gail to bid farewell via walkie-talkie? (Which would have contradicted the lie Joel tried to sell, but still.)
Best Time To Cover Your Eyes
No time for gore when the show’s aiming for different emotions this week!
We Must Adapt To Survive
Here’s Stephanie with her adaptation thoughts!
I was definitely curious to see how they smushed all the flashbacks together, and using the thread of birthday surprises and the generational daddy issues was, overall, fairly successful to me. The one-to-one moments we did see (the dinosaur climbing, the space capsule, the porch scene) were so similar sometimes it was eerie (once again, major kudos to these set designers!) and the new bits like the cakes and seeing Ellie getting her tattoo were nice “extras”. (I spied the dinosaur bone hall in the behind-the-scenes stuff but not in the episode–boo! They better release some deleted footage if they had them put top hats on the dino bones!)
They cut out a long, action-filled sequence at an infected hotel and Ellie traveling to Salt Lake City of see the aftermath of Joel’s rampage and replaced it with Eugene’s story and added the SLC convo they have to the porch scene instead. I’ve been mostly positive about the changes made for the adaptation so far, because the mediums are different, and to keep the audience engaged is going to require different strategies. But this is one instance where I could possibly agree with the constant complainers (at least, I assume they have a problem; I haven’t braved the message boards yet) that it does hit different compared to how it does in the original (the porch scene coming as the penultimate moment before the last scene of the entire game). I still teared up watching the two make up–Pedro and Bella were so, so good–so it’s not like it didn’t work at all, but there was something extra beautiful/tragic/cathartic in not realizing Ellie had forgiven Joel until the end, especially after all we see her go through. (But hey, if I really need it to play out that way again, I can just go play the game!)
Graffiti On The Wall
- Opening credits update: the Joel blob is back! (For one night only lolcry)
- Is this show really trying to convince us that Ellie’s birthday is in MARCH? With all the lush vegetation and lack of snow in Wyoming?!??!?!?
- The thread of Ellie craving purpose and her obsession with moths/death continues. Probably not a great harbinger as she starts her revenge angel of death phase!!!
- My question of the week: since we didn’t see how Ellie commemorated her 18th, how would you celebrate a milestone birthday in the apocalypse?
What did y’all think of this episode? Share your thoughts in the comments!
