‘The Final of Us’ Recap, Season 2 Episode 6: ‘The Set’

The Final of Us

The Set

Season 2

Episode 6

Editor’s Ranking

5 stars

*****

An episode practically fully devoted to Joel’s time as Ellie’s adoptive father covers the pair’s highs and lows, with the lows outnumbering the highs as Ellie grows older.
Checklist: Liane Hentscher/HBO

For the total time we’ve spent with him, there’s loads we don’t be taught about Joel. However we make know this: He became an true father, both to Sarah and to Ellie. Particularly, he became an true dad in the sense he became fiercely retaining, and it became his willingness to position Ellie’s well-being above that of, well, all people, that indirectly ended in his loss of life and the deaths of others. Whether or no longer what makes somebody an true dad also makes them an true particular person in a enormous-image sense is one other query, on the opposite hand, and one The Final of Us would no longer seem drawn to answering.

With an episode-opening flashback set in 1983, we be taught that Joel’s long been retaining of these he loves. Right here it’s Tommy, whom he attempts to shield from their cop father after Tommy will get into a fight over a pot deal gone unsuitable. (Tony Dalton’s an impressed casting preference as the Miller patriarch.) Both Joel and Tommy get felt their father’s wrath previously and know that “the belt” is a doable , so this tried sacrifice is no longer any runt element. However the gesture looks to melt Joel’s dad, who recounts his grasp abuse by the fingers of his father. “I’m doin’ a piece of better than my father did,” he tells Joel. “When it’s your turn, I am hoping you make a piece of better than me.”

The 2d serves as a prelude for an episode practically fully devoted to Joel’s time as Ellie’s adoptive father in the years between their arrival in Jackson and his loss of life. It covers both the highs and the lows, with the lows outnumbering the highs as Ellie grows older and the 2 develop aside. The season’s penultimate episode, it does virtually nothing to push the set forward, nevertheless The Final of Us has at all times been about more than that.

Apart from a brief coda, the episode takes the invent of five vignettes, every set a year or two aside. In the fundamental, Ellie gives herself an early affirm in the invent of a burn to her forearm. Her unbiased is to hide the scar that would possibly maybe well give away her station as apparently the only particular person to outlive being bitten with out turning — or, as Ellie puts it, a likelihood to position on fast sleeves again. It’s a reckless nevertheless profitable gesture, and one which doesn’t overshadow Joel’s cautious plans to celebrate her 15th birthday. Bartering with Seth, who we be taught feeble to be a policeman in Milwaukee (which tracks), Joel trades some salvaged LEGO pieces for a cake (vanilla) and a bone, shaping and attaching the latter to a guitar he’s restored for the event. He’s even carved one amongst Ellie’s moth drawings into the neck. At Ellie’s inquire, Joel performs her a song, “Future Days,” by Pearl Jam. “I perceive,” he tells her. He’s referring to the burn, nevertheless the that system stretches beyond that. They’ve a connection. If The Final of Us had one way or the opposite ended with this scene, it would get given Joel and Ellie’s account a pleased ending.

However the account doesn’t pause there. One year later, Joel has decided to celebrate Ellie’s birthday with an excursion and a surprise. En route, Ellie tries to bet what the surprise would possibly maybe well also merely be, nevertheless comes up snake eyes. (That Ellie knows there’s tiny probability Joel will get a convertible or a “lotter” of kittens for her suggests she isn’t taking the sport that seriously.) However what Ellie indubitably needs is adult responsibilities. She needs to be despatched out on patrol, nevertheless Joel feels she ought to peaceful “revel in being a child for now.” It’s an more cost effective, fatherly answer, nevertheless Ellie’s response, “Because childhood’s been this form of joy for me to date,” is moderately comprehensible. There isn’t very any longer such a thing as a rift between them but, nevertheless there are signs that Joel doesn’t know Ellie as well to he thinks he does, as when he tries to resolve out if she has a crush on Jesse. (She doesn’t, and Joel doesn’t but know the way no longer going this is.)

When they approach, it turns out that one amongst Ellie’s frivolous guesses, that Joel has gotten her a dinosaur, is type of appropriate. Out of doors what remains of a natural history museum, Ellie climbs a T. rex statue, nevertheless her genuine birthday treat awaits her interior. An astronomy enthusiast born after the extinction of the home program, Ellie will get to play with a functioning mannequin of the solar procedure. Then, even better, she can get to “skedaddle to home” by an valid tablet feeble in the Apollo 15 mission. What’s more, she even will get to position on an valid home helmet and listen to to a recording of a mission. Joel’s deliberate on the 2d all the way down to the finest detail and it goes off with out a hitch. It is, by any measure, one other pleased birthday. And maybe it’s the beginning of Joel and Ellie rising even closer? On the stroll home, the 2 agree they’ll deserve to get more such outings, before Ellie will get momentarily distracted by, foreshadowing, some fireflies.

Ellie’s 17th birthday is one other account. Arriving home with out discover (with cake in hand), Joel finds Ellie smoking pot and giggling in her room with Kat (Noah Lamanna), distracted all thru Kat retaining Ellie’s forearm with a tattoo. “So the total teenage shit with out discover, huh?” Joel asks angrily, to Ellie’s annoyance. She’s especially peeved when he suggests she became “experimenting” with women. Ellie knows who she is, and maybe now Joel can perceive why she for sure didn’t get a crush on Jesse. In a dramatic assertion of her independence, Ellie decides to switch into the storage all thru the evening in the course of a rainstorm. “I’m sorry that I got a tattoo and smoked weed and fooled around with a girl. Excluding I’m no longer,” she says after first reminding him that he doesn’t grasp the home whereby they dwell (and, by extension, her). Joel responds by announcing, “Perchance it’s an true element for you to get your individual home,” then has the same opinion to repair up the storage for her.

It’s a resolution he’ll later approach to feel sorry about, and maybe she can too. However for now, they discuss tattoos and moths and why she likes them so worthy — because of they stand for “change and rising and such.” The subsequent day, Joel consults with Gail referring to the symbolism. After noting that, sure, some docs studied objectives, nevertheless they were “the slow ones, mostly,” Gail informs Joel that moths are connected with loss of life, no longer change and allege. All Joel can make is stroll away whereas, in completely different places, Ellie packs her moth drawings and the complete lot else and leaves.

We don’t get a take into consideration of Ellie as she turns 18. The subsequent sequence picks up the circulate with Ellie on the cusp of turning 19, the age she’s been for the interval of many of the 2d season. Ellie has questions. Particularly, she has a bunch of questions about Salt Lake City, a series of holes she’s affirm in Joel’s account of how they escaped and what took declare to the Fireflies. Sooner than she can work thru the plump checklist, Joel reveals up with this year’s affirm: She’s happening patrol.

Ellie’s excitement doesn’t finest long once she realizes she’s been assigned the patrol identical of a novice skier’s bunny hill (despite the truth that she does declare “a piece of squirrel fucking a enormous squirrel”). Joel makes use of the outing to affirm Ellie he needs they spent more time collectively, which silences Ellie. However before Joel can uncover why his inquire has this make on Ellie, a name comes over the walkie-talkie, drawing them away. After they dismount, they encounter quite a lot of grim web sites: a horse dragging a corpse, what remains of an contaminated, and, indirectly, Eugene (Joe Pantoliano). From the season premiere, we’ve identified one thing terrible occurs to Eugene and that Joel performs a feature in his destiny. Now we’ve approach to that 2d.

Eugene warns Joel and Ellie off, rapid revealing he’s been bitten. Eugene knows he’s fated to die, nevertheless he needs to good aquire. He knows they’ll’t destroy protocol, nevertheless he hopes to bend it. Figuring he has an hour to dwell, he needs so as to return to Jackson and dispute appropriate-bye to Gail before ending his lifestyles. Joel needs to be a stickler for the foundations, nevertheless Ellie, after performing a brief compare, has the same opinion that they’ve time to restrain Eugene and elevate him aid to camp. Joel has the same opinion and tells Ellie to satisfy him farther down the mosey. Sensing Ellie has doubts, he reassures her with two words: “I promise.” It’s a variation on “I hiss,” the words Joel feeble to guarantee her that the complete lot he mentioned about what took declare in Salt Lake City became correct. When this turns out to be a lie, it confirms Ellie’s worst fears.

As a change of bringing Eugene to the horses as promised, Joel kills him by the aspect of the lake. As with a quantity of tough choices Joel has made, it’s straightforward to be taught about why he does this, even when the actual and unsuitable of it can maybe well be argued. And, as before, Joel’s resolution has terrible consequences. However before Joel pulls the trigger, we get a indubitably great scene whereby Eugene pleads to be taught about Gail one finest time, to which Joel responds, “Whenever you happen to love somebody, you also can at all times be taught about their face.”

This has clearly been refined for Joel, nevertheless that’s no longer what Ellie’s brooding about when she arrives on the scene. She sees this as both a betrayal and confirmation that Joel isn’t at all times merely alongside with her. “After we get there, I’ll affirm Gail what she needs to grab and nothing more,” Joel tells her. “It’s the actual element to make.” Ellie now acknowledges this is the actual logic Joel feeble to retain her on the monotonous nights referring to the Fireflies’ destiny, which most efficient deepens her anger. So does Joel’s tacked-on justification: “I had no preference.” When they approach at Jackson, Joel attempts to affirm Gail his version of what took declare, which is broadly correct, nevertheless leaves out a type of runt print and ends with the lie that “he ended it himself.” As Gail hugs Joel, Ellie tells her what indubitably took declare. It breaks Gail’s heart. It breaks Joel’s too.

One finest time jump (leaving out the coda) brings the episode forward nine more months. We’re aid roughly where the season started, with Ellie and Dina kissing on the dance floor and Joel rushing to Ellie’s defense after Seth insults them. This time, on the opposite hand, we get a tiny bit more shading and detail. In declare of ending with Ellie looking out at Joel as she sits on the porch, we be taught about their finest conversation in plump. Joel says the total appropriate issues referring to the kiss with Dina, namely that she’d be lucky to get Ellie. However it’s no longer ample. Ellie lays it out for him: “You lied to me,” she says, then makes obvious that she’s referring both to the incident with Eugene and his account of Salt Lake City. Declaring that she needs the truth or they’re “performed,” Ellie then asks a bunch of pointed questions about whether or no longer there had been a quantity of immune sufferers, whether or no longer there became a raider attack, and whether or no longer Joel believes they could maybe well also merely get made a cure. Joel solutions her wordlessly nevertheless honestly, even when she asks, with out reasonably announcing it, if he killed all people.

“Making a cure would get killed you,” Joel says, to which Ellie replies, “Then I became supposed to die. That became my unbiased. My lifestyles would get fucking mattered, nevertheless you took that from me. You took it from all people.” It’s at all times been an open query if Ellie would get sacrificed herself to get a cure, and now we now get an answer. Clearly, the answer she gives, in anger, on the age of 19 would possibly maybe well also differ from the one she would get given at 14, nevertheless we’ll by no system know. Joel made the preference for her and, in the job, made a resolution referring to the destiny of the sector.

That has to weigh on Ellie. It already weighs on Joel, who says he’ll pay the price because of “you’re gonna shrink back from me.” He also says he has no regrets. “Because you’re egocentric,” Ellie says. His answer: “Because I love you.” And, echoing his father, he tells Ellie he hopes she can make a piece of better than he did if she ever becomes a guardian. “I don’t mediate I’m succesful of ever forgive you for this,” she replies. “However I would possibly maybe desire to rob a be taught about at.”

This scene returns to the query on the center of Ellie and Joel’s relationship this season, if no longer the season itself. Joel died no longer sparkling if Ellie would forgive him, nevertheless with hope that she would. However the query of whether or no longer he did the actual element will with out a waste in sight live unanswered. Can saving Ellie’s lifestyles excuse all these deaths, and the deaths a cure would possibly maybe well also get prevented (to relate nothing of the hope of restoring civilization it can maybe well also merely need created)? It’s tough to justify nevertheless, again, also straightforward to grab. Now Ellie is committing her grasp terrible acts and making impossible choices for reasons no much less inner most. There’s tiny doubt that she’s forgiven Joel, nevertheless is it that you would possibly maybe well be also factor in that she hasn’t learned a finest lesson from their relationship? Joel did one thing terrible in the pastime of doing one thing appropriate, saving Ellie.

Ellie can’t even get that relate. Will killing Abby get the sector a bigger declare? The Ellie we be taught about strolling the moist streets of Seattle in the coda that closes the episode would possibly maybe well also get the argument that having one much less unrepentant killer strolling around is an development, nevertheless she’s turning herself into one in the job of exacting revenge. Ellie by no system had it straightforward. Childhood, as she says, became by no system pleased for her. However with Joel, she had one thing meaningful. On this, the season’s most transferring episode, we be taught about that erode then plunge away, leaving Ellie a more sturdy, sadder particular person than before. Seeing that would possibly maybe well also very well be a enormous piece of why this season has been a refined inquire at instances, nevertheless it’s also what’s made it so rich, no longer easy, and on this installment, remarkably transferring.

• Joel taking part in Ellie Pearl Jam’s 2013 song “Future Days” is a holdover from the sport, where the cordyceps an infection arrived in 2013 (the year of the sport’s free up), no longer 2003. First and fundamental, it seemed love naming the season premiere after the song would possibly maybe well also merely be the extent of that reference, nevertheless Final of Us goes all in on the anachronism here.

• “Satisfied 15th birthday, Eli.” There aren’t that many laughs on this episode, nevertheless there is that this one, and the leer of Eli sampling her cake with out looking out forward to Joel to get plates and utensils.

• Gail is studying George R. Stewart’s 1949 original Earth Abides, the granddaddy of all postapocalyptic tales. It’s a nod to 1 amongst the series’ inspirations (and inspiration for indubitably every postapocalyptic account that followed). It’s an valuable book that became also fair no longer too long ago adapted into a miniseries for MGM+.

• Pantoliano most efficient has one scene, nevertheless he absolutely kills it. It’s an understated loss of life for a Pantoliano personality, particularly one featured on an HBO affirm. (No spoilers, nevertheless fans of 1 other HBO series will get that reference.) However it’s also a more understated performance than Pantoliano’s most frequently requested to hiss. We don’t be taught that worthy about Eugene, nevertheless the facts we make get imply he’s change into a one who loves his wife and desires to make his most efficient to position bloodshed on the aid of him. As loss of life approaches, he most efficient needs one finest 2d with Gail. The stare on his face when he realizes he’ll be denied even this is devastating, whatever uplift his finest words would possibly maybe well also offer.