‘The Last Of Us’ Episode 6 Recap And Review: ‘Kin’

Sunday night time’s episode of The Final Of Us was a little bit extra lowkey than final week’s action-packed, tragedy-filled episode, proper up till the tip when issues obtained scary quick. Nonetheless, regardless of being a slower-paced entry within the sequence, I favored it higher than final week. For one factor, I simply didn’t look after Kathleen and her rebels. (I write at size about why in my overview of final week’s episode so I gained’t repeat it right here). I additionally wasn’t impressed by the ‘bloater’ contaminated, which simply felt cartoonish and out-of-place on this present.

‘Kin’ was a extra grounded episode that spent a variety of time increase the connection between Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey). It even head-faked us by suggesting at one level that the 2 would half methods, with Tommy (Gabriel Luna) taking on the mantle of protector and guiding Ellie the remainder of the best way to the Firefly base in Colorado.

Happily, that didn’t occur. Joel and Ellie’s relationship was examined and emerged higher than ever, with a brand new closeness between the 2 following their little spat. When Joel tells her, “You’re proper. You’re not my daughter and I positive as hell ain’t your dad,” it’s like his last-ditch try to shut himself off from one other horrible loss. The nearer he will get to Ellie, the extra he’s introduced again into his personal painful previous and the dying of his daughter, Sarah—and the extra he’s terrified that he’ll lose Ellie, and that it’s going to as soon as once more be his fault (not that Sarah’s dying was his fault, however he carries that guilt).

So he tries, and fails, to push her away, to pawn her off onto Tommy, however he can’t do it. It’s too late. She will not be his daughter however he’s shortly changing into her surrogate father, and because the two trip out of Tommy’s group, Jackson, into the winter sundown, you possibly can inform that issues have modified between them for good.

Jackson is a little bit of a reprieve for our heroes. We get there after a three-month time-jump following their run-in with the rebels in Kansas Metropolis and the tragic deaths of Henry and Sam. They’re within the snow-swept forests, fields and mountains of Wyoming now. It appears to be like very chilly. Trudging over miles and miles of snow sounds each freezing and exhausting. We get little glimpses of how worn down they’re as Joel wraps his boots in duct tape, or later when Tommy’s new spouse, Maria (Rutina Wesley) throws her outdated garments within the rag pile.

There’s additionally a really, very transient scene with Joel and Ellie asking for instructions from an aged Native American couple of their cabin. I admit, I assumed we had been getting a bit extra of Graham Greene—who performs Marlon—than we did, however it was a enjoyable cameo. Marlon and his spouse, Florence (Elaine Miles) had been lovable and Florence particularly was fairly humorous. I assume Invoice and Frank weren’t the one couple to make a very good, lengthy life out of the apocalypse. Marlon says they lived on this cabin since earlier than Joel was born and got here on the market to get away from the trendy world. “I didn’t wish to,” Florence interjects.

The fashionable world has taken on a brand new kind in Jackson, a walled-in city that’s half fortress and half Outdated West city. The residents have energy from a close-by dam, working water, a college and a bar and gardens. They’re self-sufficient and hidden away. Maria and Tommy inform Joel and Ellie that everybody owns every thing right here. Joel jokes that it’s communism and Tommy says “No, it ain’t like that,” however Maria cuts him off. It’s, she says. “It is a commune. We’re communists.” Tommy appears to be like confused and startled.

It’s a humorous second, particularly since I feel Invoice would love this place and he’s about as libertarian as they arrive. It’s humorous how our political dividing strains get so blurry when put to the check. Libertarian communism—or some sort of anarcho-syndicalism / left-libertarianism / post-apocalyptic agrarian anarchism is perhaps simply the factor for the tip of the world.

Maria was white within the online game however the present forged a black lady to play her and once I noticed her hair I admit I instantly considered Michonne from The Strolling Useless. It seems that Rutina Wesley was really in an episode of AMC’s zombie drama—probably the most disturbing episodes of the later seasons. She performed one among Michonne’s outdated buddies within the episode ‘Scars’ which explains some really twisted stuff that occurred to Michonne and Daryl through the Season 9 time-jump.

In any case, Joel and Ellie head south to Colorado and the college the place the Fireflies are purported to be based mostly out of however, as soon as once more, they’re nowhere to be discovered. It appears to be like like they’ve packed up and headed to Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah. Now solely wild monkeys stay—and some unhealthy males.

That is the place the episode lastly picks up and offers us some motion and actual concern. I argued final week that Kathleen’s rebels felt unrealistic and toothless, and that we’d be higher off with a smaller group of extra horrifying enemies. We didn’t want backstories, simply the specter of actual hazard. Nicely, that’s precisely what we obtained this week with 4 unnamed, backstory-less goons exhibiting up and our heroes beating a hasty retreat.

The escape doesn’t work out so properly, nevertheless, and one of many goons will get the bounce on Joel. Joel—utilizing his useful chokehold assault—will get the higher of his assailant and snaps his neck, however not earlier than the person jabs a damaged bat into his intestine. They escape on horseback however not lengthy after, Joel collapses, leaving Ellie worrying over his unconscious physique because the credit roll.

All informed, this was a extremely nice episode that helped deepen and strengthen the bond between Joel and Ellie and between Joel and Tommy. We additionally obtained a glimpse at a fairly essential new location, Jackson, which was reproduced fairly faithfully from the second recreation, which is the place we actually get a way of the group. Small narrative bricks had been laid right here that ought to repay down the highway.

The highway itself is fraught with hazard. Ellie has out of the blue been given the duty she retains asking for, although in a amount she feels ill-prepared to take care of. Joel is out chilly, bleeding to dying, and it’s as much as our younger hero to discover a solution to save him and herself. Issues will worsen earlier than they get higher. Suffice to say, I can’t await subsequent week.

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