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

Sunday night’s episode of The Last Of Us was a little more lowkey than last week’s action-packed, tragedy-filled episode, right up until the end when things got scary fast. Still, despite being a slower-paced entry in the series, I liked it better than last week. For one thing, I just didn’t care for Kathleen and her rebels. (I write at length about why in my review of last week’s episode so I won’t repeat it here). I also wasn’t impressed by the ‘bloater’ infected, which just felt cartoonish and out-of-place in this show.

‘Kin’ was a more grounded episode that spent a lot of time building up the relationship between Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey). It even head-faked us by suggesting at one point that the two would part ways, with Tommy (Gabriel Luna) taking up the mantle of protector and guiding Ellie the rest of the way to the Firefly base in Colorado.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Joel and Ellie’s relationship was tested and emerged better than ever, with a new closeness between the two following their little spat. When Joel tells her, “You’re right. You’re not my daughter and I sure as hell ain’t your dad,” it’s like his last-ditch attempt to close himself off from another terrible loss. The closer he gets to Ellie, the more he’s brought back into his own painful past and the death of his daughter, Sarah—and the more he’s terrified that he’ll lose Ellie, and that it will once again be his fault (not that Sarah’s death was his fault, but he carries that guilt).

So he tries, and fails, to push her away, to pawn her off onto Tommy, but he can’t do it. It’s too late. She may not be his daughter but he’s quickly becoming her surrogate father, and as the two ride out of Tommy’s community, Jackson, into the winter sunset, you can tell that things have changed between them for good.

Jackson is a 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 City and the tragic deaths of Henry and Sam. They’re in the snow-swept forests, fields and mountains of Wyoming now. It looks very cold. Trudging over miles and miles of snow sounds both freezing and exhausting. We get little glimpses of how worn down they are as Joel wraps his boots in duct tape, or later when Tommy’s new wife, Maria (Rutina Wesley) throws her old clothes in the rag pile.

There’s also a very, very brief scene with Joel and Ellie asking for directions from an elderly Native American couple in their cabin. I admit, I thought we were getting a bit more of Graham Greene—who plays Marlon—than we did, but it was a fun cameo. Marlon and his wife, Florence (Elaine Miles) were adorable and Florence in particular was quite funny. I guess Bill and Frank weren’t the only couple to make a good, long life out of the apocalypse. Marlon says they lived in this cabin since before Joel was born and came out there to get away from the modern world. “I didn’t want to,” Florence interjects.

The modern world has taken on a new form in Jackson, a walled-in town that’s half fortress and half Old West town. The residents have power from a nearby dam, running water, a school and a bar and gardens. They’re self-sufficient and hidden away. Maria and Tommy tell Joel and Ellie that everyone owns everything here. Joel jokes that it’s communism and Tommy says “No, it ain’t like that,” but Maria cuts him off. It is, she says. “This is a commune. We’re communists.” Tommy looks confused and startled.

It’s a funny moment, especially since I think Bill would love this place and he’s about as libertarian as they come. It’s funny how our political dividing lines get so blurry when put to the test. Libertarian communism—or some kind of anarcho-syndicalism / left-libertarianism / post-apocalyptic agrarian anarchism might be just the thing for the end of the world.

Maria was white in the video game but the show cast a black woman to play her and when I saw her hair I admit I immediately thought of Michonne from The Walking Dead. It turns out that Rutina Wesley was actually in an episode of AMC’s zombie drama—one of the most disturbing episodes of the later seasons. She played one of Michonne’s old friends in the episode ‘Scars’ which explains some truly twisted stuff that happened to Michonne and Daryl during the Season 9 time-jump.

In any case, Joel and Ellie head south to Colorado and the university where the Fireflies are supposed to be based out of but, once again, they’re nowhere to be found. It looks like they’ve packed up and headed to Salt Lake City, Utah. Now only wild monkeys remain—and a few bad men.

This is where the episode finally picks up and gives us some action and real fear. I argued last week that Kathleen’s rebels felt unrealistic and toothless, and that we’d be better off with a smaller group of more frightening enemies. We didn’t need backstories, just the threat of real danger. Well, that’s exactly what we got this week with four unnamed, backstory-less goons showing up and our heroes beating a hasty retreat.

The escape doesn’t work out so well, however, and one of the goons gets the jump on Joel. Joel—using his handy chokehold attack—gets the better of his assailant and snaps his neck, but not before the man jabs a broken bat into his gut. They escape on horseback but not long after, Joel collapses, leaving Ellie worrying over his unconscious body as the credits roll.

All told, this was a really great episode that helped deepen and strengthen the bond between Joel and Ellie and between Joel and Tommy. We also got a glimpse at a pretty important new location, Jackson, which was reproduced pretty faithfully from the second game, which is where we really get a sense of the community. Small narrative bricks were laid here that should pay off down the road.

The road itself is fraught with danger. Ellie has suddenly been given the responsibility she keeps asking for, though in a quantity she feels ill-prepared to deal with. Joel is out cold, bleeding to death, and it’s up to our young hero to find a way to save him and herself. Things will get worse before they get better. Suffice to say, I can’t wait for next week.

What did you think of the episode? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

As always, I’d love it if you’d follow me here on this blog and subscribe to my YouTube channel and my Substack so you can stay up-to-date on all my TV, movie and video game reviews and coverage. Thanks!