The Last Of Us Season 2 Just Left Out One Of The Game's Best Joel & Ellie Flashbacks

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us season 2, episode 6.

A lot of the flashbacks in The Last of Us season 2, episode 6 are taken directly from the game, like Joel and Ellie’s visit to the science museum and their heart-to-heart on Joel’s porch. Some of the flashbacks are brand-new, but achieve the same dramatic goal. Eugene’s untimely death shows Ellie how easy it is for Joel to lie to her, confirming that he lied about the Fireflies. But one key flashback from the game was skipped entirely in the TV show — a chapter dubbed “Finding Strings” — and it’s a shame, because that’s one of the game’s best sequences.

The Last Of Us Season 2, Episode 6 Skips An Action-Packed Video Game Flashback

In The Game, Joel Slays A Bloater To Save Ellie

In the game, after Ellie has bumped into Jesse on her way through the Seattle suburbs and they’ve narrowly escaped from the Wolves, they retreat back to the theater. Dina is elated to see Jesse, and Ellie slinks out to give the two former lovebirds some time alone. During this interlude, she reminisces about a fateful day with Joel two years earlier. It started off innocently enough, as Joel took Ellie to an abandoned music store to get some new strings for her guitar. But from the offset, it’s clear that something is bothering Ellie, and she won’t say what.

The path to the music store is flooded, so they cut through a motel. This motel turns out to be full of infected. While sneaking through a wall, they’re attacked by a bloater. After putting up a good fight, Ellie is grabbed by the bloater and the game starts to go through its standard death-by-bloater animation. But then, Joel steps in and hacks the bloater to pieces with a machete. Imagine how awesome it would’ve been to see Pedro Pascal’s Joel do that.

The "Finding Strings" Flashback Highlighted How Protective Joel Is (& Why He Did What He Did To The Fireflies)

Joel Is Capable Of Superhuman Feats To Keep Ellie Safe

Seeing Joel hack a bloater to death with a machete is a really cool image, but it also underlines how protective Joel is as a father, and how he’s capable of superhuman feats to keep Ellie safe. In The Last of Us universe, it’s usually a death sentence to get so close to a bloater. But when Ellie’s life is in danger, Joel sees red and starts slashing away until the threat has been neutralized and Ellie is safe. It’s the same thing he did when the Fireflies told him they were going to kill Ellie to create a cure.

The Last Of Us Season 2, Episode 6 Found Another Way To Show Ellie's Growing Distrust Of Joel

The Whole Ordeal With Eugene Got The Same Point Across

The real dramatic purpose of the “Finding Strings” flashback is to show Ellie’s growing distrust of Joel as she starts to question his story about the Fireflies and the possible cure. In the game, seeing two young Jackson runaways dead from an infection at the motel is what prompts Ellie to finally ask Joel for the truth about the cure. But in the TV show, the whole Eugene sequence showed Ellie a repeat of Joel’s signature style of lying, and took her right back to the moment he swore the Fireflies couldn’t create a cure and got killed by raiders.