The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 3 Review: Picking Up the Pieces

This review contains spoilers for The Last of Us season 2 episode 3.

Last week, The Last of Us delivered an episode full of season-finale level emotional tension. Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) got her revenge on Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Jackson survived an attack by infected all within one action-packed episode. It may seem daunting to return to the show after the brutal and tense hour we witnessed, but episode 3 proves that The Last of Us is more than up to the challenge, and this heartbreaking story is just getting started.

The episode opens with a haunting shot of the piles of burning infected that now lay outside Jackson’s walls. We then see someone tending to the dead, Joel’s body clearly among them. Tommy (Gabriel Luna) then takes over, saying the goodbye to his brother he didn’t get to in person, telling Joel to “give Sarah my love.” It’s a brief, but touching moment that shows us how much these brothers loved and cared for each other, despite their differences.

Ellie (Bella Ramsey) then wakes up among the injured at Jackson’s hospital, screaming as she again sees Joel’ brutal death play over in her mind. Even in this brief moment, Ramsey plays Ellie’s pain with such a visceral, primal hurt that it transports us back to Joel’s brutal demise, feeling the fear, grief, and even hints of anger right alongside Ellie.

When the episode jumps forward three months, Jackson is still picking up the pieces, literally and emotionally, from the losses they suffered. Tommy and Jesse (Young Mazino) are helping to rebuild the buildings lost in the attack. Ellie is trying to convince Gail (Catherine O’Hara) that she is emotionally fit to be discharged from the hospital after recovering from the injuries she suffered. 

Ellie tells Gail that “Your final moment with someone doesn’t define your whole time with them,” and it seems like a part of her is saying that to try and convince herself of that fact as much as she’s trying to convince Gail that she believes it. Gail does let her be discharged, but it’s evident that Gail knows Ellie is just trying to say the right things. She knows she can’t really keep Ellie there, she’s probably worked with Joel enough to know how similar they are, but she also knows that Ellie’s not really as okay as she claims to be.

After she’s discharged, Ellie goes by Joel’s house, where she sees a makeshift memorial set up by Jackson’s residents across his white picket fence. Letters and flowers sit where they likely have for the last three months, a stark reminder that not only has Ellie lost someone she deeply cares about, the town has lost a pillar as well.

When she goes through Joel’s things, she finds a box with his broken watch and his revolver. She moves the watch aside, going straight for the gun, and we can already see the wheels of revenge turning in Ellie’s mind, fueled by the grief that is clearly still present as she cries holding Joel’s jacket.

In another surprising turn from the games, Ellie asks Jackson’s council for support in going after Abby. Dina (Isabela Merced) finally reveals an important piece of information that she’s been sitting on until after Ellie recovered – she knows the names of Abby’s crew and that they’re all part of the Washington Liberation Front (WLF) from Seattle. Ellie uses this information, and a rousing speech about how she’s seeking justice, not revenge for Joel’s death, to try and convince the Jackson council to send people to help her. There are a lot who support Ellie’s quest and want to help her, even surprisingly Seth, but there are also some who don’t see the need to follow violence with violence, especially while the town is still in the process of rebuilding. Even Tommy is hesitant when Ellie first comes to him with the idea, he loves his brother dearly, but his first priority right now has to be Jackson.

The council votes no, even with Maria (Rutina Wesley), Tommy, and now Jesse there to back Ellie up. But that doesn’t stop Ellie and Dina from setting off on their own for Seattle. Ellie and Dina bond over their journey, and I hope that anyone who was disappointed by last episode’s decision to not have the two on patrol together as they are in The Last of Us Part II can rest a little easier knowing that Dina and Ellie’s relationship is still progressing. Merced and Ramsey have such an easy chemistry, their characters connecting over everything from Ellie leaving coffee beans at Joel’s grave on their way out of town to talks of their first kiss at the dance to Ellie vulnerably sharing the story of the first time she killed somebody. Trauma often brings people together, no matter how brutal or devastating the event might be.

Episode 3 might not be quite as action-packed as “Through the Valley,” but it still packs an emotional punch as both the characters on screen and us, the audience, do our best to recover from Joel’s death. Jackson and its residents are doing their best to pick up the pieces, but it’s clear that not everyone’s coping mechanisms will necessarily be Gail-approved. It’s Ellie’s turn for revenge now, and her chapter of this story is just getting started.

New episodes of The Last of Us season 2 premiere Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO, culminating with the finale on May 25, 2025.

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