Joel's Shepherd Dream In The Last Of Us Episode 6 Foreshadows A Season 2 Story
Contains spoilers for "The Last of Us" Season 1, Episode 6 and potential future spoilers
In a world spinning on a waking nightmare, "The Last of Us" uses moments of joy and hope sparingly. Why linger on what tomorrow could bring when you've spent the day outrunning feral fungi, right? Nevertheless, Ellie (Bella Ramsey) has hope for a brighter future than the present danger she often finds herself and her prickly protector, Joel (Pedro Pascal), in as they wander a virus-riddled America. Days before Joel takes the lid off his bottled-up dread of failing the closest thing he has to a daughter in his life (marking a highlight for Pascal's performance), Ellie asks him if he ever wanted to do anything else in his life.
It's here where Joel reveals that he saw himself one day settling down on a farm and herding sheep, living a quiet life when life still had a chance. Now while we later learn that Joel was holding out on Ellie to what he really used to want to do, the original suggestion made would sound eerily familiar from past experiences in the franchise and the future that the TV show has yet to reach. As it turns out, the picture Joel paints of peace and quiet sheep isn't his own, but Ellie's and a romantic flame that starts to spark in this very episode.
Joel's dream becomes Ellie's future in The Last of Us Part II
When asked if he could go anywhere and do anything, Joel responds with a simple solution to a peaceful life. "Maybe an old farmhouse. Some land. A ranch," he explained, clearly having never seen the stress levels at the "Yellowstone" ranch thanks to this alternate-apocalyptic timeline. When Ellie asks what he'd do there, he adds, "Sheep, I would raise sheep. They're quiet and do what they're told."
"So, just you and a bunch of sheep?" she asks. "Romantic." Her estimation isn't far off, and if the show continues the path of the games, she'll actually be able to see for herself. Unfortunately, Joel doesn't quite live out that dream (he always wanted to be a singer anyway); Ellie, on the other hand, does. In "The Last of Us Part II," some of the game's most beautiful but equally haunting moments are when she's grown up with the chance to live out her days on a spot just like the one Joel described. Herding sheep and living the simple life, only to choose a far more damning option. In doing so, it jeopardizes what she has with a woman she learned to love, who may have appeared this week as a girl she wasn't a fan of.
Ellie ends up counting sheep with the Staring Girl in The Last of Us Part II.
In HBO's continuously brilliant effort of delicately applying nods to the games that it spawned from "The Last of Us," this week saw Ellie confront a girl in Wyoming that looks a lot like her future girlfriend, Dina. In the critically acclaimed and somewhat divisive sequel, "The Last of Us Part II," the two end up together on a farm with a hefty patch of land, raising sheep and a family. Of course, with no confirmed dates and every chance Season 2 of "The Last of Us" could be a way off, but given that this could potentially play a part in the next season of the show, it's moments like this that will carry so much more weight in terms of rewatchability.
As for his other dream, Joel's chance of singing isn't so slim either, just not in terms of a career. We won't go into too much detail regarding that, but should a guitar appear at any point between now and "The Last of Us" finale, do make sure you have some tissues at hand. Well, it would hardly make for a change so far, right?