American Season 2 Episode 6: Comparison of TV Shows and Games

The following articles include Destroyer For the final episode of American Season 2, Episode 6.

So far, our last season has presented events in chronological order, which is related to the game's frequent drop to nonlinearity. This means it has skipped several important flashbacks – fan favorites such as Ellie’s birthday at the Wyoming Museum and Joel’s singing of the future. Thankfully, they weren't commissioned to the floor of the cutting room: we got a bunch of them in episode 6, grouped into an hour of Ellie's past.

Three key flashback sequences from the original game have been applied to this episode. Here we compare them to the original source material, analyzing what changes have occurred and what remains the same. You can see two versions in the video above, or read below for our written instructions.

prelude

Episode 6 brings us back to one of Ellie's birthdays. Now living in Jackson, she gets a birthday cake and a gift from Joel: an instrument called gee-tar.

This is an adaptation of the second scene in the second part of our last part, so it's later in the story than in the game. The frame of the scene has changed a lot, because in the game, it's not Ellie's birthday, but just a random late night. After talking to Tommy about what he did at the end of the first game, Joel visits Ellie to bring her guitar. The transformation of the framework means that the environment is darker and more gloomy in the game, but otherwise the events in the scene are largely the same.

We see Joel playing the future of Pearl Jam in both versions of the scene, with both Troy Baker and Pedro Pascal singing the song in a similar way. On the show, Ellie urges Joel to compete in the event where Joel gives her own game. The Ellie version of the show is more animated when listening, while the game version is more reserved and stoic. But the difference is slight. This is obviously the same sequence. Both versions of the song end with Ellie, saying “Well, that’s no big deal.”

In the game, Joel gives Ellie a guitar and promises to teach her how to play. In the game, the gift is already obvious. After all, this is Ellie's birthday.

Birthday gift

Originally held at the end of the first day of the game, the birthday gift flashback that occupied this episode was a fan favorite. Joel takes Ellie to the Wyoming Museum of Science and History for her birthday, where she meets T-Rex in close contact and explodes into the outer space (somewhat). Of all the recreated flashbacks in this episode, birthday gifts are the most fulfilling. This is almost a 1:1 clone we've played in the game. However, I hope they can do face pulling in the mirror.

The scene begins outside, Ellie discovers the overgrown Tyrannosaurus Rex statue and climbs over her head. The conversation here is almost the same as the game, and the clothes and backpacks that both Joel and Eli use are very close matches.

The scene skips slightly before the game, bringing Joel and Ellie to the museum’s space exhibition, which is open in the perfect entertainment of the game’s Orrey Room. This mechanical model of the solar system works exactly the same as in the game, when Ellie turns the crank, the sun sphere illuminates and the planets move in orbit.

Of course, this is important to happen to the next room. There, we found entertainment in the overgrown rocket cab cockpit in the game. Ellie bought the helmet in a very different way – in the game, she just picked it up from the show, and in the show, she broke a glass cabinet to get it, but both versions pointed out that the helmet smelled “like space and dust.”

Inside the shuttle, Joel gave Ellie a tape containing the lifting record. He did it with the exact same conversation: “It was a huge effort to find.” Then, the scene was “launched” almost the same entertainment, with the lighting of the cameras that replicated the space mission focused on Ellie’s face. The only real difference is that throughout the sequence, the game’s camera locked directly to Ellie’s face, the show sometimes uses side angles to display the shuttle’s windows, while bright lights pour in.

Conclusion

The final sequence of this episode reproduces the conclusion of our Part 2, so it is earlier than the game in the show. Ellie flashes back at night with Dina and Joel’s subsequent attack night against Seth, a scene that sees the problem with Joel and Ellie Hash and eventually reaches some kind of solution. In the game, this is a powerful end point – revealing that Ellie and Joel have no bad notes. Interestingly, this makes an earlier moment in the story become the present, and now feels more like a farewell to Joel in Season 2.

Despite the relocation, the scenario remains basically the same. Ellie arrives on Joel's porch and finds him drinking coffee. The conversation here is actually the same as the game's script, and Joel explains that he feels “a little embarrassed” about the coffee he trades. The two began to discuss the same topic as in the game. Ellie complains about Joel's behavior in dance, and Joel asks Ellie about Dina's intentions. It all leads to the real topic at hand: what Joel did at the end of the first game/season.

Although the scripts are roughly similar in this part of the conversation, the characters are even more painful in the show. The tone of the game has always been very subtle, with its characters very reserved and stoic. On the show, tears and voices collapsed on both sides. When Joel explains that if there is a chance, he will make the same decision again, and in the show, he will expand the ideas and say Ellie will never understand the way he loves her. He concluded by saying that he wished she would have better children than he had.

In both the game and the performance, Ellie ends their conversation, saying she can never forgive Joel, but she wants to try it. Then the scene cuts black in the show, but there is something extra in the game because Joel replied that he was “like that.” This is a line that actually makes the whole sequence feel more exciting – hopefully things can be restored to “normal” or something similar to it.

For more information on The Last Us, check out our spoiler-free season reviews and a spoiler-filled review for Episode 6.

Matt Purslow is an advanced feature editor for IGN.