Why is Ellie so mad at Joel in The Last of Us? Answer revealed

Ellie's survivor's guilt finally took hold of her anger at Joel in The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 6, titled The Price, which was released on May 18, 2025. The show has been skirting around Ellie and Joel's strained relationship since the beginning of Season 2, but Episode 6 finally revealed how they drifted apart since the events in Salt Lake City with the Fireflies at the end of Season 1.

Through montages of flashbacks of Ellie's birthdays spread out over the five years that Ellie and Joel spent in Jackson City, The Last of Us detailed exactly how Ellie was plagued by Joel's lie and her survivor's guilt.

Here's why Ellie was so mad at Joel and what the showrunners have to say about her in The Last of Us Season 2.

"She’s suffering from survivor’s guilt": Writer of The Last of Us episode, The Price

Throughout the 5 years that Ellie and Joel spent at Jackson City, Episode 6 explored exactly how their relationship changed over the years by focusing on her birthdays. They start out extremely close and happy shortly after the Salt Lake City incident, but soon Ellie is plagued by doubts regarding what happened with the Fireflies, and she's questioning everything that Joel has told her about the incident.

She has a very strong feeling that Joel is lying to her, and the more she thinks about it, the harder it becomes for her to ignore the inconsistencies in Joel's version of the incident in The Last of Us Season 1. She slowly starts to grow distant from Joel, and he's unable to do anything about it because he can't tell the truth either. Things finally come to a head when Joel lies to Ellie again when he swears to take Eugene to see Gail after he's bitten but instead kills him and tries to lie to Gail as well.

He's trying to protect the people he cares about by lying to them, but in the process, the people he cares about are turning away from him. Such is the case with Ellie, and this buildup reaches a devastating climax in The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 6, "The Price", when Ellie confronts him about the incident, giving him one last chance to confess the truth. Joel is forced to, but in a way relieved, as he finally breaks down and tells Ellie the truth.

The two of them share an emotional moment where Joel tells Ellie that he did everything he did to save her because he loved her, because he couldn't stand to watch her die. But Ellie reveals that in doing so, he took away the choice from her, because if she had the choice, she would have chosen to die to help make a cure for everyone who is forced to lose their loved one to this infection in The Last of Us.

"My life would’ve fucking mattered."

This one line by Ellie very plainly sums up her survivor's guilt and her anger at Joel, because he took away her chance for her life to mean something more than just her. Halley Gross, co-writer of the series and the game, talked about this line on the official HBO podcast for The Last of Us, explaining:

"She says it very plainly in the scene: ‘My life would’ve fucking mattered.’ Through the course of this episode and through the course of both seasons, you see the consequences of the infection and the people that we’ve lost who could have been saved, right? Riley would be alive. Gail would have her husband. Her death could have brought so much love back to so many people."

Ellie's anger at Joel is not just about the fact that he lied to her after Salt Lake City; it's about the fact that he made the choice to save her over the world, whereas she, had she been given the choice, would've done the opposite. His lie and his decision robbed her of the chance to give her life a purpose, a meaning.

The only thing that would've given any meaning to every bad thing that has happened around her so far would've been a cure for the infection to be made because of her immunity and her death. But this hope died with Joel's lie. Here's what Neil Druckmann, co-creator of the HBO show The Last of Us, had to say about Ellie's reaction:

"She’s suffering from survivor’s guilt… And then it happened again with Tess, and then it happened again with Henry and Sam… Ellie hates the fact that she wasn’t given the choice, the agency. And she tells us now explicitly — given that choice, she would have wanted to die because then her life would have meant something. But he took that from her."

The Last of Us has one final episode left to stream for the second season, which is set to air on Sunday, May 25, 2025, at 9 PM on Max.

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