Every episode of The Last of Us, ranked worst to best

4. Episode 7, “Left Behind”

After Joel’s close encounter with the business end of a shiv in “Kin,” Ellie scrambles to keep him from death’s door. Instead of going right into the events of “When We Are in Need,” the show pumps the breaks for a flashback episode all about the first time Ellie lost someone important to her.

And the flashback is terrific. We see some of Ellie’s time in a FEDRA school, which fills out the margins of this post-apocalyptic society. Why are organizations like the Fireflies so opposed to what remains of the U.S. government? Ellie’s experiences in the facsistic military academy help us understand.

We also meet Riley, Ellie’s childhood best friend. Riley has decided to join the Fireflies, but before she leaves town on a mission for them, she wants to spend one last night with her friend and first crush. The two go to an abandoned mall, and we see the world through Ellie’s eyes: what’s ordinary to us is spectacular to her, something Bella Ramsey sells with equal parts innocence and grit. It really does feel like a magical night.

Things turn tragic when an infected chases the two girls through the mall, biting both of them. We don’t see exactly what happens after, but we understand why this night looms so large in Ellie’s mind, and why she’s determined not to lose anyone she loves ever again.

3. Episode 6, “Kin”

Of all nine episodes of The Last of Us season 1, “Kin” is the one that most feels like a standard episode of TV. The only action scene comes at the very end, and it’s a pretty brief one. Most of the episode is spent in rooms with people talking.

The intimacy is all an illusion, of course; the Jackson set cost more in one episode than most shows could hope to spend in a season, but still, “Kin” is pretty low-key. And I think the show needed at least one episode like this. Sometimes the audience needs a minute to breath so it can realize how far the characters have come, and how much they’re rooting for them. By this point we already knew we liked Joel and Ellie. It wasn’t until “Kin,” when it looks like they may go their separate ways, that I realized just how much.

“Kin” has the best character work in the show. Seeing Joel speak with his brother Tommy for the first time since the premiere brings out a whole new, world-weary side to him. Seeing Ellie talk with Tommy’s wife Maria is great, too; putting Joel and Ellie in different contexts really helps round them out as characters.

“Kin” switches up the tone of the show. Things had been pretty bleak and desperate for a couple episodes leading into this, so starting the episode off with the funniest scene of the season — where Joel and Ellie talk with a kindly old couple blissfully unplugged from the wider post-apocalyptic world — was a welcome change. The entirety of Jackson — a healthy, happy community where Joel and Ellie could easily settle down — is a breath of fresh air.

But of course, we have that ending action scene, and then we’re back to bleak and desperate. And because we had the chance to relax for an hour, we’re ready again.