Episode 6 of The Last of Us Season 2 delivers something rare amid the show’s usual landscape of violence and survival: a moment of pure, unfiltered joy. In a lovingly crafted flashback, Joel and Ellie explore a dilapidated natural history museum in Wyoming — a fan-favourite sequence lifted directly from the game. For production designer Don Macaulay, the goal wasn’t just to replicate the visuals, but to evoke the same sense of childlike awe that made the original scene so unforgettable.
Filmed in and around Vancouver, the production began by locating a forest clearing that could convincingly stand in for the American West. Inside the museum, details were everything. From an animatronic dinosaur sturdy enough to carry Ellie, to a solar system built with moving, accurately geared planets, the episode embraced a hands-on approach. A hallway was transformed into a starlit galaxy using black velvet and thousands of fake diamonds from a local dollar shop — a low-cost touch with a dazzling payoff.
The most ambitious set piece, however, was the space capsule. Constructed on a separate stage, the pod required intricate lighting tests, custom-built foam structures, and carefully sourced components to simulate a real launch. For Ellie and Joel, it's an imagined takeoff; for viewers, a symbolic one — a quiet farewell wrapped in stardust and memory.
This episode also marks Pedro Pascal’s final appearance as Joel, lending extra emotional weight to its final shot: two characters suspended in make-believe, bound together by wonder before the world creeps back in. For fans of the game, it’s a beautifully faithful recreation. For everyone else, it’s just good television — heartfelt, handcrafted, and, like the museum itself, filled with traces of something once lost.
