Throughout a current episode of “The Final of Us Podcast,” showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann sat down with host Troy Baker, who supplied the voice for Joel within the authentic online game collection, to speak about how the harrowing finish of episode 5 impressed the progress of episode 6.

“A variety of our conversations about this episode have been like, ‘What’s the influence on Joel from the expertise of Henry and Sam?’ And also you get to see a few of that as they exit the cabin, and he seizes his chest,” Craig Mazin mentioned. The chest ache is the results of Joel experiencing a panic assault, a terrifying ailment that he is unfamiliar with feeling. “Panic assaults really feel very very similar to coronary heart assaults. It is your physique telling you, ‘You are in horrible hazard,’ however you do not perceive but, why,” Mazin mentioned. Joel has endured unfathomable tragedies, like the lack of his daughter Sarah within the first episode, however after watching what occurred with Henry and Sam, it seems that Joel has lastly hit his restrict.

“And a lot of what this episode is about, is Joel coming to phrases with how terrified he’s, abruptly, that [Ellie is] going to die, and it will be his fault,” mentioned Mazin. “And in the event you’ve been paying consideration alongside the way in which, what you will notice is, for as many instances as Joel has helped her, he is additionally failed her. And people are the issues that he dwells on.”