‘The Last Of Us’ Moment Between ‘Baby Girl’ Ellie And Her New Dad Joel Really Tugged At Fans’ Heartstrings

The Last of Us just delivered another devastating episode with a callback to the game that has left fans begging for HBO to start paying their therapy bills.

The show’s penultimate episode, “When We Are In Need,” was full of cults, cannibalism, and Pedro Pascal torturing bad guys. Still, it was the final few minutes that really broke audiences and had viewers scrambling on Twitter.

For most of the hour-long installment, Ellie (Bella Ramsey) has been trying to care for and protect a still-bedridden Joel as he recovers from his stab wound. She encounters David, the leader of a nearby cult while out hunting, and that meeting sets off a chain of events that ends with Ellie nearly becoming the group’s next meal and a miraculously-healed Joel rushing to rescue her. But before he can, Ellie hatches her own escape plan, one that ends with a fiery face-off, an attempted sexual assault, and a gruesome death for David courtesy of Ellie and her handy meat cleaver.

It’s a dramatic rollercoaster that already had fans feeling a bit fragile but then Pedro Pascal had to go and utter the words “baby girl,” turning audiences everywhere into sobbing slushpiles of unresolved daddy issues.

No really, this is what emotional terrorism looks like.

The scene hit viewers particularly hard because it marks the first time since the death of Joel’s daughter, Sarah, that the stoic smuggler has embraced the role of fatherhood again. He’s been acting as a pseudo-guardian for Ellie since the pair left Boston, and they’ve bonded over their shared traumatic experiences while on the road, but Joel hasn’t really shown any affection or love for the girl until now.

And the internet is having a tough time handling it.

We only have one episode of The Last of Us left (for this first season), so please make an appointment with your therapist now, people.