Spoilers through the end of “The Path.” Season 2, Episode 3 aired April 27, 2025, and makes its central move a pause: Jackson has to absorb Joel’s death and the infected attack before Ellie and Dina set out for Seattle. That slower aftermath gives the revenge story emotional and communal stakes, even as it risks feeling like a delay after the previous episode’s shock.
What happens in “The Path”?
The episode opens with Joel’s body and Tommy preparing him for burial. Three months later, Ellie has physically recovered, but she downplays her grief when she talks with Gail. By herself with Joel’s belongings, she can no longer keep that composure.
Dina tells Ellie she recognized members of Abby’s group and connects a patch on their backpack to the Washington Liberation Front (WLF), a Seattle faction. Tommy advises Ellie to take the matter to Jackson’s town council. She asks the council to send a 16-person team after Abby. The proposal is rejected 8–3; Ellie leaves for Seattle anyway, with Dina beside her and a more workable plan and supplies.
On the way, the episode introduces the Seraphites, a religious group fleeing conflict. Near Seattle, Ellie and Dina find members of that group dead. The closing reveal of a large, heavily equipped WLF force makes clear that the pursuit will lead into a conflict bigger than Ellie’s personal hunt.
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Does the pause after Joel’s death work?
“The Path” is an aftermath episode, not a Joel-centered one. Its action is in the gap between Ellie’s outward insistence that she can move on and the private grief that breaks through when she is alone. The three-month jump also makes recovery visible without suggesting that a healed body means a healed person.
Critic Matt Goldberg argues that the episode lets Ellie, Tommy, Dina, and Jackson live with both Joel’s death and the infected attack rather than rushing into another action set piece. He singles out Bella Ramsey’s restrained performance: Ellie’s expressions and silences convey a change that dialogue alone might flatten. That restraint suits an episode about grief that Ellie cannot easily name.
Rank #2
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The trade-off is pace. After the previous episode’s shock, a story that spends time on aftermath may feel like a letdown or a postponement of the season’s forward movement. The council scene sharpens that risk: its debate about revenge and justice has less practical force because Ellie has already decided to go. Goldberg finds the scene potentially hollow for that reason. Its emotional point, though, is not simply whether Jackson can stop her. Joel had been Ellie’s tether to the community; without him, the vote also measures how far adrift she feels.
Why does Ellie go to Seattle?
Dina’s information gives Ellie a lead: Abby’s group is connected to the WLF in Seattle. Tommy asks Ellie to bring her proposal to the council, where the town must consider the risks to Jackson as a whole. Ellie frames the pursuit as justice for Jackson, but the council’s rejection shows that personal grief and communal safety do not automatically point toward the same decision.
Rank #3
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The vote matters even though it does not change Ellie’s plan. Jackson’s deliberation represents one way a community tries to balance individual demands against collective risk. Ellie and Dina’s departure, by contrast, makes the revenge mission a choice the two of them will carry without Jackson’s endorsement.
What do the Seraphites and WLF add?
The Seraphites and the WLF widen the story from a private pursuit into a landscape of competing groups. The Seraphites appear first as people fleeing conflict; the discovery of their dead near Seattle gives that conflict an immediate human cost. The WLF’s scale and equipment, revealed at the end, suggest an organized force rather than a simple trail to Abby.
Rank #4
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Goldberg reads the groups as contrasting communities, extending the episode’s interest in belonging and the individual’s place within a larger collective. That is an interpretation, not a definitive explanation of either faction. On screen, their introduction is enough to complicate the idea that reaching Seattle will make Ellie’s search straightforward.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How was episode 3 received?
Rotten Tomatoes’ episode page showed a 96% Tomatometer based on 24 reviews when accessed October 8, 2026. The site’s consensus called the episode “a healing reprieve” that illuminates a new journey for Ellie and Dina. That is a dated, changeable snapshot of critics’ reviews, not a permanent measure of quality.
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The favorable aggregate does not erase a real split over the episode’s tempo. Film Stories’ Maria Lattila called it a letdown, while other listed critics described it as a needed breather or said they remained invested. That disagreement fits the episode’s defining choice: it gives grief room to register, but viewers looking for immediate momentum may find the pause costly.
Verdict
“The Path” earns its slower pace when it treats grief as something Ellie carries into a community’s argument about justice, not merely as fuel for the next chase. Ramsey’s restrained performance and the council’s refusal give the departure emotional weight; the new factions make Seattle feel like a larger and less predictable setting. The episode’s weakness is the same deliberate pause that gives it purpose: after a major shock, it may feel more like a bridge than a fresh surge of momentum.
