
The Last of Us season 2 has made a few structural changes from the video game, and one of these involves the show's use of flashbacks.
In episode 6, there are six flashbacks involving Joel: the first one takes us all the way back to 1983 when a teenage Joel is having a heavy conversation with his father, before we jump forward to Ellie's 15th birthday, followed by her 16th birthday, her 19th birthday, and, finally, the aftermath of the New Year's Eve party from the first episode of season 2.