Joel Miller isn’t a particularly good dude. While HBO’s adaptation of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Naughty Dog’s 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us tended to paint him as a softer and more sympathetic figure, he’s still a man who has murdered countless people to keep his loved ones safe, often through needlessly selfish and ruthless means intended to emphasise his fractured past. You aren’t supposed to watch him leave the hospital with Ellie in his arms convinced Joel is the almighty saviour. He walks over piles of innocent corpses representing countless lives he took away only to give h🦩is own meaning. He knows the consequences of his actions, and almost seems content in one day facing them.
He’s also going to die pretty soon. If the second season follows Part 2 with the same level of authenticity, Abby will be caving in his skull with a golf club before the first episode ends. Calling it now - but the screen will fade to black right as the last blow collides, leaving us with the harrowing screams of Bella Ramsey to cement this sudden outpouring of grief. Joel’s time is fleeting, but given our overwhelming love for Pedro Pascal and the public outcry to his death in the game, I fear its thematic impact runs a risk of diluti𓃲on.
Joel is in The Last of Us Part 2 quite a bit, but he also isn’t. His death in the first few hours is the catalyst to a revenge-fuelled odyssey, the man becoming a temperamental shadow that lingers over our⭕ dual heroines and comes to influence how they feel, think, and act in his absence. Their reliance on violence and pushing away loved ones is a stark reflection of Joel’s own vices, teaching us that his way of life is better shunned instead of replicated. Vengean꧅ce isn’t always worth the cost, even more so when innocents are put in the firing line as it whittles you down to nothing but a husk for your own bittersweet ultimatum.
It’s a lost cause in the end. Ellie realises she left a bright future behind because she was so obsessed with avenging a past that she can never get back. Yet it still has value, a worthwhile sentimentality we watch change and wear away over the years throughout Part 2. Flashbacks make this possible, and what I’ve long viewed as an awkward narrative device are woven into the campaign in ways that not only reinforce central themes, but constantly ask the player to reconsider their views on beloved characters, asking whether their actions are justified. It doesn’t matter whether we would have killed hundreds and ✃doomed humanity if we were in Joel’s shoes - the act itself is unforgivable.
But it also makes sense, and I can easily understand why Joel did what he did, and I can hardly condemn him because I’ve never been nor will be in a similar situation. Parents tend to view his plight very differently, while the 🏅empty promise of a cure in exchange forಞ the life of a young girl is a gamble Joel isn’t willing to accept, and the only way to prevent it is to take up arms and fight his way to her. Did he have to kill Abby’s father? Not exactly, but in the spur of the moment, he is just another body standing in his way.
It isn't until the day is done and Ellie is saved that Joel can take stock of what he’s done, and that guilt is written across his ageing face throughout the entire second game. He’s now able to watch Ellie grow up, find herself, and achieve happiness only to have all of that progress reduced to nothing as the truth comes out, and the brittle lies holding it all together come crumbling down. It doesn’t matter that Joel killed all those people or prevented a cure that had the chance of saving humanity. What matters is that it was never his decision to make.
Each flashback is a gradual climb towards that eventual realisation, and how all of these memories made will amount to nothing when the foundation is conjured up of lies. Ellie is raised in a world where adults tell her where to be, what to do, and how to behave, and to have the one man she ever trusted, even came to v💟iew as a parent, tell such a vulnerable lie is an understandable breaking point. The show can’t abandon that message, or deliver more Joel Miller than♏ is justified purely to satiate our need for a different view of the character.
Neil Druckmann and Cr🍰aig Mazin have already said that more time will be needed to tell the second game’s story. The Last of Us Part 2 is a very long game, yet it is also expertly paced with hardly an empty minute within it. Every single combat encounter, emotional cutscene, or poignant flashback serves a purpose. To expand on this masterpiece without proper creative intention is a recipe for disaster. The first season already proves that iteration should be complimentary in its execution. Bill and Frank’s romance is the only exception, and that was siloed off from Joel and Ellie’s journey so extensively since it knew that it wasn’t their story, and should be treated as an isolated experience.
Flashbacks are such a beautifully integral part of The Last of Us Part 2, and it would not be the same without them, but as the television show draws closer to implementing them, I hope that HBO can understand how valuable their restraint can be. Joel’s last moment spent with Ellie is shared in this way, the𒈔 two promising to mend broken bridges and forge a new path forward moments before it’s all snatched away. The last time we ever see Joel alive is paired with Ellie’s own perspective, and HBO can’t ignore the significance of such a moment by piling endless amounts of extra Pascal on top of൲ it.