HBO teased The Last of Us‘ return with an ominous promise: “Every path has a price.” The show didn’t waste any time delivering on that pledge in its season two premiere. The bill for Joel’s actions during in Salt Lake City five years ago was placed at the doorstep of Jackson, Wyoming. Abby and her friends have found the man they swore vengeance on in The Last of Us season two. But while we don’t yet know if they’ll get to him on HBO’s series, Joel is clearly already paying a personal price for the path he chose when he “saved” Ellie’s life. The question is whether or not he deserves to.
“I saved her,” Joel tells his therapist, Gail. Gail doesn’t know what that means, but we do. Now it seems Ellie might, as well. The Last of Us‘ second season began with her barely acknowledging Joel’s existence. As our new favorite psychotherapist pointed out, that’s a normal 19-year-old daughter’s behavior. But Ellie isn’t like any other kid. It’s an understatement to merely call her special. She might be humanity’s only salvation, something only Joel and Tommy know.
Does Ellie now know the truth, too, on The Last of Us season two? Did she learn what happened with the Fireflies five years prior? Did she finally discover Joel lied about what took place in the hospital and why? That she was going to trade her life to save the world from Cordyceps?
Whether or not Ellie already knows (or ever will) Joel killed all those Fireflies, and why, doesn’t change the fact he’s clearly struggling to live with what he did anyway. He understood the decision he made for Ellie and the world. He also knows the true reason he made it, too. If Marlene—who was trying to spare a kid the pain of fear in her final moments—had told Ellie the truth, Ellie would have agreed to sacrifice her life. Joel made the opposite choice for her, not because Marlene was wrong, but because he loves that kid. Just as importantly, he needs her. Joel has already lost one daughter and barely survived. He couldn’t live, literally, without Ellie. Ellie is too important to Joel. She gives his life purpose.
But every action, even the most defensible (which Joel’s certainly was not even though he saved a kid’s life), has consequences. Whether Abby gets to him or not, one of his consequences is living with the guilt of knowing he doomed the world for an inherently selfish reason. He can tell himself it wasn’t right that someone was making the ultimate choice for Ellie. He can tell himself there was no guarantee the doctor actually could have made a cure from Ellie’s brain, rendering her sacrifice meaningless. Joel can even tell himself it’s not okay to trade one innocent life for others, not even every other life on the planet. Or that he needed to protect Ellie from herself. He can tell himself all of those things and be totally right, and it doesn’t matter.
That’s what those tears running down his face in Gail’s home were about. Joel saved a child, a wonderful child who means more to him than anything in the world, and the price he is paying for taking that path is the guilt of dooming mankind. The price is the guilt of knowing the person you love most would hate you for what you did. The price of loving your child so much you can’t live without them is potentially not having their love in return.
Is any of that fair to him? Is it fair to Joel, who once saw a soldier kill his daughter, that he has to exist with this kind of pain and responsibility because he saved Ellie’s life?
The most painful answer The Last of Us offers us is the most honest: it doesn’t matter. The bill always comes due for our choices.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
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