Joel and Ellie’s journey continues and everything is left for them to come to an end. Yes indeed, ‘Family’sixth episode of the first season of ‘The Last of Us’, has been mostly a small stop to definitively settle the relationship between the two in the face of the final stretch of the series.
Watch out for spoilers from here
From the first moment it was clear that Joel was reluctant to strengthen ties with Ellie because of the pain he still carries over the death of his daughter, to which had to be added later the loss of Tess. The character played by Peter Pascal he has always been broken inside and has seen himself as the protector, but until now it seemed much more important to him to rescue his brother Tommy from a danger that has ended up being non-existent.
The fall of Joel’s wall
‘Family’ has been the episode that works like a hinge so that Ellie becomes Joel’s great concern once and for all and that the latter completely abandons his resistance to getting involved with her. The curious thing is that it has also been the chapter that has made Joel’s fragility clear to us, from that small blackout after the curious encounter – a very successful balance between the tension of the moment and an ever-present lightness – with the couple isolated from society since many years of the post-apocalypse.
Already then it is noticeable that the rapprochement between the two is more evident, both for the detail that Joel accepts that Ellie try alcohol and for the intimate moment in which both talk about how they would like their life to be. The wall that he has built begins to crack, but the reunion with Tommy puts everything back on square one.
It was clear that the reunion between brothers was going to be an emotional moment, but ‘The Last of Us’ It is not a happy series and it never will be.. From Joel’s mistrust to sharing information with anyone but Tommy – if he even initially lies to his own brother about who Ellie is – to the certainty that something is wrong with Pascal’s character, which reminds us of through that woman whom he comes to confuse with his daughter.
Something is wrong with Joel and ‘Family’ does not take long to make it clear to us that it is a mixture of feeling the inevitable decline associated with growing old, but also that Ellie has ended up taking the place of her dead daughter and does not want history to repeat itself. . Hence, she does everything in her power – being then when her emotional collapse takes place in a more explicit way – so that Tommy is the one who is in charge of taking her to her destiny. The best option from a practical point of view, but too emotionally heavy for everyone. For Ellie for feeling abandoned, for Tommy for being in serious danger when his wife is pregnant and for Joel for everything she means to him emotionally.
In the end, ‘Family’ serves to establish definitively that Ellie and Joel cannot be separated. This symbolic relationship between father and daughter thus reaches a point of no return that leaves us with a moment of peculiar tenderness with the shooting lesson, but, as I pointed out before, here happiness does not go beyond specific moments before returning to the harsh reality.
Joel’s confrontation with a stranger after seeing that there is no one at the destination – although it quickly becomes clear where they have to go next – is another blow that could be final. It seems quite clear that it will not be like that, but it does not mean that it is going a step further with Joel’s growing fragility which had already been affected throughout the episode.
To be fair, Joel and Ellie could have faced an extreme situation like the one posed by the end of the episode without the previous reunion with Tommy, but then the relationship between the two protagonists of ‘The Last of Us’ would not have been the same. For better or for worse, everything that happens from here on will affect both of you more strongly.because the infected and other people will always be a danger, but the pain will always be greater when you care more about the person who is suffering it.
Yes indeed, zero surprises if many see all this as a filler episodeBecause if the only thing that matters to you is the plot and not all the ramifications of what is happening, ‘Family’ may not be for you. A separate issue is that it is an essential glue for the whole story to work better emotionally…
In Espinof: What to see if you like ‘The Last of Us’: 3 post-apocalyptic series available in streaming with as much emotional force as the video game adaptation