HBO’s adaptation of the 2013 game,The Last of Usis led by Joel Miller and his cargo-turned-foster daughter, Ellie. While Ellie is a fourteen-year-old teenager who still has a lot to learn about life and the world, Joel by comparison is a jarred 56-year-old survivor who has endured years of physical as well as mental trauma.
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Joel and Ellie embark on a cross-journey towards the end ofThe Last of Usseason 1, episode 1 “When You’re Lost in the Darkness.” With each day, it becomes increasingly clear that Joel lacks conventional heroic traits and isn’t perfect by any means.
9Leaves A Family Stranded On The Highway
Joel (played by Pedro Pascal), Tommy, and Sarah flee Austin, Texas in search of a safer place on outbreak day. Tommy takes the highway in the hopes of finding a way out, Joel stops him from pulling over to aid a stranded family with a child.
Joel says someone else will come along when he has enough space to fit the family. There’s no denying that he’s a protective parent, but at the same time, his lack of concern is apparent. Both Sarah and Tommy feel bad about not coming to the stranded family’s aid, but Joel displays no remorse whatsoever.
The second half ofThe Last of Uspremiere takes place twenty years after the Cordyceps outbreak. It features a scene where laborers like Joel who work forthe atrocious FEDRAare tasked to burn the dead bodies of the Infected.
Joel is quiet at his job, and when a woman who just cannot bring herself to burn a dead child, asks him to do it, he agrees without protest. This scene establishes that Joel has turned into a hardened man who has had many unpleasant experiences. Burning the dead bodies of children no longer affects him, and he’d much rather get the job done on time.
7Sells Contraband
The second half ofThe Last of Uspremiere also provides an insight into Joel’s post-Cordyceps lifestyle. He lives with Tess, who like him,is a morally grey character. The duo’s smuggling partners are the Lincoln residents, Bill and Frank, seen inThe Last of Usseason 1, episode 3 “Long, Long Time.”
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Later in the series, Joel’s partner-in-crime, Tess tells Ellie that she and Joel “aren’t good people,” hinting heavily at their questionable past.The Last of Uspremiere also shows Joel selling drugs to a FEDRA soldier.
6Lacked Compassion In The Beginning
Joel isn’t really a compassionate person while living in Boston QZ. He’s indifferent to people’s sufferings and all he’s trying to do is secure a car battery to get to his brother, Tommy.
The Last of Usdoesn’t explicitly reveal the nature of Joel’s relationship with Tess. They are partners in crime, look out for one another, and have small moments of intimacy but beyond that, Joel keeps to himself. He has his walls up and his trauma had impacted his relationship with Tess. That said, Joel gradually warms up to Ellie after Tess' death and after reading Bill’s heartfelt letter.
5Agreed To Smuggle Ellie For Gains
In the beginning, the only reason Joel agreed to smuggleEllie (Bella Ramsey)out to the Old State House was because of the gains in the deal. The leader of The Fireflies in Boston QZ, Marlene promised Joel a fueled-up truck, guns, and supplies as payment for dropping off Ellie.
Joel agreed because he thought he had a better chance of making it to Tommy in a repurposed FEDRA vehicle. Moreover, Marlene entrusted Ellie with Joel because, in her words, she knew what Joel and Tess were “capable of.” Joel had quite a reputation among the smugglers and the resistance in Boston QZ. He however had a change of heart once he realized Ellie’s medical importance and started to care more about her than himself.
4Suggested Sneaking Ellie Back Into The QZ
Joel nearly jumped out of his skin when Ellie revealed her bite mark and claimed she was immune to the fugal infection. He was insistent on sneaking Ellie back into the Boston QZ, and it didn’t matter to him that she’d made it through their first night with him.
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When Tess objected saying the FEDRA were going to scan and shoot Ellie, Joel retorted back, saying, “Well, better them than us.” According to him, Ellie didn’t have any life ahead of her, and he was in favor of sneaking her in and having FEDRA kill her.
3Desensitized Person
Joel genuinely believed smuggling Ellie wasn’t going to end well for him and Tess. He was hopeless to the point where he thought that finding a vaccine cure for Cordyceps brain infection was a pipe dream.
Joel had become a hardened survivor, whose desensitization was fueled by witnessingthe devastating death ofhis only child, Sarah. While Joel in the HBO series isn’t nearly as violent, and ruthless as his game version, he by no means is a saint.
2Failed To Congratulate Tommy
InThe Last of Usseason 1, episode 6 “Kin,” Joel found out that Tommy had married a former assistant district attorney named Maria and the couple had a child on the way. His apathy promotedTommy’s iconic response onThe Last of Usand he sternly said, “Just because life stopped for you, doesn’t mean it has to stop for me.”
Joel managed to say lukewarm congratulations the first time only after Ellie nudged him to do so. Due to events of the past, he found it hard to be happy for others, including his own brother.
1Murdered People For Survival
Back in the Boston QZ, Joel, and Tommy murdered people for their survival. This gruesome detail comes up a couple of times in the series, and inThe Last of Usepisode 6, Joel maintains that he killed people to keep himself and his brother alive.
It’s only after Tommy corrects Joel that he begins to introspect about things. Later, he opens up to his brother about his nightmares and enduring the trauma of failing his daughter. Over the years, Joel developed a thick skin and suppressed his vulnerability, and fears as a defense mechanism.
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