The Last of Us: You Are Not Joel Miller
[Warning: The following post will contain spoilers for the series premiere of HBO's The Last of Us series.]
I have never played The Last of Us.
The only exposure I've ever had to the game was its gameplay reveal during E3 2012 and the opening scene on YouTube. That's it. The rest of my knowledge--that Joel and Ellie are two survivors in a zombie-like apocalypse that sprung from mutated Cordyceps that jumped from ants to humans--comes from cultural osmosis. I didn't know the plot of the game, what the characters were like, or what to expect from HBO's television adaptation of the critically-acclaimed action-adventure experience. I was in the dark, going into the series premiere on Sunday night only knowing what to expect out of the beginning of the episode. What I wasn't expecting was the way things were presented to me.
I have to preface this with something important: The Last of Us Episode 1 is good. Not great, not perfect, but definitely not as bad as I expected from a video game adaptation. If you're looking to scratch a Walking Dead itch, this show seems poised to do just that, with a more adventure-focused twist. The actors are talented, the world is interesting, and while I'm not sold on the story just yet, there's still plenty of time for it to be fleshed out. The Last of Us kept me entertained throughout its 80-minute premiere. It's a solid show, and I'm planning to watch this season right through to the end.
But there was something I noticed. Me, in my literary-focused, film-watching, TV-binging bubble, noticed something about The Last of Us that felt like it belonged in a video game.
I'm not as much of a gamer as I would like to be. So many games tell unique, interesting stories about human perseverance, the morality of doing something good that ultimately harms others, and sometimes just a good ol' fashioned good versus evil scenario. Sometimes, games can just be plain fun, too, like Uncharted or Devil May Cry. But what makes games a unique medium compared to something like a movie or a TV show is that you are in control. The person engaging with the experience decides how the experience plays out. Yes, most games have an end goal, a path you have to follow, and a finale that will be the same cutscene for every player. But how you get there is almost always unique. You project yourself onto the character you're playing as. You aren't just playing as the Doom Slayer in Doom, part of you is the Doom Slayer. When you switch between Dante, Nero, and V in Devil May Cry 5, you are in control of them, defining how they use their signature battle moves. And in The Last of Us game, the player steps into the shoes of Joel Miller, the game's protagonist. You become Joel Miller.
But in The Last of Us TV series, you are not Joel Miller. Joel--played by the ever-engaging and talented Pedro Pascal--is a character in the series. Instead of becoming Joel, TV viewers are now watching Joel. Observing Joel on his first night of panic during the apocalypse. Watching as a twenty-year timeskip shows him scrounging for credits in a militarized quarantine zone in Boston, Massachusetts. We learn about his concern for his brother, Tommy, who hasn't been heard from in three weeks following a run to Wyoming. We see his strained yet positive relationship with Tess, who wants to help him find his lost brother.
But it didn't hit as well as it could have. Because the show was treating Joel like a video game character.
Step into my shoes for a second. You're watching an 80-minute premiere for a new series on HBO, The Last of Us. The majority of the first half of the episode focuses on the day before the zombie-like outbreak and subsequent apocalypse happen. Most of the focus is on Sarah, a young girl living in Texas with her single father, Joel. It's Joel's birthday, so Sarah decides to spend the morning with him. Through a snarky back and forth, we learn that Sarah and her father have a nice relationship with one another, more akin to friends on the same wavelength than parent and child. Sarah is shown to be a compassionate girl too, fixing her father's watch for his birthday and even spending some time at her elderly neighbor's home while Joel works late. Then, when he gets home, the two sit on the couch together and watch a movie Sarah borrowed from her neighbor.
Then: Day Zero. Sarah wakes up. Her dad isn't home, getting her Uncle Tommy out of an overnight stint in jail. The elderly neighbor's dog is at the door, whimpering, begging to be let inside. Curious yet afraid all the same, Sarah heads into her elderly neighbor's house. There, she finds her neighbor, seemingly feeding on the body of her live-in nurse. Except...no. That isn't quite right. Little tendrils are coming out of her mouth. This, you realize, isn't your typical zombie show. Something else is afoot. But there's no time to think about that. Not when the elderly neighbor's neck snaps up, her head cocked at attention, realizing Sarah is there. She's chasing her out of the house, running, catching up. Then, Joel and Tommy pull up, striking her in the head, killing her. Sarah is loaded into the back of the truck, and we watch from her perspective as neighbors come out, only to be tackled to the ground by more zombie-like creatures.
What follows is a tense, panicked drive as Joel and Tommy try and figure out where best to go for safety. A small town? No, too many people. The highway? Cars backed up for miles, those things weaving their way between them. Your heart is racing, just like Sarah's, as the pair of you have no idea what's going on anymore. Outside of chaos, nothing makes sense. Then, an airliner falling out of the sky. An explosion, a crushed car, Sarah's crushed ankle. Tommy is separated, Joel has to carry Sarah, running from the all-too-fast infected chasing after him. Then, he's cornered by a US soldier, who's ordered to kill him and Sarah. Your concern radiates. And then...
Then Sarah gets shot. Tommy arrives just in time to save Joel. It takes over a minute for Sarah to die in Joel's arms.
It's a sad scene. The Last of Us spends nearly 40 minutes of the first episode getting the audience to care about Sarah. And then it kills her off, playing with our emotions. It's all the more shocking when a twenty-year timeskip reveals a grizzled Joel who still can't get over the death of his daughter, a part of him dying with her. I appreciate that we got to know more about Sarah before she died. I'm glad the show was able to tug at my heartstrings the way it did.
But it came at a cost.
Halfway through the first episode, the show changes protagonists. It doesn't matter what my prior expectations were, or that I knew Sarah was going to die the moment she appeared onscreen. The first half of The Last of Us Episode 1 builds up a series with Sarah as the main protagonist. Then she's killed, and the audience is expected to project that pain and loss and grief onto Joel. Because Joel is our hero. He's the guy we'll be following for the rest of the season. Joel is the protagonist we're expected to root for, so it was important for us to understand what kind of generous, comedic soul he lost in his daughter. I think every scene involving Sarah was important, relevant, and overall necessary for The Last of Us to work as a TV series.
But that pre-apocalypse sequence was missing something. It was missing Joel.
The last 40 minutes of The Last of Us introduces the audience to three "perspective" characters. Characters that aren't the protagonist (or, in one case, not a protagonist yet) that get enough screen time for audiences to be expected to care about them. There's Tess, Joel's smuggling partner who may or may not also be his girlfriend. Marlene is the leader of the Fireflies, a rebel group in Boston that commits acts of terror against the strict, militarized FEDRA quarantine zone. And then there's Ellie, a snarky, aggressive young girl held captive by the Fireflies harboring an unknown secret. Each of these characters get some level of development during the last half of the premiere episode. As does Joel.
In those 40 minutes, four characters are juggled together, including the protagonist I'm expected to care for. But because of how thinly-spread everything is--and because the show wastes no time getting its main plot on the road--I don't feel connected to Joel at all. I didn't get a glimpse into his life before the apocalypse. There was very little characterization for him prior to the main plot of the show starting about an hour in. I didn't feel a connection for Joel the way I did for Sarah. Sarah was still in the back of my mind, taunting me with the idea of a girl forced to grow up in an unpredictable, apocalyptic nightmare world. I cared about Sarah more than I did for anyone else the episode showed me. Including Joel.
The Last of Us is not a video game and you are not Joel Miller. But the show insists on treating Joel like a video game protagonist. The show didn't build a relationship between Joel and the audience. It didn't let us into his head until over halfway through the episode. There was no telegraphed way to know, going in 100% blind, that Joel would be the main character of the series. The series expects us, as viewers, to assume it. It expects us to care about Joel because we both lost Sarah, a character we both cared about. But that's not how a TV series works. I shouldn't have to project myself onto Joel because, while watching a television adaptation, I am not Joel. In a video game it makes more sense. There, in the gaming world, I can be Joel. When things happen to Joel, they're also happening to me. But in a televised series, I'm removed from that world. I need to care about the people in that world, otherwise the engagement isn't there.
I don't feel like I know anything about Joel Miller. I feel like I know more about his daughter than him, and that The Last of Us expects me to care about him because I cared about her. Despite appearing throughout the 80-minute premiere and acting as the face of the series, I don't really know much about Joel other than he cares for the people close to him, will do anything for money, and misses his daughter. He's jaded, his grizzled, he's gruff, and I want to know more about him. But I'm a little disappointed that, despite an extended runtime for the first episode, I still don't really care about him. The show expects me to, but it expects me to in a way that works better in a video game. I need more meat. I need more of Joel doing whatever it is Joels do.
But the idea of a more developed Joel is not without hope. We learn more about him when, after a trade deal gone awry, the leader of the Fireflies offers to give him supplies in exchange for smuggling a young girl named Ellie to the Massachusetts State House. At first, it seems like he's annoyed by Ellie, that he doesn't want to be dealing with some kid in exchange for supplies from what amounts to a post-apocalyptic terrorist organization. But then, while sneaking her to the rendezvous point in the dead of night, Joel, Tess, and Ellie are confronted by a guard. Through a series of events, the guard is threatening to shoot Ellie, triggering a flashback for Joel. Twenty years ago, his own daughter was killed by a US soldier in a similar manner. Even though he doesn't truly care that much for Ellie, his instincts take over, and he charges and kills the guard.
This moment is the most powerful in the entire show. And I really hope that kind of thing is here to stay. Joel is a perfect archetype for an interesting main character, and his inevitable father-daughter relationship with Ellie will only further strengthen him as the lead role. This first episode didn't do a great job at getting me to care about Joel. It got stuck in the rut of its source material, anticipating me to project myself onto the main character without a controller in my hands. It didn't work. Not until Joel killed the guard, letting me, the audience member, into his mind without expecting me to mold it. That worked so well. And honestly, I can't wait for more.
I know I'm in the minority when I say The Last of Us stumbled in the last half of its otherwise stellar first episode. But as someone who hasn't played the game, who's going into this adaptation as a series newcomer, I wanted to learn more about Joel. I feel like I didn't get that. I feel like I was expected to treat him like a playable character. Yet the end of the episode proved that the writers and creators of The Last of Us can still introduce me to Joel as the show carries on. And I really can't wait. I want to know more about him. I want to care about him the way I cared about Sarah.
I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.
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