The Final of Us is all about huge motion. Disgusting zombie assaults. Failed protecting acts. Profitable ones that value too many lives. However within the season 2 premiere, The Final of Us managed to present us its greatest scene but with the smallest of gestures — and, within the course of, inform us extra about Joel than he ever might.
[Ed. note: This post discusses the scene in question, which is midway through the season 2 premiere.]
The second comes when Joel (Pedro Pascal) goes to speak to Gail (Catherine O’Hara), Jackson’s resident therapist, and somebody who’s decidedly over his bullshit. As they speak, the animosity comes into focus: Gail is a couple of drinks in, sadly feeling her means by means of her first birthday with out her husband of 41 years, after Joel killed him someday between season 1 and season 2. She’s in no temper to be delicate about her emotions or his, and pushes him to be trustworthy together with her.
The scene itself is a superb instance of why you rent actors like O’Hara and Pascal. There’s a historical past communicated right here, even when it’s the primary time we’ve met her. She’s acerbic and curt, a managed skid into feeling, then considering her means by means of her feelings. However she hits her goal: As Joel, Pascal is visibly moved, clearly overwhelmed by the liberty of the messiness of what she feels. It’s one thing he might stand to really feel extra — her mentions of how she “hates” him for “how” he killed Eugene as one thing she will be able to’t forgive appear to bolster his personal picture of himself as already compromised. With Ellie, he desires issues to be easy and clear; he resents how she doesn’t see him “like a great man — which I’m,” however refuses to sit down with the why of all of it.
After which when he stands as much as depart, Gail flinches.
Picture: Liane Hentscher/HBO
Gail’s movement is arguably small, and nothing about Joel’s motion makes it appear to be he intends her any hurt. However in that second, it’s clear that she was scared anyway.
In keeping with co-showrunner Craig Mazin (who wrote the episode), Gail getting startled was all O’Hara’s concept within the second. “Look, he’s a affected person, and there’s the sense that she has some energy over him, as a result of therapists have authority,” Mazin remembers O’Hara telling him once they have been filming. “However when he stands up, she reveals that he’s additionally horrifying to her, that she is aware of what he’s able to.”
Ever since Joel went on his rampage within the hospital, the present has cemented this because the central ethical query of the franchise. Might his violence, his expertise, be justified? Possibly some might. However as Joel is aware of all too effectively (as does anybody who’s ever tried speaking concerning the first sport/season’s ending), it’s not a common sense of justice. The Final of Us’ huge trick as a sport was eradicating the participant company in that scene. The present can’t use the identical trick — so it has to seek out different methods to make Joel (and the viewers) wrestle with it.
It’s clear he already is, attempt as he would possibly to only keep away from the topic altogether. Gail calls him on it, and demonstrates how releasing it’s to only say your shit out loud. And the 2 find yourself reverse of one another: O’Hara communicates all the inner battle Gail feels dissipating by means of a furrowed forehead and enjoyable her kind. Against this, Joel seems to be stricken, tears wavering as he wrestles once more along with his selections and what introduced him there. After which, like a sky abruptly turning darkish, he hardens himself. He says solely that he “saved” Ellie, stands abruptly, and leaves.
Picture: Liane Hentscher/HBO
Nothing about the remainder of the scene is especially a shock; whether or not or not you suppose Joel was proper, we are able to all agree that Joel is harmful. That is the precise motive he was recruited to assist Ellie initially, and the precise factor that saves her on the finish of season 1. It’s one thing he doesn’t wish to admit, however nonetheless accepts about himself, if solely out of the psychological have to not confront how he’s making these selections. However in someplace like Jackson, there’s not a number of locations for that hazard to go, not if all the pieces’s going proper. The individuals of The Final of Us are on the lookout for hope and security — these are not issues that cling to Joel as he expenses ahead.
The present is technically suffering from scenes like this, of Joel or Ellie defining the boundaries of their tribe or their acceptance of violence. What makes this one so sturdy is that it exhibits us the place Joel is on the identical time it exhibits us who he’s to individuals round him, even when he’s additionally the great man who helps with the books and building. When Joel comes into Gail’s home, he’s already indulging himself. He sees Eugene’s sneakers and turns his again to them, as a substitute staring up on the portray of a lone horse rider. He bemoans how Dina treats him like a human being whereas Ellie treats him “like some asshole.” In his thoughts, he’s the wronged get together right here, and the primary character that individuals ought to owe a bit extra courtesy to.
Gail cuts by means of the armor, and lets the present hold its thumb on the size. Joel might be able to persuade himself that he has achieved all the pieces proper as long as Ellie continues to be on the earth and the individuals he considers “his” get to stay proper. However his instincts — for cover, for protection, for brutality — come at a value, and never everybody will agree with them. Some individuals would possibly even worry him. In a story as bleak as The Final of Us (and definitely one as bleak as The Final of Us Half 2), it’s vital to have that counterbalance: Joel could by no means flinch within the face of hazard. However the individuals round him do.
New episodes of The Final of Us air on Sundays on HBO and Max at 6 p.m. PDT/9 p.m. EDT.
