Sam Zwick

Image courtesy of HBO Max

In the season finale of HBO’s The Last of Us, Joel did a very bad thing. And then he did another. And another. And another. All the way from a hospital in Salt Lake City to the top of a mountain in Wyoming, Joel did one bad thing after the next.

And can you really blame him?

First, the proper disclaimer: none of the actions Joel took in this episode, namely killing dozens of armed and unarmed Fireflies and then lying to Ellie, are actions that can be excused. They were all horrible, some obviously more so than others, but they were the decisions he made.

Since the day they came into each other’s lives, Ellie and Joel have had a clear, singular purpose: get Ellie to a Firefly doctor who could use her immunity to create a cure. In a world ravaged by a zombie-creating parasite, a cure is likely the only thing that can save humanity. And therein lies the issue. When faced with the choice of saving humanity or saving Ellie, Joel’s decision wasn’t surprising. After all, what had humanity ever done for him?

Start with the day the outbreak hit Texas. Everyone’s world imploded. Society began to crumble and those in power did their best to hang onto it. Joel found himself on the wrong end of that dynamic. Instead of being offered a lifeline, a safe haven, he was handed death. Not death at the hands of a monstrous parasite, but death at the hands of a soldier with a gun. Joel needed help and humanity responded by murdering his healthy, infection-free daughter.

Fast forward 20-years and there’s no reason to think Joel’s opinion of people has improved. We know he killed when he felt it was necessary. In a world run by a government that bordered on authoritarian at best, necessary likely came early and often. Joel’s apocalypse kicked off with a life altering event crueler than most and continued as an ant, squished under the thumb of oppression.

Stripped of any real purpose outside of survival, his inability to protect Sarah became the defining moment of Joel’s life right up until he was informed that in order to save humanity, Ellie had to die.

Joel doesn’t have a lot of connections. With Sarah and Tess gone and Tommy beginning a new life of his own, Joel is a man on an an island. His only connection, the one person who makes him feel like a human, is Ellie. And the minute he woke up in that hospital, Joel realized that the only person he had left was laying under anesthesia a few floors away, her brain about to be donated to a humanity that didn’t deserve such a sacrifice.

Was he selfish? Without a doubt. As we’re often reminded, Joel is not a young man and, in a time when getting a decent meal is a chore, the average life expectancy isn’t going up. Joel’s last two decades were nothing but misery stacked on misery with mostly people to blame. The potential for happiness was simply too tempting an offer to ignore.

Yes, Joel did a lot of very bad things. And yes, he may have further doomed the human race through his actions. He was given two options: save all of humanity or save his own humanity. In the face of that dilemma, would your choice have been so different?