‘The Last of Us’: Why Joel Was Wrong

The following post contains SPOILERS for The Last of Us. You guys already know all this stuff, though, right? The game is pretty old at this point.

At the start of the fungal pandemic in The Last of Us, Joel lost his daughter, and as a result, lost his humanity. Over the course of The Last of Us game and HBO show, we steadily watch Joel regain his humanity through his relationship with Ellie. But then once Joel reconnects with his emotions and becomes surrogate father to Ellie, he makes a shocking and morally ambiguous choice: He chooses to kill a slew of people and rescue Ellie from the Fireflies instead of letting him kill her, in order to use her brain to create a cure for the Cordyceps infection that has destroyed the world.

Now there plenty of reasons why you can argue why Joel was right to do this, including the fact that it’s not entirely clear that the Fireflies really can use Ellie’s brain to make a cure. But that doesn’t change the fact that, at least in our minds, Joel was wrong. And in our latest The Last of Us video, we lay out all the reasons for our argument. Check it out below:

READ MORE: The Last of Us Reveals Why Ellie Is Immune

If you liked that video on why Joel was wrong in The Last of Us finale (sorry Joel), check out more of our videos below, including our breakdown of all the Easter eggs in The Last of Us season finale, all the Easter eggs in The Last of Us Episode 8, and all of the Easter eggs in The Last of Us Episode 7. (Love those Easter eggs.) Plus, there’s tons more videos over at ScreenCrush’s YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe to catch all our future episodes. The full season of The Last of Us is now available on HBO Max.