Even before his dad comes home, Joel knows he’s about to get the belt. But if you caught your preteen brother trying to buy drugs, what would you have done? Walk by and pretend nothing happened? Joel did what he thought was right using the only tool he knew: violence.
Several punches, one alarm siren, and an embarrassing drive home later, Tommy is scared shitless. But Joel says he’ll cover for him. Their dad, a policeman himself, sees through Joel’s story, of course. But on one point, Joel stays adamant: “You’re not gonna hurt him!”
For some reason, this time, instead of whipping his sons’ backs, Javier Miller chooses a different path. He grabs two beers from the fridge, hands one to his oldest, and begins: “Did I ever tell you about that time I stole a candy bar? I was ten.”
Javier’s father, a stern man in his own right, found out. He made him give back the candy bar, of course, and apologize to the cashier. But he also did something else upon their return home: “Just before I got out of the car, man, he just…he broke my jaw. There was blood everywhere. Grandma thought I was dead. My mouth was wired shut for two months. Everybody knew why.”
Joel is unsure how to react. On the one hand, he finally understands his dad a little better. On the other, if he knows how painful and humiliating parental bruise marks are, why the hell would he beat his own kids?
“Okay, yeah, I’ve hit you,” Javier continues. “And I’ve hit Tommy. But never like that. Not even close.” And then, with tears in his eyes, Javier finally tells his son the real reason: “I mean, maybe I go too far, I…I don’t know. But I’m doing a little better than my father did. And you know, when it’s your turn…I hope you do a little better than me.”
The Last of Us is a show about many things. It’s about apocalypses and zombies and survival. It deals with species, choices, and the behavior of crowds. But perhaps first and foremost, it’s a show about parenting. And how most of that is just trying to do better.
It’s not that Javier wanted to hit his kids. It’s that he couldn’t stop the pattern passed down to him from his father. And although he will repeat it in a totally different, much nobler context, Joel, too, will one day struggle against his genetic memory. And when he finally has that conversation with his daughter, he will also fail to fully get through to her—but not before relaying the message that counts: “If that day should come, if you should ever have one of your own, well, then I hope you do a little better than me.”
