void daydream

See, Joel’s confession about the unrelenting fear he has of losing ellie is the PERFECT set up for how absolutely animalistic and deadly he will become in that hospital to save Ellie

It is so funny that when Ellie and Joel are alone together everything is calm and peaceful. They keep each other company. Make each other laugh. Protect each other. Then the second they come into contact with any other people they act like two feral raccoons who just found a trashcan.

ellie’s FACE when joel and tommy reunited and joel SMILED as they hugged just breaks me because you just know she’s thinking about how now that he had tommy he wouldn’t want her around anymore…because she was just cargo and not family and he was fighting for family…and then him reinforcing that thought during the you’re not my daughter fight…sick to my stomach…

joel confessing to tommy that he feels like a failure is going to make the torture scene SO MUCH WORSE. joel said that he just stood there. so many times. and was frozen. but this time, when he wakes up and she’s not there, he’ll leap into action. he’s gonna do whatever it takes to get her back because he can’t afford to fail her again. it’s going to be BRUTAL.

Pro tip: if you’re not in a functional medical environment, don’t take out the stabbing device that is actively keeping your blood inside you

Joel Miller, mr. i sure as hell ain’t your dad but literally next day i can’t stop smiling at any silly thing you do or say and oh, how about I tell you about myself even though i said it was prohibited, like my real dream is to be a singer and also, i was a contractor, wait… do you think that’s cool, so that makes me cool? well, let me take pride on that and of course you can lay your head on my back while… what? yeah, while i can’t still stop smiling bc you think i’m cool and also, bc this little father-daughter relationship, i can’t admit we have, is expanding every single time we share a moment bc we seem to have found home in each other

I love how there are parts of Joels confessions where the lines between whether hes talking about Sarah or Ellie are blurred because thats exactly where Joel is right now "when i wake up i just know ive lost something"and "all i ever do it fail her", is he talking about Sarah or Ellie? Its both and its yes and its no and its neither and its everything because joel is conssumed with grief of his past and fear for his future and theyre both about a father helpless to protect his child

going radio dark on your brother  and causing them to worry so much they drag their ass across an entire country during a zombie apocalypse to preform a welfare check is extreme younger sibling behaviour 

a moment of silence for everyone that’s going to google ‘does joel die in the last of us’ after watching this episode. my sincerest apologies & it was nice knowing you 

tommy could have found a way to radio to joel know he was alive, but he didn’t. when joel calls himself the “wrong type of people”, tommy doesn’t argue him. maria goes out of her way to have a conversation with ellie about trusting the wrong people. because the joel tommy knew “stopped living” the day it all started (and sarah died) and someone else emerged. someone that tommy didn’t think would walk across the country for him. someone who tommy wasn’t sure would make the right choice anymore. but the joel that showed up on their doorstep wasn’t that same man they were so worried about. that hardened version of joel stopped existing somewhere between boston and wyoming. 

i fully believe they made joel’s character less brutal in the show just so the hospital scene could have a better and bigger impact in terms of showing how far is joel willing to go to protect and save what he loves the most.