The Last of Us Season 2, episode 6 broke our hearts in myriad ways both overt and subtle.
Spotted by Redditor Unwept_Skate_8829, there's a costume inclusion in the episode's opening scene that includes a deeply important object to the series: Joel's watch. However, it's initially not worn by Joel himself (Pedro Pascal), but by his father, a character we've never met before now.
In episode 6, before the credits, we see a flashback scene to 1983 in Austin, Texas, featuring a young Joel (Andrew Diaz) and Tommy (David Miranda), terrified of their violent, police officer father, Javier (Tony Dalton). There's a tense conversation at the kitchen table between Joel and his dad, in which Joel protectively takes the blame for Tommy's troubles, knowing what harm Javier is likely to inflict upon his younger brother. Unexpectedly, Javier cracks two beers open and speaks to "doing better" than his own abusive father, attempting to excuse his violence toward his sons. And during the scene, he's wearing a very familiar watch.
The watch takes on a new importance for Joel as an adult and, in contrast, a caring, loving father. Having inherited his father's watch, Joel now embodies the type of father he and Tommy deserved as a child. In the very first episode of Season 1, Joel's daughter Sarah (Nico Parker) gets the watch fixed for her dad's birthday — whether Joel wanted Javier's watch fixed is ambiguous. However, on the same day, Sarah is tragically shot during the chaos of the outbreak of the cordyceps pandemic, and the watch is broken during this horrific event. Subsequently, Joel never gets his watch fixed, his smashed timepiece remaining a testament to his daughter.
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In episode 3, after Joel's brutal murder by Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), the watch finds its way to its fitting new owner, Joel's found daughter, Ellie (Bella Ramsey). Back in the settlement of Jackson, a now grown up Tommy (Gabriel Luna) removes Joel's watch as he's cleaning his brother's body for burial. "Give Sarah my love," Tommy says in the scene paying tribute to his late niece. Later, Ellie finds it in a red box on Joel's bed along with his pistol, a moving gift from Tommy to his found niece.
By including this detail in the HBO series, we see Joel's watch has passed through generations of trauma, opposing modes of fatherhood, and variations on what family means. It's a reminder of loss and past trauma for Joel and for Ellie, and a literal representation of time stolen, of future days gone in a world of violence and death.
New episodes of The Last of Us Season 2 premiere on HBO and Max Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.
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