I’ve done a lot of therapy in my life, which has turned me into the insufferable sort of person who hears that somebody’s going through a tough time and asks if they’ve tried talking to a professional about it. While a lot of things can’t be solved with therapy – you can’t talk your way out of being stuck in a cycle of poverty or the world actively tearing itself apart, for example – I still believe most people could benefit from it.
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Joel Will Be Going To Therapy In Season Two
If there’s anyone who could benefit from a little talk therapy, it’s Joel from The Last of Us. While the game never delves into the utility of therapy in a world full of danger and death, HBO’s adaptation of the game reworks a cut scene from the first season of the show where Joel meets with a therapist in the Boston QZ for the upcoming second season. Catherine O’Hara plays Joel’s therapist in Jackson, Wyoming.
Showrunner Craig Mazin recently told GamesRadar+, “Wouldn’t everyone need a therapist? If you’ve made it through, you have lost family members, you’ve watched the world fall apart, you are under terrible stress. There are monsters. Yeah, therapy would be an incredibly valuable thing.”
A lot of people, including our own Andrew King, balked at the idea of Joel ever going to therapy, because the way he’s portrayed in the games, he wouldn’t want to wrestle with the implications of the decision (I’m intentionally leaving this vague for spoiler reasons) he’s made.
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It’s Not As Out Of Character As It Seems
I don’t necessarily agree, though I will say that I had the same knee-jerk reaction – this violent smuggler, in therapy? Surely not. But the groundwork for Joel turning to mental healthcare was laid in season one when we saw him having a panic attack. We also see anti-anxiety medication in Joel’s house in the prologue of The Last of Us, indicating that he has, historically, at least been open to seeking some sort of help in the past.
It might be hard to imagine Joel spilling his guts to a therapist, but it’s a lot easier to imagine him begrudgingly seeing a therapist and refusing to open up. Mazin’s spoke to this in the interview: “There’s also a chance for us to watch Joel talk about himself in a way that he rarely does, but also to lie. The interesting thing about therapy is not everybody walks in there and tells the truth. I think therapists know that better than anyone. So what does he choose to say? What, how does he define his problem?”
A lot of people lie in therapy – to their therapists, yes, but also to themselves. I’ve never intentionally told a lie to my therapist, but I’ve certainly lied to myself about the causes of my problems and the patterns I was choosing to overlook in favour of blaming the bad things in my life on external stressors. Recognising where and how I resisted reality was a big part of me growing to understand myself as a person. You have to find those cognitive distortions in order to fix them.
Joel has a very major one – that decision he made on Ellie’s behalf. We see it in the trailer, when he seemingly insists to his therapist that he saved her. As TheGamer’s own Jade King wrote, having him tell a therapist this instead of his brother could reframe the conversation as a search for redemption instead of a confession of a horrible secret.
But even if it doesn’t, this addition still has value. It could show us what Joel is willing to confront, what tortures him, and what he’s unable to accept. Whatever it does, it’ll give us an insight into Joel that we couldn’t get from the game, and I can’t wait to see what that looks like.
The Last of Us
- First Episode Air Date
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January 15, 2023
- Cast
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Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey
- Where to watch
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HBO Max