This week’s episode of The Last of Us had a lot of drama to unpack and take in, but one of the most significant details in the flashback-heavy episode is pretty easy to miss. I’ve watched the episode multiple times and didn’t catch it until I saw people mentioning it online, and it explains one of the seemingly arbitrary divergences the show takes from the original games. I’m talking about Joel’s iconic broken watch, and how it apparently belonged to someone else before him.
In the Last of Us games, Joel’s broken watch is a gift from his daughter Sarah, who saved up to buy it for his birthday in 2013. Hours after she gives it to him, the timepiece is broken as the two try to escape their home in Austin, Texas, as the cordyceps outbreak begins. Even so, he wears it decades later as a tribute to his late daughter, right up until his own death at the hands of Abby.
The handling of Sarah’s birthday gift in the story’s pre-outbreak prologue is slightly altered in the Last of Us show in a way that felt like an unnecessary embellishment when it premiered in 2023, but now seems like an intentional set-up on the parts of showrunner Craig Mazin and series director Neil Druckmann for a detail that’s just revealed itself. In the pilot, Sarah doesn’t go buy Joel a new watch for his birthday; she pays to have one he already owns fixed. But where did he get this watch? Why is it so important to him that he keeps it despite it being broken? Well, now we know, thanks to season two’s sixth episode, “The Price.”
The opening scene of the episode is a flashback to 1983 and a moment in the life of a young Joel, played by Andrew Diaz. He has a brief confrontation with his father, Javier (Tony Dalton), a cop who has abused Joel and his brother Tommy in the past. Javier tells him that the abuse he endured from his father, Joel’s grandfather, was far more extreme than any he inflicts on his own sons, and he says that while he may go too far at times, at least he’s doing better than his old man. He hopes that Joel will in turn do better than him whenever he has a kid of his own, and as he leaves, he puts his hand on his son’s shoulder. Oh, wait, what is that on his wrist? Is that Joel’s watch? It certainly looks like it.
I’m not thrilled by this revelation, for the same reasons I wasn’t thrilled that the show added an abusive cop father to Joel’s backstory, but at least it contextualizes a small change from the games that seemed particularly odd and unnecessary two years ago. Now we know why Joel already had an old, broken watch this time around, and we know it’s a symbol of generational trauma rather than just a memento of Sarah. At the very least, I’ll give the show props for not beating viewers over the head with this connection. HBO’s take on Joel and Ellie’s story loves to spell things out in excruciating detail, so I’m surprised it didn’t give us a whole interaction in which Joel’s dad took the watch off his arm and handed it to him. Little details go a long way. You don’t always have to tell the audience everything.
The Last of Us has one episode left this season, but it won’t be wrapping up the story of The Last of Us Part II, as HBO plans to stretch the game’s story across multiple seasons.