The following story contains minor spoilers for The Last of Us season 2, episode 6, “The Price.”
THERE HAVE BEEN two very clear themes running through The Last Of Us season 2. The first is obvious: The never-ending nature of the cycle of revenge. The show does a good job of depicting just how easy of a trap this is to fall into; Joel (Pedro Pascal), Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), are all eaten up by an act of violence that incites them to commit their own act of violence, potentially inciting someone else and so on and so forth.
But one of the themes that’s been present from the very start of The Last of Us is the idea of wanting to do—and be—better. The idea of incremental self-improvement in the face of extenuating circumstances is something that this show has had in its DNA from the very start, from the idea of Joel even taking Ellie in in the first place all the way through to Ellie forgiving Seth after his hateful remarks in the season premiere.
In the opening of season 2, episode 6, “The Price,” we learn that the idea of incremental self-improvement has been a through line and driving force of his life since his childhood through a flashback depicting him and his father, Javier Miller (Tony Dalton). In the scene, we find a young Joel seemingly being chewed out by his father for starting a fight to stand up for Tommy after the two were ripped off buying pot. But in actuality, Javier uses this moment to level with a young Joel, giving him a beer (which he’s definitely too young to be drinking) and telling him the truth about his own father. Javier has been violent and abusive to Joel and Tommy, but, Javier says, his dad was way worse, and way more violent. Through tears, Javier expresses guilt, but makes clear that he does feel he was never as bad as his own father. And in a similar cycle, he hopes that Joel, when he has his own kids, can be better than he was too.
The idea of these cycles continuing is hard to ignore in The Last of Us. If you somehow weren’t picking up on the themes, though, the rest of “The Price” slams them right in your face. The episode shows the relationship between Joel and Ellie in the five years we missed in Jackson, Wyoming, and while their relationship eventually becomes strained and troubled to a degree, there’s no doubt that Joel (both with Ellie and his late biological daughter Sarah) did do a better job than Javier did. He’s warm, loving, and while he can be stubborn, he also learns from his mistakes. In a way, the episode is frustrating because it’s a reminder that while Joel certainly did deserve the consequences of his actions in murdering the fireflies, he was still someone who was capable of loving and caring the important people in his life, and he mattered a great deal to them as well.
In the final flashback scene of the episode, Joel comes clear to Ellie about what happened with the Fireflies. Ellie had suspected for a while, but had no doubt after she saw Joel lie about the execution of an infected Eugene (Joe Pantoliano) to Gail (Catherine O’Hara) in the same way that he lied to her about the Fireflies. Ellie is furious with Joel, but willing to try to forgive him, after he came clean. Joel is filled with guilt at what he did, and Pascal’s acting in this moment—which will likely be his final in the series—is brilliant. And at this point, he delivers the same sentiment to Ellie that his father once did to him: I fucked up, yes. Now’s your turn to someday do better.
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Tony Dalton plays Javier Miller in The Last of Us season 2
If Joel’s father in The Last of Us looked familiar, well, you probably watch a lot of TV. Good TV, too! Javier Miller is played by Tony Dalton—which is a fairly brilliant bit of casting, since he and Pedro Pascal do bear a resemblance to one another, and look like they could be cousins or siblings. And, as you can probably tell in the episode’s opening scene, both have the charisma to really sell a scene.
Dalton started his career appearing in Mexican film and television productions, but in the last decade has started to make his way more and more into mainstream American projects. Perhaps the earliest and most notable was a smaller role in three episodes of Sense 8, Netflix’s trippy drama produced by Lana and Lily Wachowski of The Matrix fame. Earlier this year, he played Jack Duquesne—also known as Swordsman—in the MCU’s Daredevil: Born Again, reprising a role he first played in 2021’s Hawkeye.
But without question his most famous role to date is playing the villainous Lalo Salamanca in seasons 4, 5, and 6 of Better Call Saul. Dalton’s performance in the hit series was much heralded by critics and fans alike. “It is almost unreasonable how good a character Lalo is,” Brian Grubb wrote in a (spoiler-filled!) recap of an episode for Uproxx. “To pull this off after five seasons of this show and the full run of Breaking Bad, to just up and introduce someone this charming and evil and perfect, is basically showing off.”
Playing a charming, magnetic villain as one of his first roles—before diving into parts in the MCU and, now, The Last of Us—proves that Tony Dalton is capable of just about anything on the screen, and we’re eager to see when and where he shows up next.
Evan is the culture editor for Men’s Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE. He loves weird movies, watches too much TV, and listens to music more often than he doesn’t.
